r/SaaSSales

In my previous B2B SaaS Startup, after we found PMF and knew what we sold, who bought and how to close, the problem became throughput; Every time when we wanted more in the pipeline, the answer was 'hire another SDR' or 'buy another tool' and the cost went up faster than the results.

The GTM was a mess, with lot of tools; one for list building, one for enrichment, one for sending and a CRM to see what's happening.

It's was fragmented and felt like we were spending too much to keep it running.

For those of you past the "we have real revenue" line, but not yet a big GTM/RevOps team:

#1 Where did it actually break for you? sourcing, personalization, follow-up, tracking, or just the glue between them?

#2 Did you solve it with more people, more tools, or by ripping something out and simplifying?

#3 If you could wave a wand and fix one part of your GTM motion tomorrow, what would it be?

P.s., trying to figure out if this was just us or if everyone at this stage is duct-taping the same thing together.

What has been your experience so far and how you managed to get the job?

I've been building Sweet, a warehouse management system (WMS) for small-to-mid logistics operations, on Laravel/PHP. It's a subscription product, hosted separately per client.

Fast forward to today: 10 active paying customers, all in Italy, all found through word of mouth and my existing network in the logistics industry.

Now I'm stuck on the "next 10." Word of mouth got me this far but it's slow and I can't just wait for referrals anymore. A few things about my situation:

• It's a niche B2B vertical (warehouse/logistics ops), not a mass-market tool
• Sales cycle involves some trust-building — these are operational businesses, not early adopters
• I have some organic distribution already (my publications reach logistics professionals) but haven't systematically used it for lead gen
• Budget for paid acquisition is limited (solo/bootstrapped)

Questions for people who've grown a niche vertical SaaS past the "friends and referrals" stage:

1. What actually worked to get from ~10 to ~30-50 customers in a narrow B2B niche?
2. Did outbound (cold email/LinkedIn) work for you in an "old school" industry like logistics, or was it a waste of time?
3. Anyone leveraged an existing content/publication channel into a real lead funnel? How did you structure it?

Not looking for generic "do content marketing" advice — happy to hear specifics, even if it's "this didn't work for me."

thank you in advance

My cofounder and I have been trying to build a real business together for more than four years.
We’re based in Bahrain, and both of us come from strong IT and technical backgrounds. Building software has never really been the problem for us.
Over the years, we’ve built different products, internal tools, SaaS ideas, and custom software solutions.

If we understand a problem technically, we’re usually confident that we can build a solution for it.
But after four years, we’ve realized something uncomfortable:
**Our biggest weakness is not product development.**
**It’s sales and distribution.**
We know how to build.

We’re much less experienced at consistently:
Finding the right customers.
Reaching decision makers.
Running good discovery.
Understanding real customer pain.
Positioning the product.
Closing deals.
Building partnerships.
And eventually creating a repeatable distribution engine.

We don’t want to spend another few years becoming even better engineers while staying weak at the part that actually gets products into customers’ hands.
Our home market is Bahrain. Long term, we want to sell across the GCC, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, and Bahrain. Right now, we’re trying to treat sales and distribution almost like another technical skill that we need to deliberately learn. Not just watching sales videos or reading books. Actually doing the work until we become good at it. We want to know how to take something valuable from:
**0 customers → first 10 → first 50 → repeatable acquisition → GCC expansion.**

If you were two technical founders in our position, I’d really appreciate your perspective.

What would you do for the next 6–12 months to become genuinely good at B2B sales?

Would you focus heavily on founder-led cold calling and in-person sales first, or learn several channels at the same time?

What should technical founders master first?

How would you learn distribution, not just sales techniques?

For founders selling in the GCC, what channels have actually worked for you?

Would you intentionally sell one product manually for a year just to build the sales muscle, even if it isn’t your final product?

How do you know when poor results come from weak sales execution versus a weak offer, wrong ICP, or weak product-market fit?

How should two technical cofounders divide responsibilities while both are still learning sales?

What books, courses, communities, mentors, or actual exercises genuinely improved your ability to sell?

If you could go back to when you were technically strong but commercially weak, what would you stop doing immediately?

What should we measure every week to know whether we’re actually improving at sales and distribution?

What do founders misunderstand most about selling in the GCC compared with the US or Europe?

**If our goal was to become as strong at distribution as we are at building software, what would you have us do?**

Over the past two months, I have been developing my Software as a Service (SaaS) product and successfully acquired one paid customer last week.

However, I am uncertain about the best strategies for attracting additional customers. Should I consider hiring a marketing agency, or explore alternative options?

Any feedback or constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated.

I have validated the concept and completed the development, and I have also engaged several agency owners to test the product.

It's not a job posting or any job seeking post, I am asking for guidance from those who have built and launched SaaS.

Hi all, I am looking for help with lead generation. i am the co-founder of a SaaS. I have been doing Linkedin outbound myself and selling on my own. I would like to say i have a pretty good close rate, by my problem is generating enough pipeline conversations at the top of funnel.

