#93: SaaS Sales Coach Shares How to Improve Your Demo Close Rate – Matt Wolach
EPISODE SUMMARY
As a bootstrapped software founder, navigating the SaaS sales landscape can be daunting. The journey from idea to revenue often involves overcoming numerous challenges without the cushion of substantial external funding. However, by focusing on practical sales strategies and honing your software sales process, you can build a sustainable and profitable business. In this episode of the Practical Founders Podcast by Greg Head, I was a guest and we explored key insights and actionable tips for software founders, derived from the wisdom of seasoned experts and successful founders. Read more to learn.
PODCAST-AT-A-GLANCE
Podcast: Practical Founders Podcast by Greg Head
Episode: Episode No. 93: SaaS Sales Coach Shares How to Improve Your Demo Close Rate – Matt Wolach
Guest: Matt Wolach, a B2B SaaS Sales Coach, Entrepreneur, and Investor
Host: Greg Head, founder of Gregslist and Scaling Point
TOP TIPS FROM THIS EPISODE
Mastering the Demo: The Perfect DEAL Process
The demo is a pivotal moment in the software sales journey. It can make or break a deal. As a sales expert, I emphasize the importance of a well-structured demo. I developed a process called The Perfect DEAL Process, which stands for Discovery, Educate, Associate, and Lead:
- Discovery: Understand the prospect’s pain points and challenges. This phase involves asking probing questions to uncover the depth of their problems. The goal is to make them realize that their situation is worse than they initially thought.
- Educate: Provide insights and information that the prospect may not be aware of. This could involve market trends, best practices, or specific issues related to their industry. The aim is to position yourself as an expert who understands their problems deeply.
- Associate: Connect their pain points with your product’s features and benefits. Show them how your solution can specifically address their challenges and improve their situation.
- Lead: Guide the prospect towards the next steps. This involves addressing any objections they might have and creating a sense of urgency. The goal is to get them emotionally invested in solving their problem with your solution.
Emotional Engagement: The Key to a Successful Software Demo
A successful software demo goes beyond showcasing product features. It’s about creating an emotional connection with the prospect. When prospects realize the severity of their problems and see a clear path to resolution, they are more likely to take action. Some of my clients have reported prospects becoming emotional, even crying, during demos. This level of engagement signifies a deep connection with the problem and a strong desire for a solution.
Follow-Up: Persistence Pays Off
A well-executed demo is just the beginning. The follow-up process is equally critical. Studies and real-world experiences have shown that persistence in follow-up significantly increases close rates. One of my clients discovered that by averaging 14 follow-up touchpoints per demo, they doubled their sales compared to those who averaged only two follow-ups.
The follow-up process should be systematic and consistent. Use your CRM to create tasks and reminders for follow-up actions. Personalize your follow-ups by referencing specific pain points and solutions discussed during the demo. The goal is to remind the prospect of the urgency and importance of solving their problem with your solution.
Building Trust: Help, Don’t Sell
Modern sales is about problem-solving and building relationships. The old-school approach of hard selling and trickery is outdated and ineffective. Instead, focus on helping your prospects. Understand their needs, offer valuable insights, and position your product as a solution to their problems. This approach not only builds trust but also sets you apart from competitors who might still be using high-pressure tactics.
I also emphasized the importance of a mindset shift. Think about the prospect’s outcome rather than your own. If your product genuinely solves a problem and provides value, it’s your duty to help them realize this. This mindset makes follow-up less about being pushy and more about being helpful.
Differentiation in a Crowded Market
In today’s market, buyers experience software fatigue. They are inundated with messages and offers from various vendors, making it difficult to stand out. To combat this, you must differentiate your product from the competition from the very first interaction.
- Clear Value Proposition: Clearly articulate how your product solves specific problems better than others. Highlight unique features and benefits that directly address the prospect’s pain points.
- Personalization: Tailor your messaging and demos to each prospect’s unique situation. This requires thorough research and understanding of their business and challenges.
- Emotional Connection: As discussed earlier, create an emotional connection by making prospects realize the severity of their problems and the potential benefits of your solution.
Automation vs. Personalization in Follow-Up
The extent to which you automate your follow-up process depends on your product’s price point and target market. Automation can be effective for initial follow-ups for lower-priced products. However, personalized follow-ups are crucial for higher-priced solutions.
- Automation: Use automated emails and reminders to ensure no follow-up opportunity is missed. These can include general updates, educational content, and reminders of the benefits of your solution.
- Personalization: For higher-value deals, mix automated touchpoints with personalized emails, calls, and even video messages. Personal touches show prospects that you care about their specific needs and are committed to helping them.
Tracking and Improving Your Ssoftware Sales Process
To know if your sales strategies are working, track your performance meticulously. Key metrics to monitor include:
- Close Rate: The percentage of demos that convert to sales.
- Follow-Up Touchpoints: The number of follow-ups per prospect and their impact on conversion rates.
- Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): The cost of acquiring a new customer.
- Lifetime Value (LTV): The total revenue a customer expects over their relationship with your company.
Use tools like spreadsheets or CRM dashboards to track these metrics. Review and analyze your data regularly to identify areas for improvement. I offer a SaaS scorecard tool to help founders track their sales performance and set benchmarks. Check it out here.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
The Reality of Bootstrapped Founding
Contrary to the myth that institutional funding arrives early for most software founders, many start their journeys without significant outside investment. While some do secure seed funding or even a Series A round, the majority are bootstrapped, relying on their resourcefulness and determination to drive growth.
Bootstrapped founders face unique challenges. They must build a solid sales engine to prove their product’s value and attract potential investors down the line. This often means generating leads, closing deals, and establishing repeatable software sales processes without the luxury of a hefty budget. However, this approach has its advantages. By proving their ability to generate revenue and manage efficient operations, bootstrapped founders can attract investment on better terms, retaining more equity and control over their companies.
