Sara Francis
SAAS
13 June, 2024
The software as a service (SaaS) market is experiencing rapid growth, with its value expected to reach 247 billion U.S. dollars by the end of 2024. It’s a HUGE, clearly defining the big opportunities for startups with the right team behind them.
But hold on! Building a SaaS sales team structure has never been an easy task like assembling furniture.
For instance, just hiring people won’t be enough!!!
You need a smart plan that aligns with your business goals, market needs, and customer expectations. So, where do you begin? Here’s where this article makes a difference.
From years of experience in the SaaS industry, I will explore all the valuable insights to build a high-performing sales team for long-term success. With this checklist, you will find the perfect fit for your SaaS organization. Let’s roll on!
Contents
SaaS sales team structure mainly defines what a SaaS sales department should be. Through an effective structure, businesses make a clear outline of the key roles, responsibilities, and relationships among team members to achieve sales goals.
In this fast-growing SaaS industry, having a skilled and highly professional sales team is a must if you are leading a SaaS business. They directly translate to increased sales and recurring revenue for your SaaS product.
However, a SaaS sales team typically consists of several key roles each with distinct responsibilities. Though with different responsibilities, the team works collectively to ensure the ultimate success of the sales organization.
At this point, now I am going to share a well-proven guide to making a winning B2B SaaS sales team structure, no matter if you’re just a beginner in your startup. Let’s move on!
Start by figuring out your sales goals and objectives behind building up this SaaS sales team. You should know about what you achieve. This will help you determine the number of members you need for your team and your target market.
Also, you can determine the level of expertise of your upcoming team members to achieve your goal and reach out to your revenue growth.
Ultimately, this would be a roadmap for your team. Here are short tips you can apply to define your business goals:
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You can’t jump out to your future SaaS sales team hiring without any forefront. The best chance is that all your efforts will go in vain. So, as with setting your sales goal, you need to define specific roles and responsibilities for your sales team.
Depending on maturity level, there will be hundreds of employees in a SaaS business with different roles. Start by identifying key positions for why you need members. It would be sales development representatives (SDRs), account executives (AEs), or customer success managers (CSMs).
Here you can check out this quick table below:
| Team Member | Role |
| Sales Development Representatives | Focus on lead generation and qualification, outbound prospecting. |
| Account Executives | Handle qualified leads, demos, negotiations, and closing deals. |
| Customer Success Managers | Responsible for post-sale relationship management and customer satisfaction |
| Sales Engineers | Provide technical support during the sales process |
| Sales Operations (Sales Ops) | Handle behind-the-scenes aspects of sales |
| Sales Managers/Directors | Oversee the sales team; provide SaaS growth strategies, and monitor performance, |
| Customer Onboarding Specialists | Guide new customers through initial setup and training |
Well, you have set your goals and sales role, now this is the time you will have to prepare to hire members for your team. Don’t assume just picking anyone from the crowd and setting them for any of the sales roles. All you need to assess their skills and expertise in these specific roles. Here it is highly recommended to find ones who are passionate about your product.
It’s always a plus if they have strong communication, negotiation, and problem-solving skills. Besides, a SaaS starter-up is obviously not an easy place to work. There may be multiple responsibilities on one. So look for one with a good time management skill.
When you have a complete sales team, this is the time you need to ensure each of your team members is aligning with your business goals. This is important to maximize your sales and reach your revenue target earlier. Even, it is simple to start with!
Start by building clear communication with your team members about their roles and your business objectives. Also, explain clearly how the sales targets support these goals.
Plus, you can establish a system for tracking and measuring progress towards these goals. This will give regular updates and feedback to ensure alignment among team members.
When you are about to run your SaaS company with a management team, you must have a documented sales outline for each of your team members. This will work as a sales playbook that breaks down the customer journey into specific stages.
This ensures all reps follow a consistent approach, ensuring you a higher conversion rate. Besides this is important if you want to minimize the risk of reps skipping crucial steps or likely looking at any important details.
