How to scale your SaaS sales

How to scale your SaaS sales

Founded in 2005, LucidEra was a SaaS startup offering analysis of CRM and ERP data. The company went out of business in 2009, after running into problems with longer sales cycles and its go-to market strategy. The customer base they focused on was sales departments, and the company relied on Salesforce's CRM data, for the most part. However, they did not combine it with data from marketing and finance departments. Like LucidEra, several other SaaS companies have collapsed after inflows of VC funding and failed to scale as a result. Any SaaS startup needs to be confident of their services and pricing, and target the right audience. Once you have a killer product, all you need are a few clear cut sales strategies to aim high. 


 1. Sales and marketing go hand in hand. 

One common mistake most startups make is cold calling just about anybody on their lead list. This not only wastes a lot of time on the sales rep's part, but is also highly inefficient. Generating leads through marketing webinars, conferences, seminars, and social media can help drive sales drastically. Make sure to invest in your marketing strategy, as much as in sales and development.


 

 2. Choose your battles wisely. 

 

Not all deals necessarily generate a profit. Suppose a lead requires you to travel a lot or drags on for ages, taking up valuable time and resources of your sales representative, and it turns out it isn't really worth it. Don't just take any deal that comes your way. Define a set of guidelines for your organization's sales strategy, and stick to it.

 

  3. Customer retention is key.

 

While closing new deals is imperative to scale sales, it's second only to customer retention. Imagine you've closed a deal a couple of years ago worth 10 grand. You've been struggling to close a new deal with a similar amount for the past six months. But that customer from a couple of years back was not properly onboarded, doesn't really have in-depth knowledge of the product, and receives the same impersonal message from support every time. The customer is not satisfied and moves on to a new product. You on the other hand win your new deal, after having spent 6 months of resources. So how have you profited from this exchange?

Scale your support alongside your sales, and you might just hit that balance.

 

 

4. Scale up, don't shave off. 

 

What makes more sense: promoting a few of your experienced sales reps to sales managers, or sticking your rep in the same job for years and paying someone new a ton of money to do the same work? The former leads to greater employee satisfaction and more productivity because they are motivated to put forth their best effort. Instead of starting from scratch with a whole new team, fill the manager positions in-house with the most experienced sales reps.  Then hire one new rep to fill their shoes 

 


5. Give credit where credit is due. 

 

Now this happens in a lot of firms. The superstar of the sales team is the person who bagged a deal worth a hundred grand. Another rep who spends all week closing 10 deals of 10 grand each isn't given the same credit. Laud every employee to what they're due. 


 

6. Go freemium! 

 

Most companies boast stellar prices for their product first and hike it up after a while. Fix your product's price and stick to it. If you think your product is worth the price tag, don't worry that it's on the higher end. Offer a free subscription for the first 15-30 days, and, if it's worth it, your prospect will take the bait. Or you can offer a freemium model indefinitely, with basic features limiting the number of users. Once your user has gotten comfortable and hits their limit or sees the need for more features, they can pay for an upgraded version. A way to stave off users who unsubscribe after a few months is by offering a lower budgeted annual subscription, as opposed to the slightly pricier monthly subscription. 


 

7. Integrate with other products.

 

Let's face it. Your product might be great, but there's always a product out there that has a feature yours doesn't. Facilitating integrations and plugins can really boost your sales. Build a marketplace for your product before you pitch anything to your prospect. 


 

8. You can't do everything yourself. 

 

If you want to go international, you're going to need some help. If you're just starting your business, there's no way you'll be able to set up offices all over the globe. Instead, forge partnerships and get resellers for markets away from home. It's a win-win situation for both parties, and you'll be cutting costs phenomenally. 


 

9. Get listed and reviewed. 

You need a bit of publicity, if you want to climb up the ladder. Get yourself listed on sites such as producthunt.com and capterra.com for ratings and reviews of products, and leverage your product to customers. 

 

10. Network, network, network. 

 

Want valid prospects? Attend tradeshows, meetups, and seminars. Or even better, hold your own meetups, seminars, and workshops for your product, after due marketing research, of course, and gain prospects. This kind of networking allows you to give prosepcts a hands-on experience and interact with them one on one, improving your credibility and your chances of making a sale. 