Would a lead gen agency / fractional SDR / fractional VP be right in this use case? I can't materially do all outbound channels and even if I do, i cannot do it justice given so many things demanding my attention

I understand i need to build marketing and inbound motions, but that is a time x money equation. which for a bootstrapped startup is going to take a while, which is why a full blown agency is also an expensive endeavour. anyone know anyhing suited to startups? or how did you solve this problem?

product is compliance & grc. focus is US, AU, NZ, CA markets

I have a working SaaS product for small businesses that need simple employee time tracking. It’s live, has a free plan and paid plan, and I’m looking for someone who can actually get it in front of business owners and turn some of them into users.
I’m not looking for someone to sit around making cold calls for minimum wage lol. I want somebody who knows how to find businesses, start conversations and close.
Commission only to start. I’m open to figuring out a structure that makes sense if someone proves they can sell it.
The product is NuvoWork if you want to look at it before reaching out.
If you’re good at selling SaaS or small-business software and want to build something from the ground up, DM me with a little about yourself and how you’d approach getting the first customers.

Hi everyone,

I’ve recently developed a web-based **HRMS (Human Resource Management System)** and I’m now at the stage where I want to start promoting it and getting it in front of the right audience.

I’m looking for advice from people who have experience with **SaaS marketing, B2B marketing, or growing HR/HRMS products**.

What would you recommend for a new HRMS product to:

* Reach HR managers, business owners, and decision-makers?
* Get the first few customers/users?
* Promote the product through digital platforms?
* Decide between SEO, Google Ads, LinkedIn, Reddit, content marketing, email marketing, etc.?
* Build awareness without spending a huge amount on advertising?

I’m particularly interested in hearing from people who have **actually marketed or grown a SaaS/B2B product** and can share what worked (and what didn’t).

If you were launching an HRMS product today, **what would your first 3–5 marketing steps be?**

Any practical advice, resources, or lessons from your own experience would be really helpful.

Thanks!

my cofounder and i built a booking app for salons in Bahrain and have been cold calling to sell it ourselves. no sales background, just the two of us on the phone. past 300 calls now, and every call seems to die in one of the same three spots.

first one. when an owner says “send me the details on WhatsApp so i can understand better,” what do i actually do? right now i just send a text with a short explanation and the link, and it mostly disappears into nothing. should i be sending a short video instead, calling back at a set time, or is the mistake something else entirely?

second one. sometimes it goes “okay, great idea, i’ll call you tomorrow,” or “you can call me tomorrow at 3.” sounds positive in the moment, but almost nothing comes of it. do i just accept whichever version they offer, or is there a better way to lock that down before i hang up?

third one, probably the most common. i get passed to an employee or manager instead of the owner, and it goes one of three ways. they can’t communicate the idea well, they say they can’t share the owner’s details, or they say they don’t know when the owner will be around. how do people who actually do this for a living get past that without sounding pushy?

any one of these would help a lot. if you’ve dealt with gatekeepers or small business owners specifically, even more so.

​

I’ve been in SaaS sales for 7 years and currently work in a team of 10 Account Executives. I’m consistently one of the top performers on the team, producing roughly 3x the revenue of my closest competitor.

About 90% of my deals are inbound, and I typically close 3–4 whale deals per month.

There’s one territory, however, where I’ve developed a very different approach: India.

After working across multiple territories for years, I’ve found this market relatively easy to generate demos from, but significantly harder to convert efficiently.

The pattern I’ve experienced is:

Very high initial interest and demo volume

Highly demanding prospects

Requirements changing repeatedly throughout the sales cycle

Limited transparency around the actual buying process and decision-makers

Significant price sensitivity, even after substantial discounts

Deals requiring a disproportionate amount of time relative to their expected value

In some cases, customers churning shortly after signing because they ultimately consider the pricing too high

For context, I’ve closed only 2 whale deals from India over the last 3 years.

One churned after 3 months despite receiving a 70% discount, with pricing ultimately being cited as the reason.

The second signed but didn't make payment for roughly 3 months.

I still close smaller deals from the territory, but when I look at the overall economics, I’m struggling to justify the investment.

At this point in my career, I can usually identify fairly early in a sales cycle when a deal is going to become a time sink. A deal can easily consume 2–10 hours once you factor in demos, additional meetings, calls, follow-ups, negotiations, internal coordination, etc.

Recently, I’ve started canceling or deprioritizing demos from this territory when the early qualification signals suggest the deal isn't worth pursuing.

It has made me much more transactional, and I know I’m probably leaving some revenue on the table. But I’m also protecting my time and focusing on opportunities where the probability of closing and retaining the customer is significantly higher.

I’m conflicted because I know this approach isn't necessarily optimal from a pure revenue-maximization perspective.

So I’m curious how other experienced SaaS sellers would handle this.

Would you:

Continue taking every inbound opportunity and qualify harder during the call?

Introduce stricter qualification criteria based on ACV, budget, authority, use case, etc.?

Apply different sales motions to this territory?

Accept that some territories simply have a worse effort-to-revenue ratio and prioritize accordingly?

Or am I simply falling into confirmation bias because I’ve seen the same patterns repeatedly?