The Importance of a Strong Software Sales Process
A robust software sales process is crucial for bootstrapped founders. It not only drives revenue but also demonstrates the business’s viability and scalability to potential investors. The first step in creating a strong sales process is mastering the demo.
The Role of the Founder in Software Sales
In the early stages, founders often lead the sales efforts. This hands-on involvement is crucial as it allows them to understand the market, refine the sales process, and build relationships with early customers. Founders who succeed in software sales often credit it as one of the most important skills they developed.
As the company grows, the founder’s role may shift from direct sales to sales leadership. This involves training and mentoring sales teams, refining processes, and ensuring the company’s sales strategy aligns with its overall vision.
Conclusion: Embrace the Sales Journey
Software sales is an essential skill for bootstrapped founders. By mastering the demo, building a robust follow-up process, focusing on helping rather than selling, and differentiating your product, you can drive growth and build a sustainable business. Embrace the journey, track your progress, and continually refine your approach. Remember, your goal is to solve problems and provide value, and in doing so, you will create loyal customers and a successful company.
By focusing on practical, actionable strategies and maintaining a customer-centric mindset, bootstrapped founders can navigate sales challenges and achieve remarkable success.
TOP QUOTES
Matt Wolach
[03:50] “A successful demo goes beyond showcasing product features. It’s about creating an emotional connection with the prospect.”
[09:35] “Modern sales is about problem-solving and building relationships. The old-school approach of hard selling and trickery is outdated and ineffective.”
[14:00] “Think about the prospect’s outcome rather than your own. If your product genuinely solves a problem and provides value, it’s your duty to help them realize this.”
LEARN MORE
For more about how Matt Wolach helps software companies achieve maximum growth, visit https://mattwolach.com.
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Check out the whole episode transcript here:
Greg Head 00:06
Hey everybody. Welcome to the Practical Founders podcast where every week we hear an amazing story from a serious founder who built a valuable software company and did it without big funding. I’m your host, Greg Head. This week my guest is Matt Wolach, an experienced SaaS sales coach for b2b SaaS founders who realized they got a product that works and customers that get value and even leads that they’re talking to, but they’re not closing enough of them whether they have a demo, and all the before and after sales processes there. The founders started out figuring out before they hire salespeople. Matt works with founders. This is an expert session where we dig into the biggest challenges and opportunities for practical founders who are just getting started and building their sales engine foundations. Lots of great advice, lots of great tips for b2b SaaS founders. And we’re live with Matt Wolach b2b sales coach extraordinaire, and the host of the scale your SAS podcast worked with hundreds of b2b SaaS founders in their teams to improve their close rates. This is that early stage crazy game where you’re figuring things out and where revenue equals funding and sometimes even profits in the early days so the faster you can learn to close, the better Welcome to the practical founders podcast. Matt, great to see you again. Yeah, great
Matt Wolach 01:31
to see you. Great. Thanks for having me. All the stuff. Yeah, we
Greg Head 01:34
go back from 15 years ago, I guess in Phoenix when we first met, I was helping out Heidi and Brad at the founders of web pt. And you were running sales and doing all the demos for this fast growing startup. In Phoenix, a practical founder kind of startup doing all the sales yourself. Yeah,
Matt Wolach 01:52
that was quite a fun time. And it was one of those things where we didn’t really know what we were doing but we were doing it hard and super glad that you came in to help us and show us the right way.
Greg Head 02:01
We all you guys also had the flywheel. Going in the early days of SAS, and you were very responsible for that you had a systematic highly capable process for selling physical therapy offices on the web PT which was documentation software and then the whole physical therapy software system for their entire office. He spent a bunch of years How long did you spend with web PT is it grew into a massive company
Matt Wolach 02:29
10 years, and it was quite a ride. To your right. It grew to a massive company from three of us when we got started to well over 300 Or so I can’t remember exactly how many we had. And just seeing those differences, seeing kind of the evolution of the different phases that we went through from totally bootstrap to having no money at all to being extremely profitable and one of the hottest companies out there. And it’s quite a journey and we’ve had a lot of fun
Greg Head 02:58
and so you were doing sales in the beginning and then you’re running sales as it is a group. How many? How many customers did you close yourself during the demo? I mean, you were the demo machine there for a long time. How many customers did you personally sell this weapon to grew? So fast? I
Matt Wolach 03:18
did calculate this, but it’s been several years. So I forgot, but I think it was somewhere around 2000 Different companies. or more. I can’t remember exactly. That I closed myself. Yeah, yeah. So
Greg Head 03:29
you’ve been on the front lines. You’ve been doing it. And you’ve been running teams and helping other people do it and that wasn’t your only experience. What else have you been doing over the years match before you started? Your Sales coaching business for b2b SaaS founders.
Matt Wolach 03:42
So after web PT started a new company, that company was in a different market with a different target, different team and it was in the real estate industry and that was a fun ride. Use the same sales process that I had back in with T and that was gonna prove that it works when he took quite a long time to grow and build this one. It took two years before we were able to exit. And so how to right there. And then after that, I said, you know, I had a couple of people who had come to me and said, Hey, we see what you’ve done. It seems like what you’re doing is working in multiple industries, multiple different companies. What did you do tell us and so they were friends. And I would just say yeah, here’s what I did just do this, and it would work for them. And they were like, Hey, that was amazing. Thank you. I said, Hey, this is maybe something I could just do is just share these ideas with people. That’s kind of how I became a coach.
