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I've been part of the team that sets up this process at a few SaaS's, and I've done SaaS procurement for a while, so I clicked that button often (if I didn't kn

I've been part of the team that sets up this process at a few SaaS's, and I've done SaaS procurement for a while, so I clicked that button often (if I didn't know anyone at the company). 1. It gets added to a list of marketing website leads, which is owned by SDRs/BDRs who are there to filter and qualify leads. These are usually early-career people, with a base salary + quota for qualifying leads. The website is many times their least preferred channel of leads due to the quality, but they can't ignore it because sometimes good customers do come through there. 2. The SDR will either work over email or on a call; their goal is to identify if you're a real potential customer (vs shopping for prices, vs confused about what we sell), write up notes, and identify which customer segment you belong to (geography + business type + business size). 3. You will then speak to a salesperson (with varying titles "Account Executive", "Sales Director", "Regional VP of Enterprise Sales", or whatever inflated title makes sense for that sales organization). Their goal is to confirm they're speaking to the right person in your organization (or wasting their time), if your use case is meaningful enough for the "enterprise plan" (they can't sign too small deals), what your budget is, what your usage will be like, etc. 4. Pricing could be made up by guessing your price point, but it's rare. It is difficult to consistently make up pricing that works over time and doesn't have many lowball deals that harm the company's revenue long-term, and salespeople often don't understand the technical details well enough to make things up that make sense. Usually, there will be a pricing framework and an internal calculator (very often, a spreadsheet with formulae and VLOOKUPs) that will give them a range. They can then choose what number within that range to offer, based on who they think you are and how far off they are from their quarterly quota. 5. They can then negotiate the number, or the included features, or the payment terms (upfront payment, multi-year contract, exit clauses, etc.) which can be translated into discounts if they're favorable to the seller.

eloisant 2y ago
How is a lead from the website bad quality? It's litterally a customer saying "I want to subscribe and pay more than the self-service price tag", no?
- kroolik 2y ago
  Its more like "Im interested in subscribing and paying more"
  - anticensor 2y ago
    or, "I'm interested in paying less, in exchange of relieving some of your labour that you'd have to do to support my purchase"
- jkingsman 2y ago
  Or it's someone who's intrigued by the concept of the product and is curious how much it costs. All it literally can be interpreted as is "a [probable] human is curious how much this costs" — intent to purchase varies from positive to zero.
- preetamjinka 2y ago
  Depends on who clicks the button. It could be a junior person doing some research for their team, in which case they are not the decision maker nor the one with the budget/writing the check. If a VP clicks on the button, that's a different story.
  - fullspectrumdev 2y ago
    At a prior employer usually a team lead (without purchasing authority) would be told to go get a quote, go through all the BS, and only then hand over to “the higher authority” who can actually make the decision. Which predictably often lead to vendors losing out because their sales people ghosted team leads.
  - alkonaut 2y ago
    If I’m tasked with finding a price, the VP or whoever I report to will only find out about the services that have meaningful replies. And if a reply ever insinuated I was too low level to communicate with, that’s the last they’d hear from where I work.
  - asoneth 2y ago
supafastcoder 2y ago
Curious: what do you do when it's not a good enterprise lead but you still don't want to burn them as a customer? Do you point them to the self service solution?
- yannyu 2y ago
  Sometimes you'll have commercial/digital reps that handle high volume, low revenue customers. The company may also have a self-service/credit card swipe product option, or a free tier, or a support-only option.
- rsstack 2y ago
  When I worked at companies with self-service plans, we'd direct them there and say that we can't provide provide them enterprise service for now, until their company grows or their budget grows. When we didn't have self-service, we were just polite and that's all we could do.
- x0x0 2y ago
  There are also different teams. At my company, we sell deals between $25k and $1.2m/y. You obviously get very different salespeople taking those calls. Super junior salespeople promoted from SDRs train on the $25k-$40k; most salespeople handle midmarket deals up to maybe $200k; and the very best salespeople get the enterprise leads.
chromoblob 2y ago
> identify if you're a real potential customer (vs shopping for prices) ... what?
- rsstack 2y ago
  When people buy software they often speak to multiple vendors to compare prices. 90% of the time, they already know what they're going to use and they're only getting competitor quotes to show to their execs that they made the right decision. It isn't worth the time of the salespeople to entertain them, understand their usage, and give a quote if the customer already knows they want to use a competitor's product. Sometimes it is, sometimes not.
  - bachmeier 2y ago
    > It isn't worth the time of the salespeople to entertain them, understand their usage, and give a quote if the customer already knows they want to use a competitor's product. This quote reminds me of an eye-opening speech I attended way back about the things you learn about when you run a business. One of the lessons was that hiring the wrong salesperson can put you out of business. When you're hiring the first time, you think they're going to maximize their commissions. In reality, a lot of people are satisfied getting half the income they could by only taking the easy money. They might have to work five or ten times as hard to make the second half of sales, so they let those customers know they're disinterested and they go elsewhere. The tougher half of sales are maybe 90% of the potential customers, or maybe more than that. You lose 90% of your customer base initially, then people talk to others about their experience, you've lost half of the rest, and suddenly you're no longer a viable business.
    - portaouflop 2y ago
      Half of sales are 90% of potential customers? Lost me there But I agree the first few sales people are crucial, that’s why the founders do it usually
      - timr 2y ago
canadianfella 2y ago
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eloisant 2y ago