Though there is a comprehensive list of the sales process in SaaS, here are some major steps you should know about:
Once you have a sales team for your SaaS business, you need to ensure that each of your team members is working on the road to success. And that’s the point, your ongoing training and development process for your team is a must! This is important as the sales process and product environment are constantly changing.
So your goals shouldn’t be just to get banished by the changes. Marketers must adapt to the constantly changing trends to keep pace with the competition.
The regular training will keep your team updated on industry trends, product developments, and sales techniques. This will not only let your team work at an optimal level but also make it easier for them to be ahead of the SaaS success curve.
Beyond a doubt, a sales rep is a major part of your sales team and does most of your SaaS product selling. They have crucial roles starting from dealing with customers and prospectus, managing sales pipes to closing deals.
So, while structuring a sales team, you need to hire the right sales reps for your team, as well as dotting them at the right place is crucial.
Now coming to how skilled they should be. It is not just about being tech-savvy at a certain level but having proper knowledge about the roles they need to do in each stage. Besides they should have a concise understanding of making clear communication with the marketer team and turning a decision into action.
Think of it like your SaaS company sells marketing automation software. Traditionally, a rep might manually qualify leads through phone calls and email exchanges. This can be time-consuming and inefficient.
So what’s the solution right there? Implementing effective SaaS tools for your team.
These tools are great for automating repetitive tasks like data entry, email sending, and scheduling meetings. Most of the advanced lead management tools like CRM platforms automate lead scoring, nurturing workflows, and analytics.
This will not only let your team members function more effectively but also lead to your ultimate revenue growth.
In the fast-paced world of SaaS sales, developing a team and handing over the role is not enough. You should value your team’s effectiveness and identify the areas for improvement. This allows you to focus training and coaching efforts on specific skills or processes.
Anyway, here are some essential KPIs for SaaS sales teams you can note down:
| Lead Conversion Rate | Measure the percentage of leads that convert to qualified opportunities. |
| Sales Cycle Length | Track the average time it takes to close a deal. |
| Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) | Calculate the total cost of acquiring a new customer |
| Customer Lifetime Value | Estimate each customer’s total revenue during their relationship with your company. |
| Quota Attainment | Monitors the percentage of sales reps to achieve their individual sales targets |
A positive and supportive work environment is always a desire for an employee. This goes the same for a SaaS company as well. With every good work of the team, there should be something amazing that will make them motivated and more focused on the next task.
For instance, you can offer commission or bonus structures, and create various incentive programs. Give bonuses for acquiring new customers or commissions for closing deals.
Besides recognize and celebrate the achievements of your team members, no matter if it is big or small.
Building a well-organized sales team for a SaaS business is always in high demand as it sets the foundation for a business to thrive.
Fret not! Here we are providing a few effective SaaS sales team structures with examples, so you can apply them to your specific SaaS model:
This is the model you can choose if you want to build a small team for your small business. Here each salesperson will be responsible for the entire sales cycle from lead generation to closing and account management. In this model, sales reps work independently and are fully accountable for their territories or segments.
Company: Small startup selling project management software
Team Size & Workflow
The Assembly Line Model divides the sales process into distinct stages, with different team members specializing in each stage. This is a great model to choose if you want to build a larger team with the motive to high sales volume. Each role will focus on a specific part of the sales process, working together and moving prospects through the sales funnel efficiently.
Company: Mid-sized company offering HR software
Team Size & Workflow:
You may have several small teams with different roles for your business and that’s where you can implement this model. The model organizes the sales team into small, cross-functional groups called “pods.”
Each pod specializes in a different line but works together to manage a specific set of customers or market segments. This saves you from hiring different individuals for each step
Company: Growing SaaS company selling a complex enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution with a diverse customer base
Team Size & Workflow:
3 Pods: Each pod consists of 1 SDR, 1 AE, 1 CSM, 1 SE. The pods will work collaboratively to move leads through the sales cycle, from prospecting to closing.