Greg Head 04:29
And so how long have you been coaching you know that you get hundreds of companies that you’ve had over
Matt Wolach 04:34
four years now. So it’s funny started two weeks before COVID And then all sudden COVID hit but it was maybe a blessing in disguise because now everybody’s on Zoom and all they can do is zoom and they had to figure out how to solve problems and ask questions and get good help and assistance. And there was so I have clients in 52 Different countries 270 some different companies and
Greg Head 05:00
all b2b SaaS what is the zone that you help the most? And you’re focused on your coaching. So
Matt Wolach 05:08
basically from launch, and a lot of people say, Well, hey, we’re about a year away. I’m not going to be a lot of good helpful. Yes, I can give you some insights as to how to develop your understanding of your target market and your ICP, but really my best help will come when you are about a month from launching and you’re about to get there because I don’t want to give you too much information and you have all these other things to do and you forget it so for about a month to launch until maybe 234 million somewhere in there is where I can really help when you really start growing that sales team when you really start trying to figure out okay, I’ve been selling as a founder How do I get someone else to do just as well as I did, and that’s where I can kind of show you a process. It’s scalable and repeatable so you can close deals and anybody else coming in can also close deals just as well. I
Greg Head 05:52
talked to founders all the time, and we were just talking about it in my peer groups this week. Plenty people are saying actually three founders say I have enough leads that are qualified enough. And I have a product that works. We’ve been doing this a few years. We have hundreds of customers. I’m not closing enough. It’s our demo. It’s how we talk about our customers success and onboarding. It’s our price. It’s our CRM, it’s ours something right and they’re struggling in between. And in all cases, I’d said that’s a great problem to have. It’s totally fixable, you could drastically improve your close rate and then your growth rate takes off, you get more profitable. It’s customer funding for practical startups. It’s also a complex problem without some simple answers here. So we’re gonna dig in as an expert. Guest man, I’m gonna pick your brain about what’s what you’re seeing out there. And does it make a difference if an early stage company that you focus on has outside funding has funded it themselves as big VC funding? Does the flavor change? Or is it still the same problem?
Matt Wolach 06:58
It’s still the same problem. Companies with funding whether it’s seed series A B, whatever, they’re still facing the same types of challenges of hey, we have this lead this person in front of us who’s at least expressed some interest How come they’re not signing up? If they said, Hey, I’m thinking about this and I have this problem. Why aren’t they actually purchasing and so many times it becomes a very difficult problem that the founder or the sales leader thinks about because they start thinking it was the product is it the price in our process? Is it the person I put in charge to do this? And there’s so many different variables of what it could be then it becomes very difficult as a leader to decide, Well, should we fix this? Should we change this and you end up kind of tweaking everything? I equate it to a golf swing, I’m a golfer and when things don’t go well, I like Well, should I should I build this I changed my hands here. Should I shift my shoulders it’s like you try and fix everything and nothing’s really working. It’s really frustrating.
Greg Head 07:50
Would you say? There’s a framework that works for all b2b b2b SaaS, whether it’s their first customer or their 100th customer or whether they’re selling it for 300 bucks a month, or 30,000? You know, a month is there a core framework that works for everybody and small amount of independent customization are where the center is,
Matt Wolach 08:13
it’s your world. Yes, it’s something I developed while we’re there, but really refined as I as I went into my other roles. It was a process for closing that really started to tell it to work. Once we started doing these things. It was like holy cow, it’s, it’s really resonating with the buyer. They’re getting emotional, which you want promotion if they’re gonna be emotional about their problems. And we’re starting to see crazy close rates. By doing these things. And so the sales process really started to have a weapon to my next company simply Oh, we really took off with it. And it’s, it’s, it’s pretty crazy. Now my clients are using it and employing it. Like I mentioned all around the world, in fact, to the tune of 65 clients who’s worked with me privately but also 2000, something bought my course just to implement it themselves. So lots of companies started doing this and the results have been amazing. One of my clients just a couple weeks ago, Robbie said that they went from an 18% close rate to 67% close rate once they implemented this thing. So when you’re closing two out of three of your demos, and they’re selling 2030 $40,000 products, that’s pretty cool.
Greg Head 09:22
Yeah, who needs outside funding if you can fix your clothes, right and all that work you’ve done on product and marketing and everything else, you can finally take advantage of. So that close rate it’s not just close demos, its lead on the hook to a closer, you know, how do you start to get in the range of Do I have a problem and where is it? There’s no magic number for demo close rate that works for everybody or is there
Matt Wolach 09:51
so there’s there’s not really a magic number that works for everybody for a demo, close rate, but we do look at a minimum. If you’re below 20% on your close rate. It’s gonna be really tough to scale. You know, it’s going to be very difficult to really start getting some traction to get exponential, because it’s just your numbers are going to be a little upside down. So we look to be at least 20% If you’re under that we got to fix something, then we want to really start getting to growth numbers 30 33% And then even 50%, one of my clients Paul from the UK was at 26%. We actually updated his discovery, we can talk about that. He took off he’s at 87%. So obviously when they’re closing almost nine out of 10, that’s ridiculous. But up above 20% is the absolute minimum where you got to be
Greg Head 10:38
and some of that is qualifying the ones who really aren’t going to buy out of this process anyway, good before sales and some of its improving what you say and how you engage with people in the sales process, the demo the qualifications, the diagnosis of their problems and analyzing the buying process and so forth. What is the starting point for you when they have enough leads? Where do you start?
