6 Reasons To Not Stick With Just Self-Service

Dear SaaStr: Can B2B sales ever be 100% automated?

Of course it can.

It is called self-service.

And with PLG the rage these days, folks are trying harder and harder.  Especially where budgets are reduced, and the next round looks far harder to close than it used to.

And it works great, up to a point. The question is, do you want to do better than that?

• Do you want to sell deals much more than $299 / month? Prospects really want to a live human before putting much more than that, at least to start, on a credit card.
• Do you want to close more of the potential seats / revenue up front? If so, a sales professional will maximize the odds you sell a full solution to everyone. Not just a few to start.  You’ll likely close more of the ultimate potential deal size up front with a salesteam.  And maybe, make sure the competition doesn’t grab some of the other potential seats and use cases.
• Do you want to really understand your customers’ problem — and find a solution for them? That’s what enterprise sales does. At least, when it does it well.
• Is your product stronger than your brand?  If so, talking to prospects and customers can help them see that.
• Do you want to beat the competition more often? If you talk to your prospects and customers, you can explain to them why you are the better solution. This increases the odds you win vs. the competition.
• Do you want to close faster? Sales professionals create urgency.

Eventually, Slack added sales. Eventually, Zoom added sales. Twilio added sales. Eventually, even Atlassian added sales.  In fact, only 11% of public SaaS companies only sell to SMBs and are primarily freemium  … even if many started there, from Twilio to MongoDB to Asana and more:

Sales costs money. Sales adds friction. Sales changes your culture. Maybe you aren’t ready for that yet. But if you do it right — your revenue probably goes up.