 

Every Fortune 500 company out there will tell you that there's no simple shortcut to scale your sales. But perhaps with the right sales & marketing strategy, you could bypass roadblocks along the way and get there a few times bigger and stronger than you were before. Not because sales might be the backbone of SaaS businesses, but because it works hand in hand with every other aspect of your organization. 



      Zoho Campaigns Resources


        • Desk Community Learning Series


        • Digest


        • Functions


        • Meetups


        • Kbase


        • Resources


        • Glossary


        • Desk Marketplace


        • MVP Corner


        • Word of the Day


        • Ask the Experts


          • Sticky Posts

          • As Sales Person, Here are my New Year Resolutions. What are Yours?

            Being a salesperson, I keep learning from my mistakes and have noted a few changes that I need to make in my approach. I take these resolutions going into 2021, hoping to keep it going for as long as possible :) 1. I will not say "Yes, our product has
          • Once Upon a Sales Meeting!

            It was an awkward silence in the meeting room "Uproar." John Kowalski, the new sales manager, was not happy with the team's performance. After scribbling something in the notepad, he decided to break the silence, John: I cannot believe you guys have been working like this. No reports, delusional forecasting, random targets, and no eye on the ball. Kevin: We followed Richard's orders. John: Well, Richard is not here anymore, is he? John walked up to the whiteboard, and wrote in big bold letters: "TARGET

          Zoho CRM Plus Resources

            Zoho Books Resources


              Zoho Subscriptions Resources

                Zoho Projects Resources


                  Zoho Sprints Resources


                    Zoho Orchestly Resources


                      Zoho Creator Resources


                        Zoho WorkDrive Resources



                          Zoho CRM Resources

                          • CRM Community Learning Series

                            CRM Community Learning Series


                          • Tips

                            Tips

                          • Functions

                            Functions

                          • Meetups

                            Meetups

                          • Kbase

                            Kbase

                          • Resources

                            Resources

                          • Digest

                            Digest

                          • CRM Marketplace

                            CRM Marketplace

                          • MVP Corner

                            MVP Corner




                            Zoho Writer Writer

                            Get Started. Write Away!

                            Writer is a powerful online word processor, designed for collaborative work.

                              Zoho CRM コンテンツ








                                ご検討中の方

                                  • Recent Topics

                                  • Zoho People > Access of Left Menu

                                    Hello All May I check how do i activate or de-activate of the left menu for users do i control via role or specific role? I have assign a user to Team member
                                  • Custom Button - Location Choice is not changeable in creation

                                    I created a custom button for the Tasks module that calls a function to streamline mass updates of closing tasks as "complete". I want to place it in either the utility menu or the mass action menu, but when I create the button the "select page" field
                                  • Workflow on Clone

                                    Hello. I'm interested on creating a workflow on a clone of a record in the Price_Books module that will clone also all the related Products and associate the new ones with the new Price_Book. My problem starts with that there's no On Clone event, only
                                  • How can I create a button in a widget that pops up a form created in ZOHO Creator when clicked?

                                    I know that using HTML snippets, clicking the button can pop up the form. However, the same code does not work in the widget. <button><a href="#Form:form2?zc_LoadIn=dialog">Add</a></button>
                                  • Introduce an option to hide the form title

                                    My feature request is to include an option to hide the form title. At the moment it is possible to hide the header. In some cases I do want to show a logo image in the header but not the form title. As a workaround I have tried disabling the header and
                                  • Answer Bot and Personalized Questions

                                    Hi there, I have the same problem using the SalesIQ Answer Bot and the Zoho Desk Answer Bot (which really need different names, to be honest, in order to avoid confusion...) Customers that visit our website ask questions in the form of "What do you do?"
                                  • 関連トピックから配信リストをつくる

                                    ZOHOキャンペーンの既存の連絡先リストを関連トピックで絞り込んで、配信リストを作成する方法があれば、教えてください。
                                  • Zoho Mail not working

                                    Anyone else had the issue where emails wont send from either the desktop CRM or the mail app? It just says "syncing" then "failed". I deleted it and tried to access emails through the CRM on my phone (fold) but they dont show. It seems it is impossible
                                  • Shorten one URL but not all

                                    I have read that I should be able to click on the shorten link button at the bottom of the post window and shorten just one URL. But it does all of the URLs in my post. I want only one shortened. Not sure what I'm missing. Any help appreciated.
                                  • Generate leads from instagram

                                    hello i have question. If connect instagram using zoho social, it is possible to get lead from instagram? example if someone send me direct message or comment on my post and then they generate to lead
                                  • What is Zoho Marketing Plus?