Matt Wolach 11:02
Yeah, that’s a good question. Well, I like to identify it’s kind of like you need to do a diagnosis and I’m sure you do the same thing. Greg, you’re when you’re helping them. Identify and talk with them about Tell me about your buyer journey. What are you doing, what are the steps what’s happening? And just from them explaining, here’s what we do here and then we do this, we take them to this. I’m usually able to identify 234 red flags from that process that are already know what the problems are likely to be, and the solutions that need to happen in order to fix those problems. And so it’s really kind of a straightforward diagnosis to understand where the issues are, but a lot of the issues come in that stage that you talked about a, hey, we’ve done a lot of work to generate some good leads. We put a lot of money and effort into it. Yeah. And now we’ve got these opportunities and we don’t want to lose them. It’s really frustrating. I can tell you, a lot of people come to me they say hey, I feel like I’m doing something right on my demo because they say this was nice, but then they never sign up. They ghost me. I follow up with them. They never get back to me. Why aren’t they signing up? This is an amazing product. How come nobody is getting emotional about using it and getting started and it’s seriously one of the most frustrating things I can feel the frustration when I talk with people who are looking into my services. Solving that is also one of the biggest reliefs because it’s one of those things where like, we’ve done all this work on the product, we’ve got an excellent product, we’ve got great marketing that’s getting people excited. If we can’t figure this out, all of that work is for naught and we’re not ever going to get to our goals. So once people do understand we’ve put the right process in we’re getting people in most we’re getting quick closes. It’s like ah, we can do this now we can make it happen. And yes, of course there’s elation that you’re going to get to an amazing valuation or get to your goals. But really, it’s more relief that we’re we’re not going to have to fail. We’re not going to have to be that that also ran that nobody’s ever heard of or
Greg Head 12:59
have to run out of money because you did all this great work, but you couldn’t turn it into revenue, right? Customer funding, as well. How do you work with people to somebody say I’ve got this problem and then you personally do the diagnosis and work with them in a kind of a zoom coaching session with other tools or and this is all at Matt Wolach.com ma TT wolach.com
Matt Wolach 13:26
You got it not Wolach.com And it explains it because
Greg Head 13:29
people are saying I got a problem. Do I hire a consultant? Do I hire a fractional VP of sales? Do I read more books? How do I solve this problem? How do you solve this? Great
Matt Wolach 13:39
question. Well, I one thing I did was I look back to when I was getting started as as an early stage leader. What would I have? Been helped with? What would I What could I have used? It would have been really great. It’s funny when we started our company back in the mid 2000s. There were no SAS experts back then there was like everybody was just starting it. There was nobody who had been through the grind and knew what to do already. So there was nobody we could really turn to fortunate. We had people like you who had some some marketing expertise to help us out. But yeah, how do I work? We call it the three C’s model. So we have a three C’s model where basically I said, What would I have wanted? Well, I would have wanted to know what the process was. I would have wanted to know all the different pieces to it. And what words to say what not to say what type of emails to write, how to hire, who to hire, where to hire all those things. I just need to know that knowledge. And so I came up with my core curriculum, which is a step by step of exactly how to do each piece of your growth journey and make sure that you understand all the different intricacies all the way from high level strategies down to exactly Hey, this word will kill your deal. If you say this, you’re going to lose the deal. If you say this, it’s going to accelerate your deal and more likely to close. And so from tiny details to big strategies. That’s the core curriculum. So a step by step guide with process maps and tutorials and sequences and templates. Everything you might need for your sales process. Boom, plug it in, you’re ready to go. That’s the one C is the core. The second one is the community. I said I would have loved to have learned from other salespeople, other leaders, other founders from around the world who are also doing this. Maybe they’re just ahead of me and I could learn what what they’ve been doing. And so I created that community. It’s a community of software founders and leaders from all over the place. They’re all b2b. And basically, we do roundtables once a week we get together we share what’s going on, right? What’s going wrong. What can we fix, people can voice their their challenges other people say, here’s how we solved that exact same thing three months ago, go ahead, just do that. And it’s really an amazing dynamic. People come out of this with all sorts of ideas and an action item and what they can do to improve their company so they’re ready to take over the world. We also have what we call demolitions which are mo breakdowns. We do these once a month where one of our members submits their recorded demo to us a real live demo. We watch it with everybody and everybody’s watching them do their thing and it’s definitely nerve wracking. Having your peers from around the world watching you demo, trust me, but everybody lines up for this because you get amazing feedback on exactly what to change what’s right, what’s wrong, how to how to tweak so that we can get stuff to be incredible. For example, one of my guys Mike did this. He was at 19% close right? He was frustrated that he was below 20%. And once he went through this process, implemented some structure and went through the demolition where we gave him feedback on how to make his demo impactful. He got his close rate to 71%. He went from 19 to 71%. In fact, he’s not even doing the sales anymore. He has a team of people doing that and averaging 71% now so so we’ve got the core we’ve got the community and the last piece is the coaching. So yes, you do get me you work with me privately. I help you one on one on things to make sure that you can get to your goals and our founders have found out that that three C’s model of kind of all the different pieces first of all is a lot cheaper than hiring a consultant hiring a fractional it’s going to be cheaper than that. But even better is you get the leveling up so much quicker. So you can start taking off and then get to the point where you can really start hiring and scaling your team.