Your SaaS company should have a specific sales team that will highly focus on your customer retention. While other teams will work for customer support to attract new customers, they will ensure the long-term success and satisfaction of existing customers through proactive engagement and support.
Company: Subscription-based SaaS company offering a marketing automation platform.
Team Size & Workflow:
When structuring your SaaS sales team, here are some key factors you can consider to ensure optimal performance and alignment with your company’s goals:
As a starting business, consider smaller teams like an Individual Contributor (IC) model, where each rep handles the entire sales cycle from prospecting to closing deals. As the team grows, focus on a more specialized structure with dedicated roles.
Building a sales team can be expensive. So, consider your budget constraints and prioritize roles that will deliver the highest return on investment (ROI). For instance, consider hiring experienced Account Executives who can close high-value deals and benefit you with immediate returns.
B2B SaaS sales often involve lengthy decision-making processes. As a solution, you can implement a robust CRM system to track interactions between the team members throughout the longer process.
SaaS products can be technically complex and you may require detailed explanations. For instance, you can hire Hire Sales Engineers (SEs) to provide technical support during sales calls and demos. Technical expertise can make your sales team more credible and help close more deals.
The SaaS market is constantly changing with new trends and technologies. So, it’s always worth it to keep your team updated on market trends and competitor activities. Make arrangements for regular training sessions and in-depth market analysis.
Now that you’ve structured your sales team, the success is how well you are handling them to increase your customer base and revenue goals. And that is the point scaling the SaaS sales team enters. Anyway, here are some strategies suggested by our SaaS experts you can go with:
Hiring the right team means a team with the right skills and necessary experience to succeed in your SaaS marketing. You need to optimize them to scale their functions. The effective procedures include implementing a comprehensive onboarding program, using the right sales tools, providing ongoing training programs to keep them sugar and updated, and so on.
In SaaS, reaching the customer crowds is tough though. A SaaS report reveals up to 73% of new customers are willing to purchase again only if they had a good experience.
So to tackle the fact, it is crucial to understand your customers’ needs, preferences, and pain points when you are presenting the products to them. This will ensure higher customer retention.
Scaling your sales team is an exciting time, but it is not out of SaaS challenges. As your team grows, maintaining clear communication and fostering collaboration within the team will become crucial for success.
To do so, create a culture where everyone feels comfortable sharing ideas, concerns, and feedback openly.
This is a great place you can approach to attract top talent for your SaaS business. Develop attractive compensation structures in your SaaS payment plans. Include commission structures and bonuses to motivate your team members to progress in functions.
Strong leadership is vital if you want to nurture a high-performing team. A strong leader will not only guide your team but set the strategic direction for your company, outlining a clear vision for the future. All in one, invest in training programs to develop leadership skills.
The best practice to keep your sales team always productive is ongoing training. This will not only improve their skills but also help to identify and address improvement areas of your SaaS business.
Yes, the structure of a SaaS sales team significantly impacts customer acquisition. A well-organized team with clear roles and efficient processes enhances customer engagement and increases acquisition success.
It’s best to regularly review your sales team structure to ensure it aligns with your business goals and adapts to changing market dynamics. Also, plan for bi-annual assessments to optimize performance.
All successful SaaS businesses have one thing in common: a killer Sales team. A powerful sales team structure is more likely a secret weapon that helps crush success goals and leave everything else in the competitive market far behind.
All you need to clear your goals, define the right roles for the right people, ongoing training, open communication, and effective incentives to create a powerful team for your business.
Some well-proven team structure models as stated in our guide can make your tasks far easier in this instance. So, don’t wait! Start putting all these ideas into action and watch your business take off!! Good Luck!
Sara Francis is a seasoned writer with extensive expertise in SaaS business dynamics. With 3 years of immersed experience in the industry, she aims to help businesses by providing valuable insights and practical advice.
Sara Francis is a seasoned writer with extensive expertise in SaaS business dynamics. With 3 years of immersed experience in the industry, she aims to help businesses by providing valuable insights and practical advice.
