NOTE: I originally wrote this for SaaSSales.io, a terrific resource for learning more about SaaS sales. I’m a Founding and Premium Author over there so go subscribe and get the best content routinely.
Every day, software founders approach me asking what’s the one thing they need to do to scale their SaaS company.
I enjoy hearing this question because it reminds me of my own software companies and the journey we took to achieve scale. Early on, it was bumpy. But once we were able to discover the below framework, exponential growth soon followed.
Interestingly, it isn’t just one thing that’s needed to reach these heights, but four.
I call them the 4 Pillars to Scaling SaaS Companies. Those organizations who do each well thrive. Here they are:
Pillar 1: Attract
As a new software company, one of the biggest fears every founder has is – nobody will ever know what we have here.
You’ve built a great product and you know it can help your industry.
But not if nobody ever knows it exists.
So, of course, the first step is Attract – but it’s important not to just attract anyone. It is imperative to attract your ideal best fit customers. Those are the people who will not only love your product but when they see the marketing for it, they feel it speaks to them. They see it as exactly what they need to solve their problem.
Thus, identifying who those best fit customers are is key. Clearly define your ICP, your Ideal Customer Profile.
Then from there, you can be sure to have your marketing aimed directly at them. This will attract your best possible customers right to your door.
Pillar 2: Engage
Now that these ideal prospective customers are aware of you and your solution, the next step is to Engage them. You need to move them forward from awareness to interest in the AIDA marketing model.
This is where many software companies fail.
It seems natural that if you generate some leads, they’ll love your product in the free trial or they’ll see the need and want to jump right into a demo immediately, right?
Wrong.
A huge number of leads will never engage with you or your team if you don’t have a process set up to be able to engage and nurture them along. In fact, most companies end up connecting with less than half of their leads – even inbound leads requesting to speak to someone, not just light MQLs like video watchers or case study downloaders.
Losing these leads at this step is a killer, because with just a bit of process and effort, a large chunk of what gets lost, can be saved.
Pillar 3: Close
You’ve attracted your best leads to you, and you’ve managed to convince them to speak with you or engage in your free trial, which is more than just a few clicks on day 1.
Now comes the hard part: getting them to hand over their hard-earned cash.
Closing is one of the biggest challenges in scaling software, and one that many never solve.
If you can’t close software deals, your company will be bye-bye, and quickly. In fact, 92% of software companies go out of business.
Mostly because they could never sell well enough and eventually they ran out of money.
That’s why I created The Perfect DEAL Process, the way to close software deals quickly and repeatedly. It’s something that took me years to come up with, and something I teach to my clients so they can achieve Pillar 3 instantly without having to struggle with no sales.
What the process does, and what your aim should be, is to make demos and sales calls flow much easier. Moreover, it gives the control to you, the software leader running the call. Not to the buyer.
A great demo or sales call is extremely powerful and it allows you to close deals at a much higher pace than ever before.
Pillar 4: Scale
Once you’ve attracted your best fit potential customers to you, then engaged with them to get them interested, and neatly closed them, you’ll start to see some results.
You’ll start feeling more confident and your future will be more clear – you’ll start to see your goals come into focus.
But if you’re the only one who can do these things in your company, you’ll never get to those big dreams.
That’s why Pillar 4 is critical. Scale.
How do you take that process you’ve been able to accomplish yourself and multiply it? How can others do just as well or better than you?
My clients ask me this because they’re so fearful of burning out. They learn how to do the first 3 pillars really well, and they get excited for the future—until their first few sales hires fail.
They realize that their success has come from them, their efforts, and their knowledge. But they don’t want to be on sales calls all day every day for the rest of their lives.
So they need to scale. That’s when I show them how to find the best sales talent, how to compensate them appropriately, and how to manage a sales team so that it becomes a machine.
One that you can be proud of.
But none of it happens if you don’t have a process. Without a clearly structured and defined sales process, nobody will be able to do what you’re doing, and you’ll never scale.
So, get that sales process in place, whether it’s my process that you get from me or from another source, and the 4th pillar will be set in stone.
Conclusion
If you only do one of these pillars well, or even two or three, the foundation of your company will crumble.
All four pillars are critical to be able to support the castle that is your company. Then getting to that $1 Million MRR mark will come sooner rather than later.
Want me to show you how to make sure you do all 4 Pillars well so you can close more deals? Watch my free training here.
