Getting a job in sales today is much like closing a deal – except maybe harder.
Often it involves reaching out to connections of connections to gather information about the company. The couple pieces of intel you get then give you enough information to get a meeting or phone call with a hiring manager. Sometimes you straight up cold-call the hiring manager or message them on LinkedIn. When you talk to the manager there is a fine dance between learning about the company and applying for the job. Essentially you to make sure you get past the HR screen and get a chance to interview. All this effort before you even submit your resume because you know that it will get lost in the pile that HR sifts through.
Once you are interviewing there are often multiple steps. A first get to know you interview with HR or the hiring manager. More formal interviews with other team members. And finally some kind of final assignment. I have seen cases where the end to end process is 4+ steps with a final assignment including a role play, 30/60/90, and an essay!
Now imagine going through all of this, only to get the feedback that the company is going to pass on you because you don’t have SaaS experience?
Either the hiring manager is clueless (then good thing you didn’t get the job) or they are too cowardly to give you real feedback. Because here’s the thing, SaaS is a business model that has nothing to do with a sales person’s ability to sell effectively.
Don’t believe me? Let’s stay in software for a moment and look at companies like SAP & Oracle. Both companies built massive revenue streams of on-premise software products sold up front with huge services fees. As the market shifted and demand for cloud products and a subscription model emerged, these companies also changed their model to prioritize “X”-as-a-Service. SAP & Oracle didn’t suddenly fire their sales teams because they had no SaaS experience. No, fundamentally the business problems their products and services solved did not change. Only their delivery model changed.
What makes a good sales person is their ability to understand the issues a customer is facing, listen to their problems, uncover or help build a vision for the future, and identify compelling connections between those issues, the vision, and the products and services their company offers. If those products and services realize the desired future state for the customer, you have a deal.
Pay close attention to what was just said – understand & listen to customer problems and issues. Those are the active verbs for the sales person. The active verbs are NOT sell, speak, convince, present, explain, negotiate, or any of the other stereotypes we unconsciously screen for.
Just think of the interview process at the beginning. The final evaluation of a candidate is often a pitch where managers assess things like a person’s executive presence, presentation, closing, or objection handling skills. Where in that process is the hiring manager finding out if you are able to truly understand a customer’s problems and listen effectively?
So the next time you are interviewing, if a hiring manager tells you that they are concerned you don’t have SaaS experience, use this as an opportunity to demonstrate the critical skill for sales – listen. What is the manager really trying to say? Is that the true objection?
In all likelihood the manager has a different concern you have yet to uncover, or you don’t want to work for them.
The Ferment 