Founder-led sales: negotiating and closing enterprise SaaS deals. Presented to the Alchemist class XXVIII founders.

1. Negotiating and closing enterprise SaaS deals
Alchemist Accelerator sales training | May 2021
Dan Turchin | dturchin@gmail.com | (650)533-0918 | @dturchin

2. Objectives
1. Define your negotiating style
2. Refine your sales process
3. Understand the principles of
enterprise SaaS negotiation
4. Rehearse your pitch
5. Close your next deal
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3. The sales process
1
Closing
Negotiate and close: vendor onboarding,
InfoSec review, MSA, contracts, signatures
3
Technical evaluation
Secure support from internal sponsor.
Achieve technical selection. Deliver paid
POC if needed.
5
Lead qualification
Cultivate a sponsor. Understand business
environment. Qualify in or release back to
marketing funnel if not ready.
2
Business value assessment
Define and present the business case.
Quantify the pain and payback period.
4
Opportunity evaluation
Identify BANT: budget, authority, need,
timeline
MQL
SQL
Opportunity
Forecast
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4. The compelling event
1. Annual or quarterly company goals
2. Annual or quarterly individual or team goals
3. Annual budget cycle
4. Vendor support renewal
5. Outsourcer re-compete or contract negotiation
6. External - board or shareholder - commit
Identify one or more compelling events and associated dates
to create urgency and negotiating leverage.
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5. The negotiation
1. Document the buying process.
2. Only negotiate with the buyer.
3. Use quid pro quo to your advantage.
4. Sell value. Not price.
5. Leave room for upside.
6. Protect SaaS margins. Don’t negotiate subscription fees.
7. Have a BATNA.
8. Know your levers.
a. Subscription term
b. Professional services
c. Deployment architecture
d. Support SLAs
e. Deployment timeline
f. Referenceability
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6. Horizontal SaaS deal types by size and complexity
Direct Indirect OEM
Enterprise
Federal
SLED
SMB
Circle size = deal size; color = complexity
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7. The SaaS sales stack: roles and resources
Role Resource Representative vendors
Sales leader CRM Salesforce, Pipedrive
Sales training Gong, Chorus, MindTickle
Sales management Clari, Xactly
Account executive CRM Salesforce, Pipedrive
Prospecting LeadIQ, Xant
ABM Demandbase
Sales development representative Engagement Outreach, Yesware
Marketing Automation HubSpot, Marketo, Pardot
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8. Case study: selling value to an F100 enterprise
Key metrics
● Sales cycle: nine months
● Land: $275K
● Expand: $1.2M
● Subscription term: three
years
● Decision maker: Senior
Director
The sales process
1. Lead qualification
2. Opportunity analysis
3. Technical evaluation
4. Business value
assessment
5. Negotiation and closing
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9. Group exercise: objection-handling
1. List the top three most common sales objections you hear.
2. Describe how you respond to each one.
3. How can you use disqualification questions to convert objections into
opportunities?
“The selling starts when the prospect says ‘no’!”
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10. Role play exercise #1: the discovery call
1. Establish roles: seller and buyer
2. Set objectives
3. Understand roles and responsibilities
4. Probe for pain
5. Introduce the solution
6. Confirm next steps, owners, and objectives
“Be prepared to fire the customer.”
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11. Role play exercise #2: the negotiation
1. Reverse roles: seller and buyer
2. Business value assessment completed and approved
3. Identify budget and budget owner
4. Identify success metrics
5. Identify priorities
6. Use levers to structure deal
7. Agree or revert to BATNA
“Establish value and you’ll never need to negotiate.”
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12. Learn from the best
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13. Alchemist Accelerator sales training | May 2021
Dan Turchin | dturchin@gmail.com | (650)533-0918 | @dturchin
Questions?
Negotiating and closing enterprise SaaS deals