Greg Head 17:18
So in the early stages before you’re hiring salespeople, and sales leaders and consultants, its founder led sales, the founder, Pat knows the problem, owns the business, designed the software to some extent themselves. They’re the industry expert, and some of them know how to sell and some of them are tech founders who don’t. Are you really focused on founder sales in the beginning the getting to a million b2b SaaS revenue game? I
Matt Wolach 17:47
absolutely think it’s key for a founder to sell for a lot of reasons. So one, you mentioned those tech founders to tech founders often think, Well, the thing and I’m a tech person with no sales background, I’m just gonna hire somebody to do it right. And you also have to do have some background in sales, but they say well, I have background sales, but I have other things to do and I’m taking care of all this for the business. Let me hire someone to take care of that piece seems natural. The problem lies that if you bring in somebody even with great sales, background and great understanding of the sales process it’s going to be really hard for them to succeed. It’s going to be really hard for them to do anything because they don’t know the history of the company. They don’t know where the products been. They don’t know the market well enough that it’s gonna be really tough for them skill. They’re kind of floating on their own much better as a process where the founder develops that sales process. The founder has the experience of it, but it’s gonna be more than just, you know, for the sales aspect. The founder will have these conversations with the potential buyers, they’re going to learn more about what they’re looking for. It’ll help them develop their ICP even further. It also helped them with the product they’ll know Okay, based on all these conversations, that I know that for products, we should be doing this, you can actually develop your marketing out. You can do so many things that help your company as a whole. If the founder is involved with that process. And a lot of people tell me Well, I’m so technical. I don’t think I’ll be good. You can do it. Sales and closing in particular is actually very technical. We think that we just have to smile and be really smooth with how we talk. That’s absolutely not the case. I am definitely an introvert and people look at me in the way I talk and how energetic I am. They’re like no way you’re an introvert, like absolutely I am. I do not want to go to a big cocktail party and I’d rather have a little gathering have dinner with for six or eight people. And so you can do it. If you have a technical quote unquote brain engineer brain. One of my clients are dumb. This guy I love this guy. He’s an immigrant from Russia with a Russian accent and an engineer. And he goes, Man, there’s no way I’m never gonna be able to close anything knowing me Russian immigrant with a Russian accent and an engineer. I said, No, it’s just it’s simply a lot. And if you understand the formula, it just works like magic and engineers know formulas and process and they love it. So once I taught it to him and he Forex his revenue in four months, he literally quadrupled his company really quickly because he understood the process and started closing everything he can see. And it’s pretty amazing. When that happens. It just the lightbulb goes off so tech, sometimes the technical people who think they can’t get it, they’re the ones who are the most successful. And the other thing with this is yes, if we hire somebody to come in and do it, we don’t know if they’re doing the right thing or not. And if we’re not a salesperson, we think well they are salesperson, that must be the right thing doesn’t sound right, but maybe that’s right. And all sudden they fail and we realized that wasn’t right but then we just wasted all kinds of time and money on it. Instead, let’s go through the process ourselves. Let’s get to that understanding of exactly how the buyer journey should go exactly how each stage of the process should be. And then when we bring somebody else in we know if they’re doing it right or wrong, and we can give them the roadmap but we haven’t good understanding of hey, I’ve done this I’ve seen what happens. We have to make sure we do it this way. And so for a founder, we’ve got to sell, we’ve got to have that experience first, and then we can turn it over and get someone else to do it and take off. That’s really, really critical. And I’m glad you brought that up.
Greg Head 21:15
And so you’re focused on founders in there and most of them are practical. They’re not VC funded founders. There’s a little bit of a myth that institutional funding big funding shows up so early for founders with an idea and a product go for sales, they actually have to get the sales engine going to prove their something hot. So whether they’re thinking about funding someday or not, most of the founders you’re working with don’t have big outside funding.
Matt Wolach 21:42
Totally. Yeah, there are some who’ve gotten seed of course, and even series A but most of them are bootstrapped. And I feel like there’s kind of a an awakening there that people are realizing that that’s a great way to go. You’re absolutely right. If you can, to a point where you’re starting to get good sales and you have a strong process and it’s repeatable, you’re generating great leads, you’re closing those deals routinely. That is something that’s really attractive to investors. And what that means is your cost of money is going to go down. You’re not going to have to give up nearly as much as your company of your right in the end. It’s going to be a lot better for you to long run if you can show you’ve got that Greg’s told you how to do this and that you’ve got the process in place. It makes it so much easier to not only get the money but also keep more of your company.
Greg Head 22:25
Yeah, and if you can triple your close rate you can fund your growth through revenues, typically. And it’s a great way to do it. If you can’t fix your sales problem. You don’t have a valuable company, whether you have funding or not in the future. So let’s start here. What are the biggest common challenges and mistakes you’re seeing out there?
Matt Wolach 22:47
I think it all starts with the demo. So in the demo, which, you know, I had Chad Stewart, who’s a software buyer, one of the most foremost software buyers to lose basically big companies. They don’t want to go buy software because it’s a long process for them. They just hire him and he goes out and buys software for him. So he’s doing demos himself. All the time. It’s so I had him on my podcast and said hey, tell me what’s when you’re a buyer what is really important for you so the demos the number one most important part once you start talking with somebody, that demo is got to be great to make or break. And so I really took a lot away from them. I had anecdotally thought that but to hear that from an expert, who’s the buyer was great. Now, in the demo, I realized that too back when we were developing when Petey and I realized we’ve got to make this awesome and so I had to come up with a process and over the years have refined that process and really made it something very formulaic, but we call it the perfect deal process d a l and that acronym d a l stands for something and stands for D is discovery. D is educate Native associate and L is lead. We have to do each of these things in our process. In order to make sure that the buyer feels enough emotion to say yes, I’ve got to have this and if you do this, right, the buyer can go from Hey, I just want to talk with you just check out what you’ve got. See what your product can do. That’s pretty much how they enter the conversation. But they should leave the conversation saying Holy Cow I had no idea where it’s so much trouble. And man, I love your product. I’ve got to have it. How can we get started? And that might sound like I’m exaggerating that too much. But if you do this right, it can go really really well. I have had clients tell me that they had a prospect cry on the phone with them. Once they implement these tactics. The prospect has cried both from how bad their current situation is that they had no idea which that’s really sad, but also how excited they are that they’ve now finally found an answer to help them and it’s so cool when you have enough control of your process to get to this point. It’s it’s really pretty powerful. You
Greg Head 24:59
define that bar is emotionally excited about the solution enough to continue moving and take action. Yeah,
Matt Wolach 25:06
