Solving The Mystery of ROI With SaaS Solutions

In tough economic times, you better be able to prove hard ROI with your solution. Fuzzy or soft ROI is not an option. Your chances of making it into year 2 and beyond becomes slim to none, especially if budgets are tight. We all know that your cost of sale per seat becomes lower and lower the longer you retain your client, so if you wanna turn their purchase into an investment it is imperative that you baseline in the beginning, establish goals with your clients and constantly be tracking against their goals. Here are some simple steps to ensure your success...

Step #1 Baselining
Baselining is the process of knowing exactly where things stand today. If your a SaaS company selling a solution designed to increase the number of leads for a company, then find out how many leads the company is generating per month today. Also baseline how much this is currently costing the company and how much revenue they are currently generating from the leads. Document the baseline numbers. It amazes me how many companies don't document baselines. This simple step eliminates so much guess work moving forward.

Step #2 Goals
Establishing goals is nothing more than asking the customer, "Where would you like to be 3-12 months from now". If they are coming to you for more leads, then a goal would be something like, "I want to increase my monthly leads from 100 a month to 400 leads a month." Don't forget to document the goals!

Step #3 Offer up best practices advise to ensure success
Every SFA/CRM tool has the ability to track a lead source or campaign source. Make certain your clients are aware of this feature. Using it allows you to track not only leads, but also opportunities and closed revenue associated with the leads. There is no guess work, if done properly. Document the advise you passed along!

Step #4 Track success with your client
You need to check-in frequently with your client to make certain you are tracking against your products claims and the clients goals. 100% transparency is the goal here. As long as you are tracking towards their goal, then the chances of them renewing their contract are much greater. Document your clients success!

By documenting everything you essentially get both sides to put the proverbial "skin in the game". At the end of the 12 month contract you were either a cost or an investment. If you were an investment, congratulations on the renewal. If you were a cost, better hope their business is booming otherwise your about to lose a customer.

By doing these 4 steps you will minimize the following annoying and ever so common scenario. Which by the way rubs my rhubarb as a sales manager!

Scenario:
Kevin thanks for calling. Our CFO is cutting budgets across the company right now and we don't know if we will be renewing our contract with XYZ Corporation. We need to look at the ROI with all of our software purchases. I will get back to you as soon as possible.

Buyer 2.0 Funnel

Sales 2.0 is the combination of Web 2.0 technologies coupled with new buying and selling techniques. Traditional sales funnels are a thing of the past, so I have created a new buyer funnel to get the creative and current juices flowing