It's farming, not fishing
Last week, I argued that once a team/organization makes a decision to replace a software system that your B2B SaaS competes with, you have a very short window, say a month, to get on their short list before you miss the opportunity. I had originally planned to use this week’s post to explore what that model looks like as more decision makers use AI chatbots like ChatGPT to get information. But I actually think it’s more interesting to explore what the model means in general. So that’s what I’m going to do.
Last time, I calculated that 96% of the B2B SaaS market isn’t open to buying your product at any given time. For me, the main takeaway from this is that B2B SaaS sales is more like farming than fishing. That is, you can’t just make a great product, start telling your ideal customers about it and expect them all to start buying. Because only one in twenty will even be open to considering new software.
But even for those one in twenty, there’s more to their decision than just which software seems the best. Every organization has multiple stakeholders with different priorities and ideas about what good looks like. So any individual stakeholder who becomes an internal champion is spending political capital, to take a risk that could damage their credibility for years. So amidst all this, the safe choice will almost always beat the best choice.
In other words, B2B SaaS sales and marketing isn’t about dipping your net into the stream and waiting for it to fill with fish. It’s about planting seeds that will grow into trust, then nurturing those seedlings of trust until that next window opens.
There’s very little you can do today to increase sales in the next month. But there’s a lot you can do to increase the chances that the next time a potential customer starts making a short list, they’ll think of you first and have the confidence and trust to follow through. Nurturing those seeds is the only way to grow your sales for the long run.
Thanks for reading Viral Esoterica! Through my company, Merelogic, I help clients build trust and credibility for the age of AI. To learn how I turn B2B SaaS companies into authoritative sources of industry knowledge and solutions, check out merelogic.net.