they definitely need to be excited about your solution, but the only way they can be excited about the solution. Is if they are really emotional about their own problem. And so one of the biggest things we teach in the discovery phase is how can we get them to realize that their problem is worse than they even thought? And it likely is a lot of times people don’t understand where they are in relation to the rest of the market, or how bad their situation is. Sometimes they think oh yeah, that’s how we’re handling it. But that’s probably the way it should be. until an expert like someone who is that seller who talks to people in that role all day every day has a good feel for the market as a whole until that person helps open their eyes to realize hey, you’re behind, and you’re doing stuff that you don’t have to be doing. You’re wasting a lot of time you’re wasting a lot of effort, money, whatever you you don’t have to do doing this. And there are techniques that we use that our members are able to employ a lot of people who are listening to show we’ve gone through my process and the techniques they’re shouting them out right now say that’s a that’s a one is once called twist the knife. But basically what we’re doing is getting the buyer to realize that their problem is worse than they thought. So they come in thinking yeah, I just got this thing want to take care of and they leave saying well, I have no idea we’re in so much trouble. We have to move now. And it’s it’s one of those things where the product almost becomes secondary, like how we think so much like our product has to be amazing as the brain yes, you’re selling a pain, you’re selling results. And so I have an analogy that a lot of my clients like to laugh at me because I have all these analogies. One of the analogies is your buyer they’re walking through a desert, all of a sudden, it just becomes so hot, there’s no water anywhere and they become dehydrated, parched. Now they’re crawling, and it’s looking rough. They’ve got some major challenges. They’ve got to figure this out quickly because they’re in the middle of the desert and it’s really hot, it’s gonna be bad. And then all of a sudden, if somebody came up, rode up on a horse and said, Oh, hey, you look pretty bad. I’ve got some water do you want some water? Now? Is that person gonna say Wait, hold on. Is this filtered water? Is this mountain spring water because that’s all I drink mountain spring water? No, no, they’re gonna say yes, give me the water. I want that now I need it. And that’s exactly what we can do with our sales process. We can get them to realize that their problem is really bad. And they’re gonna die if you don’t fix it. And oh, by the way, I have this water. I have this product that solves this problem. Everybody uses it loves it. Do you want that? Yes. Great. And so we’ve seen our clients take their actual showing of the product as part of their presentation from 3040 minutes to five to 10 minutes, because now it’s more about the problems that the buyer has. Great. We’ve got a product. Let me tell you about Steve. Let me tell you about Jedi they both use it. They love it. Here’s their experience. Let’s go and it becomes so much more kind of straightforward in terms of you can we know how to solve it, let’s do business. And it’s pretty amazing how well it works.
Greg Head 28:05
Well and experienced salespeople, and in business owners know that selling is an honorable profession is problem solving and helping and using your intelligence, not just the standard stuff that could be on the website and click through. It’s using your intelligence to diagnose and solve problems and confirm a problem and connect your solution to it. There’s a mechanics to it. It’s not just all in art. It’s random. Or, you know, playing a sales game and being tricky. That’s really not what we’re talking about here. In b2b sales. It’s about problem solving, and building enough of a relationship that you can have that conversation and use your expertise to solve something which is a relief to a lot of technical salespeople. They think it’s the art of you know, glad handing or something like that. It’s really a problem or helping process.
Matt Wolach 29:00
You’re absolutely right. It’s so funny, and it’s not really funny. It’s true sales has a bad reputation, right? I have lots of people who are like, they come to me like I need to learn how to sell even though I hate sales, and I hate salespeople. I’m like guy, I understand that. There’s that sentiment because like you said, there’s a history of salespeople trying to trick people into everybody’s got their what I call sales wall up the purple wall, don’t you’re not gonna sell me today, it’s not gonna happen. And so a lot of what we work on is how to get that wall across town, how to make sure that the buyer feels like they can open up and that this person is really there to help. And if you go to the top, my Twitter, there’s a big banner that says help don’t sell. So I’m glad that you brought that up great and we need to focus on how we can help. One of the things I work on with my clients is if you’re thinking during the interaction of oh, I need this revenue, we’ve got to have this buyer. We have to close them we have to get them. No, no, that’s not the right mindset. We need to be thinking about how can I help them? What do they need? How can they how can they prove what can I offer that’s going to get them exactly to their goals? And if we start thinking in that mindset, I know it sounds weird and a lot of people like oh yeah, I do that. Check yourself just go back and next time you’re having a conversation with a prospect that is a good giant, awesome prospect for you just get a feel of are you thinking about your outcome of this or their outcome of this conversation? Are we thinking about what we’re going to get out of this or what they are going to get out of this? And there’s a there’s an old term in sales coaching called commission breath. And if you’re thinking about yourself and what you’re gonna get out of it, they’re gonna smell your commission breath, and that you’re thinking of your money that you’re gonna make from this instead of thinking about their results and helping them it’s really really amazing. Give me an idea. I do the sales on it. So something like bigger clients hire VF basically mystery shop their sales team and basically I call in as if I’m a real prospect and I talk to the salespeople, and I also deal with their competitors. So I can give them a sense of what the competition saying versus what’s your rep saying. And in one interaction. I had their own reps, say oh, yeah, I’ll sell you anything you want to buy, which is not very personalized, and not very helpful, because that’s not the expert telling me what’s best for me. That’s just them wanting to make a buck off. Whereas the other rep the competition guy, he said, Well, hold on I’m not even sure if you’re right for this product. I want to make sure that this is even the right thing for you. In fact, let me send you a YouTube video you might get help just from that you might not even need to buy anything. And if that doesn’t help you enough, and let’s talk the difference of hearing those conversations basically side by side was unbelievable, because who are we going to trust? I mean, that buyer is going to trust the person that just wants to help them that just wants them to overcome the problem. And even though they’re sending me somewhere else, and it makes it sound like they’re not going to sell that person is going to sell a lot more than the one who’s just trying to make them buck. With commission press. So it’s pretty, pretty astounding. How help don’t sell is a great mindset to have while you’re talking with
Greg Head 32:13
a prospect. Let’s talk about what’s happening in b2b SaaS, buying these days, we’re out of the COVID pay day if we need infinite technology and the budget checkbook is open. Now everybody’s more disciplined about it. And a lot of folks don’t want to talk to salespeople. They want to try it first. And they’re choosing fewer solutions. They’re slimming down. They’re more sensitive about price and they’re more experienced about how hard it is to implement new software and so forth. What are you seeing out there that can reflect on what founders should be thinking about as they try to sell their way to a million in revenue solve enough
Matt Wolach 32:55
problems are exactly right. It’s there’s there’s a lot going on out there against the summer. And in fact, there’s a thing that you know, I’ve heard called Software fatigue. And the buyers have so many different reps and messages and posts about this new tool that they have to have and this other thing that can do this and we have a stack that’s already 20 You know, even smaller, one and two and 10 person businesses have stacks of 10 to 20 different tools that they’re already using. And so software fatigue is a thing even myself, somebody who coaches about software, and has my own software coaches, others who use software, I get software fatigue of people telling me tools I have to use. And so what that means is we have to be the ones to rise above that we have to figure out how can we differentiate all the way from the beginning of them understanding what we can do from the marketing from the initial awareness, all the way through the entire journey. We have to make sure that we’re separating or differentiating from the hurt from all these other tools, and getting people to understand that this is the thing that’s going to get past these challenges. We have to make sure that they prioritize correctly that they prioritize the problem we can solve. Instead of Oh, I I agree that this is a thing but we’ve got three other fish to fry. We’ve got all these other fires to put out. I’ll get to in six months or a year and getting them emotional about that problem getting them to realize how bad it is helps them understand they need to prioritize it instead of put it on the backburner and wait till later. So it’s really really important that we differentiate separate and get the buyer to prioritize this problem.
