We need to hire more salespeople
“Tis the Season” – Annual Planning Season that is!
The old way of thinking is ingrained in the minds of many Revenue Leaders, and boards, but as the landscape of SaaS continues to evolve rapidly, a shift in mindset is necessary. It is no longer about simply hiring more salespeople to exceed already ambitious growth targets. The focus needs to be on maximizing existing resources effectively and focusing your sales capacity towards the most successful customer profiles.
There is so much wasted capacity, spending time on ill-fitting prospects for the sake of pipeline metrics, think about how you can reduce the noise for your reps so they can be more successful and measured in their efforts.
You have to work this into your model. From your TAM, work out how much is Serviceable (SAM) and then how much of that is truly Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM), the part of the market that you can not only service, but that you want to service, have to service and have a right to win!
Anyone can make something work on a spreadsheet…
As the SaaS industry goes through this period of transformation, Revenue Leaders are faced with a choice; adapt or be left behind. The old “Predictable Revenue” formulaic approach to scaling sales teams is no longer sufficient in a market where unit economics have drastically changed. It is time to redefine success metrics and embrace a new way of strategizing for growth.
No amount of spreadsheet work will solve this problem.
The problem your company has to solve is how to make more of your TAM Obtainable (AKA Serviceable Obtainable Market or SOM). Unless you have capacity in your current SOM, adding reps for the sake of adding reps is not going to help you scale.