                                    As if there wasn't enough confusion with SalesIQ, CRM, Campaigns and Marketing Automation, now we have Marketing Plus too. Can somebody from Zoho please give us a comparative list of features that are in Marketing Plus compared to what's in Marketing
                                  • I didn't receive my domain verification mail

                                    I didn't receive my domain verification mail 
                                  • Creating a new deal with specific layout and pipeline

                                    I am trying to create a button which creates a new deal for a particular account. It needs to be assigned a specific layout and pipeline. It seems like it should be really simple but I've been struggling to get this to work all day, can anyone help?!
                                  • Announcing New Features in Trident for macOS (v.1.21.0)

                                    Hello everyone! Trident for macOS is here with interesting features to elevate your workplace communication and productivity. Let's take a quick look at them. Get better visibility for concurrent events. Quickly compare and manage simultaneous events
                                  • Modifying Product Details

                                    I am in the process of setting up new products in Zoho Commerce and have encountered a few problems: 1) Tabs It seems that Product Details pages do not have the ability to create Tabs. eg:  https://www.thedebugstore.com/tp240141-aardvark-usb-i2c-spi-host-adapter-total-phase.html
                                  • Zoho Commerce B2B

                                    Hello, I have signed up for a Zoho Commerce B2B product demo but it's not clear to me how the B2B experience would look for my customers, in a couple of ways. 1) Some of my customers are on terms and some pay upfront with credit card. How do I hide/show
                                  • Creating a custom CSV file using deluge script/

                                    I have an application I have developed and the client wants us to place an export file in csv onto an ftp server daily. Now I don't see au options in creator to change the separator to anything else. The client wants the separator to be the pipe symbol "|"  I think i would be able to create schedule with some code to create the appropriate data in a string using deluge script but I haven't seen any functionality that would allow me to deposit that data as a file anywhere or attach it to an email
                                  • How can I get a nested value attributes inside a key par?

                                    Hello! Im getting the following output when reviewing a record I am after. I am trying to put some conditions based on a data value that is inside another data. For example, lets grab the below output. Info {"Account_Name":{"name":"Liberty Construction
                                  • Invoices not arriving and mail server settings

                                    I am having an issue where some clients are not receiving invoices. I have configured Zoho Books to send on my behalf and configured the appropriate SPF, DKIM and DMARC settings on my mail server and tested these as working. I get the CC'd copies so I
                                  • Multi Line Text Character Limit

                                    I want to export my Help Center articles but I realized that the text in the Answer column is being cut off. I'm guessing there is a character limit for multi line text fields. How can I get around this?
                                  • Emails bouncing to Hotmail / Outlook.com

                                    Today I have seen multiple emails bouncing all to Hotmail and outlook.com mailboxes, all other emails are being delivered. Is it just me or is this a widespread issue with Zoho Books ? Bounce Reason : uncategorized-bounce
                                  • Be careful if you want to purchase zoho one

                                    Hi, just to add one more complain to the other similar complains. When I purchased zoho one, Divith, my account manager told me (by email) that I would be able to keep different emails that I have inside the company (contact, privacy, etc.). During the
                                  • Schedule Timeout 5 minutes vs. stated 15 minutes

                                    I am running into a function run timeout error after 5 minutes for my schedules. The Functions - Limits documents states it should be 15 minutes: Functions - Limits | Online Help - Zoho CRM. What should it actually be? Due to the 5 minute timeout, I'm
                                  • Importing invoices in bulk using the xls file template - still posting as draft - Is there a way to skip "mark as sent" and post it directly?

                                    Hello everyone, as the title say, is there a way that when I upload from the template file, it will post automatically? I tried changing the "Invoice Status" from draft to approved but it is still appearing as draft and is making me go to invoices so
                                  • How to set Sales Order Payment Terms when creating a Sales Order via the Zoho Books API

                                    I am creating Sales Orders via the Zoho Books API. I would like to set the Payment Terms to a particular value from the list of allowed values. Is that possible? I was able to get the list of payment terms via this API call: https://books.zoho.com/api/v3/settings/paymentterms?organization_id=XXXX"
                                  • Function and workflow to create customer payment and send receipt