How is a lead from the website bad quality? It's litterally a customer saying "I want to subscribe and pay more than the self-service price tag", no?

kroolik 2y ago
Its more like "Im interested in subscribing and paying more"
- anticensor 2y ago
  or, "I'm interested in paying less, in exchange of relieving some of your labour that you'd have to do to support my purchase"
jkingsman 2y ago
Or it's someone who's intrigued by the concept of the product and is curious how much it costs. All it literally can be interpreted as is "a [probable] human is curious how much this costs" — intent to purchase varies from positive to zero.
preetamjinka 2y ago
Depends on who clicks the button. It could be a junior person doing some research for their team, in which case they are not the decision maker nor the one with the budget/writing the check. If a VP clicks on the button, that's a different story.
- fullspectrumdev 2y ago
  At a prior employer usually a team lead (without purchasing authority) would be told to go get a quote, go through all the BS, and only then hand over to “the higher authority” who can actually make the decision. Which predictably often lead to vendors losing out because their sales people ghosted team leads.
- alkonaut 2y ago
  If I’m tasked with finding a price, the VP or whoever I report to will only find out about the services that have meaningful replies. And if a reply ever insinuated I was too low level to communicate with, that’s the last they’d hear from where I work.
- asoneth 2y ago

supafastcoder 2y ago

Curious: what do you do when it's not a good enterprise lead but you still don't want to burn them as a customer? Do you point them to the self service solution?

yannyu 2y ago
Sometimes you'll have commercial/digital reps that handle high volume, low revenue customers. The company may also have a self-service/credit card swipe product option, or a free tier, or a support-only option.
rsstack 2y ago
When I worked at companies with self-service plans, we'd direct them there and say that we can't provide provide them enterprise service for now, until their company grows or their budget grows. When we didn't have self-service, we were just polite and that's all we could do.
x0x0 2y ago
There are also different teams. At my company, we sell deals between $25k and $1.2m/y. You obviously get very different salespeople taking those calls. Super junior salespeople promoted from SDRs train on the $25k-$40k; most salespeople handle midmarket deals up to maybe $200k; and the very best salespeople get the enterprise leads.

chromoblob 2y ago

> identify if you're a real potential customer (vs shopping for prices) ... what?

rsstack 2y ago
When people buy software they often speak to multiple vendors to compare prices. 90% of the time, they already know what they're going to use and they're only getting competitor quotes to show to their execs that they made the right decision. It isn't worth the time of the salespeople to entertain them, understand their usage, and give a quote if the customer already knows they want to use a competitor's product. Sometimes it is, sometimes not.
- bachmeier 2y ago
  > It isn't worth the time of the salespeople to entertain them, understand their usage, and give a quote if the customer already knows they want to use a competitor's product. This quote reminds me of an eye-opening speech I attended way back about the things you learn about when you run a business. One of the lessons was that hiring the wrong salesperson can put you out of business. When you're hiring the first time, you think they're going to maximize their commissions. In reality, a lot of people are satisfied getting half the income they could by only taking the easy money. They might have to work five or ten times as hard to make the second half of sales, so they let those customers know they're disinterested and they go elsewhere. The tougher half of sales are maybe 90% of the potential customers, or maybe more than that. You lose 90% of your customer base initially, then people talk to others about their experience, you've lost half of the rest, and suddenly you're no longer a viable business.
  - portaouflop 2y ago
    Half of sales are 90% of potential customers? Lost me there But I agree the first few sales people are crucial, that’s why the founders do it usually
    - timr 2y ago

canadianfella 2y ago

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