Greg Head 34:46
So we talked about the start with the demo. The key Crux point, where do you go from there once you say we can start to improve our demo? Do you look at leads and lead qualification before that or do you go to pricing and you know the handoff process to customer success or actually where to go after
Matt Wolach 35:07
I liked the post demo process actually, because and this is this is interesting. I did one of these audits there were three reps. All the reps scored on the audit within a few points of each other in terms of 100 point scale, they were all really close in terms of their demo. But one rep outsold the other two reps by double. One rep was twice as as as good at closing. And before they even told me I knew why and I said I said I bet they follow up a lot more. And that was the truth. That rep average 14 Follow up touch points where the other ones average two for a demo lead prospect. Yes, exactly. They ever support and to touch points post demo. So after you’ve had the demo, Hey, how’s things going? Whatever follow up. They were much much more persistent. And consistent than the other was double the amount of sales, which is pretty amazing, even though they were all about the same, their demo. And so this is one of the things that a lot of people don’t fully understand. I think that’s really what you and I do is help people understand the importance of each piece that we’re trying to teach. And this is one of those things where, oh yeah, I’ve heard falling ups. Good. I’ll call him every so often and see what happens. Now we need to process let’s make sure we set up a process have something in your CRM that has specific step by steps with emails, tasks, whatever you need to do laid out so you don’t forget it. It’s not something that my when I think about them, I’ll do it. No, you have it ready to go diagrammed out organized and rockin. Because following up is one of the most critical things and I tell people keep going, don’t stop. So many times. I had one of my clients tell me hey, I don’t I want to be a gentleman. Okay, so that’s another mindset we need to shift. You’re not bugging them. Right? We if we think about our product, so good. If our product is so good, that they’re going to be better off from using it, that their company is going to improve and not only their company, if their company improves by using it. That means that company can serve as other customers and they can improve. And so if our product is that good to do that, then they should have our product. They’re better off with our product and it’s our obligation to get them into the product. It’s our obligation in fact they’re so lucky that we’re there to help them into the product so that they can do this great thing, save this time, save this money, add extra people, whatever it is. So we’re we’re there helping them do that. And so we have that mindset. We’re not bugging them. We’re not getting in their way. We’re not hassling them by following up. We’re reminding them of how they’re going to improve or reminding them of where they need to be. And if we can do those things successfully, then they’re going to realize it, they’re going to close they’re going to be better off they’re going to help their customers even more. So it’s it’s that shift that once we make that change that works so this client of mine John said I want to be a gentleman I helped him through this mind shift set ship helped him through figuring out a follow up process. And he tripled his closes from doing that from following up and he actually said holy cow that I called them nine teen times the previous 18 times they never got back to me. I would have stopped long before that. If you didn’t tell me on the 91 they answered and they closed and it’s amazing.
Greg Head 38:34
Well, let’s talk about this is that cannot be automated this marketing automation. semi custom or drip emails and text and all this AI driven stuff or does the personalized follow up from the person about their specific problem in that relationship? Is you lean one way or another or is a mix it up? For follow up?
Matt Wolach 38:57
The answer is it depends. So this is one that really does depend on your price point on your LTV to CAC ratio on stuff okay, and the lower end if your first of all I say for demos us to kind of before like some people are self serve, you go and you just buy it. I usually say about 100 bucks a month is where below that self serve is a good way to go. Product lead growth. I love that. Like let’s let’s take it to the extreme way above that 1000 bucks a month not too many people are clicking around the web, buying 1000 bucks a month products just without talking. They’re gonna want to talk to somebody. So in that in that range above 100 Once you start having these conversations with people, now that now that we get to that point where hey, I’ve got a lot of these I’m doing one of my clients does five demos a day, which is quite a lot. And you do need to automate some of that. And it’s totally okay at the lower end of the spectrum to have that as an automation. I would want to mix in still some calls. I would want to mix in even one of the things that I love is a personalized video. Send a quick 10 to 15 second Hey Greg, so excited about doing but also I I’m sorry to hear about some of those challenges you’re facing. Can’t wait to talk about the next piece of getting that privatization happened 10 to 15 seconds. Done deal. Nobody’s doing that you’ll separate from the rest of the competition. But as you get up and up market, it’s more and more important to be personalized. If you’re only doing one demo a week. One demo a day. You’re telling you’re selling $50,000 products $100,000 products, I would not automate that it’s going to be a very personalized follow up and should be. And so what you can do is automate the creation of the tasks. So in your CRM, instead of having an automatic email go out at the task go to you that says send an email about this and that way you can personalize it put something that’s specific to that prospect.
