The key to boosting your SaaS win rate? Control what happens between sales calls and drive the deal forward in each interaction.
Closing a sale can be a lot of work, and oftentimes the deal ends up lost. This is nothing strange, really: a prospect only spends some 5 % of their time talking to you and oftentimes has a complex buying journey ahead of them. The good news is that there are ways to enable your buyer and that a small bump to your win rate can make a large difference.
Th question is how to to boost your SaaS win rate and up the chance of winning your next deal.
Asynchronous interactions for a higher SaaS win rate
To figure out the answer, we first need to introduce two terms – namely synchronous and asynchronous interactions. Synchronous interactions are all those that happen live, such as digital meetings, phone calls etc. while asynchronous interactions are those that don’t happen in real time. This could, for example, be emails, chat messages (that aren’t responded to in real-time), video messages or shared material that your prospect can go through when it suits them.
Oftentimes, sellers are focused on the synchronous interactions that occur between them and their prospect. This is partly a good thing – we need to run great sales meetings and get to know our prospect live – but it does leave out some crucial interactions. Namely, the interactions that occur between meetings.
Controlling what happens between meetings
Finding ways to visualize these interactions can help you focus on the right deals, but controlling them can help you win them. To make it happen, you need to find a way to use asynchronous interactions to drive your deal forward and control what happns betwen meetings.
You could, for example:
- Use a chat tool to catch any questions your prospect has between meetings, and never let them sit around waiting for a response for too long. This can let you control the conversation, and help make sure your prospect gets the information they need when they need it. So that they can move forward in their buying journey.
- Use video messages to bridge the gap between meetings. Video messages offer a more personal approach and can let you walk through your offering or underline what you spoke about in the last meeting. On top of that, video messages allow your prospect to see you even when you’re not in a live call, which can help them get to know you and feel a personal connection.
- Share material that the prospect can go through in their own time. Content sharing via some asynchronous mode of interaction is an important part in driving sales. You are probably already doing this by sending sales material through email, but there are more modern tools that make said content sharing easier for both you and your prospect (such as digital content repositories).
- Use a task manager to build mutual action plans with the prospect, driving accountability throughout the sales process. If your prospect is open to it, setting short to-do’s that are to be done by you and your prospect, before the next call, can create a sense of joint accountability. It could even underline the notion that you and your prospect are in this together, as a team, and have the same drive to see the process through. Plus, it can help make sure that everything that should be done before a call is, in fact, done. Which can help you save time for both you and your prospect.
Use more of your sales potential
By using these types of interactions, you can control a larger portion of the sales process. You will no longer only be able to connect with your prospect during meetings. Instead, you can do so in micro-steps throughout the whole journey – by chatting, sending video messages, sharing material etc. As a result, you can get more than 5 % of your prospect’s time and have a larger chance of affecting the outcome. It’s kind of like unlocking a larger part of your sales potential, and having more chances to drive the deal home.
Cater to buyer requirements
There is yet another reason to expand your focus to the asynchronous: buyers have undergone a change in preference and behavior and want more digital and asynchronous interactions. Outreach (via Forrester), for example, has shown that buyers want to drive their own journeys, do their own research and meet a sales rep first later in the process. This means that your buyer might actively be looking to interact with you through these asynchronous interactions. With that, you can cater to buyer preferences by giving them the chance to go through your material in their own time, get quick answers via chat or walkthroughs through video messages. In fact, doing so can enable them – and you – simultaneously.
Gathering your asynchronous interactions
With all this, starting to control the conversation between meetings may sound like a slam dunk. There is, however, one risk involved: by starting to use different tools to interact with your prospect between meetings, you risk spreading your interactions over several tools. You may use one
tool for sending chat messages and another for video messages. You might have your content repository in one place or send material as email attachments that gets forwarded across your prospect’s organizations. You may use all these tools separately, which makes it hard for your prospect to find what they’re looking for – and practically impossible for you to control what’s going on.
The good news is that there is a solution. Sales enablement (and buyer enablement) has come a long way and there are tools that gather all these interactions in one place. These tools can let you truly control these interactions, enable your buyer and make the sales journey so much smoother for everyone
involved.
A combination that can boost your win rate
Now, we’ve talked a lot about the value of asynchronous interactions, but that isn’t to say that the synchronous ones aren’t important. I.e. the live sales meetings you run still have to be prioritized to up your odds of winning the deal. This, in turn, implies that to increase your chance of winning, you’ll need to be in control of both your live sales meetings – and everything that happens between them.
This can be done in multiple ways, one of which is to use a good Digital Sales Room. These are enablement tools that can let you gather all interactions in one digital space throughout the whole journey. In other words, you can hold your digital meetings in the same space where you can connect with your prospect between meetings. Which, in turn, means that you can connect with your prospect more, and get more of their time as a result.
Why that matters? We mentioned earlier that your prospect spends some 5 % of their time with you. Now, if you can achieve an X % win rate with 5 % of their time, imagine what could happen if you get 10 or 15 % of their time.
SP_CE gives you and your buyer a persistent space where you can control what happens in – and between – meetings. Contact our sales team to see how it works – and start your SP_CE journey today.