                                     I am attempting to set up a workflow/custom function for the automatic creation of a customer payment and sending the email receipt, but am receiving the error "Improper Statement Error might be due to missing ';' at end of the line or incomplete expression" I've been over everything several times and cannot see where the error is (code is copied into the attached document).  I haven't used custom functions before with Deluge, so it's very likely something very simple, or I've completely mucked
                                  • How to rename the Submit Button by using deluge script

                                    Hi everyone, As we know, the Submit button can be renamed in the form builder setting. But I have scenario where I need the Submit Button to be renamed differently according to condition. Anyone knows how to do it? Thank You
                                  • Banking: Transfer from another account without base currency

                                    Scenario: A banking line item shall be categorised as an "internal transfer" from another bank account. This is a USD to EUR transfer. Our base currency is CHF. What we tried: Category: "Transfer from another account" From: Our USD account To: Our EUR
                                  • Item cost price - How to accomodate changing cost prices

                                    I am in urgent need of assistance with how to accommodate changing cost prices for items, not manually. We import items so their landed cost is always changing. This cost is NOT reflected however in the item cost price. This is going to cause us some
                                  • Marketer's Space: Targeted messaging : Leveraging Zoho Campaigns for Effective Communication

                                    Hello Marketers, Welcome back to Marketers’ Space! Targeted messaging ensures your communication reaches the right audience - boosting engagement, conversions, and overall campaign success. In this post, we’ll be looking at targeted messaging to create
                                  • :between: conditions in search?criteria

                                    Hello, please help solve problem I try to select deals by Creater_Time between dates i send this GET request /crm/v4/deals/search?criteria=(Created_Time:between:(2024-02-01T18:52:56,24-02-17T18:52:56)) encoded to /crm/v4/deals/search?criteria=%28Created_Time%3Abetween%3A%282024-02-01T18%3A52%3A56%2C24-02-17T18%3A52%3A56%29%29
                                  • Zoho Creator : Updating Records via Import. Can't use Autonumber or ZohoRecordID ?

                                    Hi, I am trying to use the function to update a report with an import. I'm running in to the error : "unable to update because the form has no column with unique values" In the release notes it says Only field with unique values can be used to compare
                                  • 💡 Feature Request: Custom App Bundle Plan (Pick Only the Apps You Need)

                                    Request: Allow Users to Build a Custom App Bundle (Choose Only the Apps They Need) Hi Zoho Team, I appreciate the value that Zoho One and the Plus Bundles (CRM Plus, Finance Plus, etc.) offer. However, I’m finding it difficult to get the best fit for
                                  • Search Feature Now Broken

                                    I have many hundreds of notes on Zoho Notebook but now when I search for a keyword, I only get 30 results maximum. This is unacceptable and yet another feature that has become broken on this quickly deteriorating software. Please fix immediately.
                                  • Restrict Zoho One Account Notifications to Admins

                                    Hi Zoho One Team, I hope you're doing well. We recently noticed that end users are receiving administrative pop-ups in Zoho One, such as the DKIM configuration notice (screenshot attached). This type of notification is only relevant to administrators
                                  • Experience effortless record management in CRM For Everyone with the all-new Grid View!

                                    Hello Everyone, Hope you are well! As part of our ongoing series of feature announcements for Zoho CRM For Everyone, we’re excited to bring you another type of module view : Grid View. In addition to Kanban view, List view, Canvas view, Chart view and
                                  • Automated Checkout

                                    Hi Team, I’m trying to create an automated checkout function in Zoho People. My requirement is that if an employee forgets to check out, the system should automatically check them out after 10 hours. However, I'm encountering an error while updating the
                                  • Zoho CRM Community Digest - June 2025 | Part 1

                                    **We offer both video and written formats, take your pick and jump in.** CRM FOMO is real. You could be doing everything right and still miss the beat. That’s where we come in. Zoho CRM Community Digest! Every two weeks, we bring you the insider scoop
                                  • Introducing Video Tutorials for the Zoho FSM Mobile App

                                    We’re excited to announce the launch of our brand-new video tutorials for the Zoho FSM Mobile App—designed painstakingly to help your field agents get up to speed in no time! Whether you're brand new to the Zoho FSM mobile app or just need a quick refresher,
                                  • Zoho People > Managed People > User Access Control

                                    Hello All I need your recommendation on how should i go about setting the User Access Control in my Zoho People
                                  • Next Page