Greg Head 40:51
So this is still in the founder lead sales game. They’re solving problems. They’re seeing the structure of this conversation. They’re starting to follow up. How does the founder know that their improves just as they have just have a higher success rate or they can move things along faster or they can charge higher prices? Because it feels like to a founder when they they know it’s working?
Matt Wolach 41:17
That’s a great question. Like, what does it feel like? You can definitely get a sense and you start to feel the emotion from your prospect. I mean, as humans, we’re in tune to that. Whether whether you feel like you or not you can sense what what’s happening on the other side. If you start to feel that that intensity start to feel that fear that they might have about their problems start to feel that excitement about your your product, solving that problem for them. And so it’s easy to start to feel that but I like tracking. You know, and I know you’re a great tracker with with marketing. I love tracking so I built in my companies I built a tracker so I could keep track of, hey, how many demos we’re doing, how many are closing, what’s the close rate? How much are we putting into sales? And marketing so I can calculate our CAC, all of that stuff? And then what are the benchmarks? Where should we be like, they hit one of my goals for the year and I created a spreadsheet so I could just track everything and make it really really simple. Yeah, and it tells me if I’m good or bad. And so that’s that’s what I did. I actually made that spreadsheet so that everybody could use it and I put it online so SAS sales scorecard.com If you want a scorecard to track your own stuff like I was doing, go grab it has grass has everything just put in your numbers and it’s super easy.
Greg Head 42:29
Well, that’s another one too is some people come from big companies or they join a little startup they say where’s the dashboards? Where’s all this magic data flow, and so forth. But in the beginning, you’re figuring it out and seeing is it this or that or whatever? Just getting it on a spreadsheet and knowing your numbers and knowing where everything is. It doesn’t even need a sophisticated CRM yet you don’t have to geek out on CRM 20 Step sales processes just to know what what is our close rate going up? You know, what’s your average cost of the deal and some of the basics on spreadsheets? Do you see people do you know chasing the technology? shiny object or the dashboards or the process people procrastinating just jumping in and figuring out how to sell better?
Matt Wolach 43:17
I do. There’s a term CRM jockeys would be like a VP of Sales who just looks at the CRM the whole time. Not really working. refresh, refresh. Yeah. Refresh. What’s going on? What are the numbers? It’s nice to know that it was nice to have those dashboards I love them myself. But we really still need to get in touch with our team and make sure that everybody knows how they can handle this particular situation. Make sure we’re still doing role plays with the team. sales leadership is more than just jockeying to CRM. It’s it’s making sure you’re working with the team. These are people and getting them to a point where they’re feeling great about what they’re doing. They’re happy to be helping their prospects, and they’re feeling optimistic about what the future holds for them. So I agree. Yeah, we need to be more than just CRM jockeys.
Greg Head 44:03
There’s a whole bunch of things we could talk about. It’s an endless debate about qualification and getting darned leads, you know, from your website inbound, or outbound and BDRs, and all of those questions that goes on and on. But thanks for what you do map to help. Serious founders play the game in sales. All of the founders, the technical founders I’ve interviewed on the podcast, my podcast who have succeeded, as practical founders have figured out how to sell and they say it was one of the most important things I did there and we don’t have anybody that won the game on the podcast who said I was a technical founder, and then I hired a sales guy, and we grew faster. So it’s kind of a myth out there. Let’s talk about all the resources you offer. You talk about your scorecard, your courses and so forth. Just give us a rundown of what’s useful for people and where they can
Matt Wolach 44:58
find out great questions. So that Wolach.com ma TT wolach.com is where you can go, I have everything there. You’ll see the scorecard to get that at SAS sales scorecard.com But either place works. I also have a guide called The Ultimate demo. So if you want to structure your download their specific structure to your demo that works versus others that don’t quite work that really gets buyers realizing that they need product. So I give you that guide and it has the structure in there. Go grab that so I’ve got some resources there for you. And then just message me if you have anything find me on LinkedIn, that wallet is my LinkedIn and just message me and just say, Hey, I heard you on Greg show. I’m a practical founder myself. I’m trying to figure out this. I’m happy to help you. Absolutely. Yeah.
Greg Head 45:44
And you’ve got your scale your SAS podcasts, you’re interviewing experts, customers and people working on very specific problems every single week and you’ve got great stories and tactical frontline experience and strategies that you’re learning. You’ve done hundreds of those podcasts already on YouTube and everywhere else where you find
Matt Wolach 46:04
I have and Greg head the man himself was number two on my show. Four years ago, and really helped kickstart that thing because Greg’s obviously amazing. So yes, I do interview people who are experts, both helping SAS companies, but also I talked to SAS founders who’ve made it like hey, you bootstrapped How did you do it in the early days so that you can hear from them exactly when they did as their first few steps. So that’s scale. Your SAS is the podcast for that.
Greg Head 46:34
Awesome. Well, thanks for sharing all those resources and helping so many practical founders to build valuable companies without big funding, where to go back and really appreciate your insights.
Matt Wolach 46:42
Thanks a lot for having me, Greg, and thanks for all you do as well. Thanks, man.
Greg Head 46:48
Thanks for listening to the practical founders podcast. I hope you found this interview interesting, and well, practical and useful. Please subscribe to the practical founders podcast in your favorite podcast app. And stay tuned to hear amazing stories from successful founders who are winning their big prizes and doing it their way without big funding. Visit practical founders.com to join the community and get my weekly email with deeper insights for practical software founders all over the world. And you can reach out to me directly on LinkedIn. Let me know what you think of this podcast or connect. Love to beat you up.
