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Generating Pandemic SaaS Sales By @IanKhanLive | @CloudExpo [#Cloud]

Learn what works and what doesn't

Three Essential Steps to Generating Pandemic SaaS Sales | Part 1

Selling is a profession that you can never take lightly. To be successful at marketing and selling something you have got to be the best, on top of your game, ahead of the competition and ready to do what nobody else dares to do. The world of SaaS sales is no different. Competition can be cutthroat, with every next company offering the best shiniest object that can help you cure your worst nightmares and keep your numbers and yes the boss happy. That's far too easy!

So what is it that differentiates the lions form the lambs, the leaders from the followers and the ones who exceed their quotas to those who barely struggle to meet them. The three needed ingredients in this formula of success are not too far from what you may have thought a hundred times before. However success lies in not just knowing these principles but living, breathing and believing them as the source of your destiny.

A Sad Prospect Is a Good Prospect
Profiting from someone's pain does not sound like a good thing, but being able to take someone's pain away is the greatest deed ever. Meeting prospects who have a certain pain in their businesses, whether it's generating cash, marketing products, solving operational headaches or other, can be the best type of prospect you can meet. This is the time when they need a solution and someone who can deliver and take the pain away. Finding these prospects is a hard task but an essential one. If you fail to find companies, people and organizations that are not trying to solve a problem, you are not proactively selling. You are literally waiting for a sale to land in your lap, which does not usually turn out well.

Action Plan
Get out there and have as many conversations as possible. Don't hesitate to ask your prospects a direct question: "What is the biggest pain (in your area of expertise) that your business is currently facing?" Perhaps not every conversation will bring you a million dollar sale, but conversations will lead to opportunities, referrals, and finally recognition, when you are able to solve those problems with your solutions or products.

The SaaS world is competitive, cutthroat, fast moving and yet sometimes frustratingly slow. How do we excel in such an environment? Industry knowledge is key to starting conversations and conversations are the key to making sales happen. To survive get all the knowledge you can get and learn about everything that even remotely touches your product. That conversation at the bar or a coffee with a stranger at a trade show sometimes turns into a multi-million dollar opportunity, purely because of the mere industry knowledge and expertise that you possess. Your knowledge about not just your solution but a broader level of understanding is a testimony of your expertise and you may actually not even need to sell hard because the customer will be sold on your expertise in the first place, and second on the solution you offer. This is an absolute great way to open up the doors that have been closed for you. Guaranteed!

Do you have an opinion about this article? Feel free to comment.

More Stories By Ian Khan

Ian Khan leads Innovation & Marketing initiatives at Solgenia, a global Cloud services provider with more than 3500 enterprise customers globally that includes Top Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies. An advocate of Cloud computing and a thought leader driving change within the industry, Ian is a catalyst for collaboration and Cloud solutions. He has written for multiple industry publications, presented at various industry events worldwide, and brings more than 15 years of in depth technology experience across various industries. Ian is a PMP Certified Project Manager, MCSE, and an Instrumentation Technology engineer.

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