I’m specifically interested in hearing from people who have managed large inbound funnels across multiple countries or territories.

How do you decide when a territory is genuinely inefficient versus when you’re just giving up too early?

My product is finally ready. It helps SaaS companies understand **why customers cancel** and show dynamic offers before they leave. Setup takes <10 minutes.

I’ve shortlisted 10 companies that match my ICP. Now I’m nervous about actually reaching out 😅

I want to lead with value instead of “hey, try my product.”

**If you were me, how would you approach these first 10 to maximize replies?**

I'm a co- founder of an early- stage B2B SaaS (FinOps - we find cloud cost savings on Azure and gamify them so engineers actually act on them). We're pre-funding, product is live, first pipeline exists. We can't pay a base salary yet, so I'm designing a commission-only partner program and I'd rather have this community destroy it now than lose good reps to a bad plan later.

The plan:

• Customers sign 1–3 year licenses, billed annually in advance. License price = 20–30% of the validated annual cloud savings we find them (we scan their environment first, so reps walk into meetings with the prospect's own numbers).
• Partner gets 50% of margin on every annual invoice of every customer they close. Not a one-time bounty - a 3-year deal pays you three times, and renewals keep paying.
• Margin is computable upfront: invoice amount minus a fixed delivery-cost allowance written into the partner contract. No discretionary deductions. You know your payout before you sign the deal.
• Commission due within 30 days of the customer paying each invoice. Since customers pay annually in advance, you get a full-year commission near the start of each contract year.
• Grandfathering in writing: accounts closed during our early phase stay at 50% for the customer's lifetime, including renewals - even after we raise and standard partner rates drop.
• We provide inbound leads, demo environment, and founder support on every deal (technical pre- sales included).

Rough math on a mid-size account: ~$100k validated annual savings → ~$25k/yr license → roughly $8–9k/yr commission per account, ~$27k over a 3- year term. Five accounts ≈ $45k/yr recurring.
My questions for people who've actually done commission-only:

1. What would make you walk away from this offer immediately?
2. Is annual-invoice-based payout a dealbreaker vs. monthly, given the sales cycle?
3. What am I missing that plans like this usually hide?

Full disclosure: yes, we're also looking for partners (EU + US), and my DMs are open. But I'm posting primarily because I'd rather fix the plan now. Be brutal.

I've been noticing a pattern in SaaS communities lately: a lot of founders have clearly put serious work into building the product, but then hit a completely different problem: figuring out the marketing side. And that's completely understandable. Building the product and figuring out how to get the right people to find it are two very different problems.

I've spent 10+ years working in content, and if I were starting the content side of a SaaS from scratch, I wouldn't begin with "let's publish 12 blog posts this month." I'd first figure out what is actually worth publishing, then make sure every piece has a reason to exist.

First things first, I wouldn't wait before thinking about SEO. I'm not an SEO specialist, but organic search takes time to build, so I'd rather have the groundwork in place early than decide six months later that we should probably start publishing.

For the blog, if you're not sure how to go about it, here's what I'd do.

1. First, figure out what is actually worth writing

Your keyword strategy should lead the way, but if you don't have one yet, I'd start much closer to the customer. Talk to prospects who are considering your product. What are they asking you? What are they unsure about? What are they comparing? What problem are they trying to solve before they get to your product?

Those questions are content opportunities.

One sprint I'd almost blindly look at is alternatives and comparison content. Got competitors? Those businesses are constantly losing customers, and some of those customers are actively looking for better options. If you're a project management SaaS, for example, I'd look at things like "Asana alternatives," "Asana vs X," "Asana alternatives for small teams," "Asana alternatives for agencies," pricing alternatives, migration questions, feature comparisons, and so on.

And I wouldn't stop at the first "alternatives" article. Map the whole decision around that competitor. What makes someone look for an alternative? What are they unhappy with? What are they trying to do that the competitor doesn't handle well? What questions do they have before switching? What could stop them from switching?

Now you're not just producing a list of keywords. You're learning about the actual buying decision. That can influence your comparison pages, landing pages, positioning, CTAs, product messaging, and even what you decide to improve in the product.

That's the kind of content work I'd want to do before sitting down and saying, "Okay, we need 12 blog posts this month."

2. Once you've picked the topic, use this checklist for every article

This is where I'd stop worrying about AEO, GEO, schema and every other new acronym for a minute. Get the basics right first. A lot of content isn't failing because it isn't "optimized" enough. It's failing because the reader has to work too hard to get something that should have been obvious.

Answer the actual question immediately. If someone searches for "cart recovery strategies," don't spend the first 400 words explaining why abandoned carts are bad for ecommerce. They know. That's why they're searching for cart recovery strategies. Get into the strategies. Give them the answer first, then add the context, examples and reasoning where they're actually useful.

Same logic with almost any query. Someone searching "how to migrate from X to Y" doesn't need a history lesson on why migrations matter. Someone searching "X alternatives" already knows what X is. Don't explain the problem they've already told you they have. Solve it.

Add a TL;DR that actually answers the question. I like TL;DRs, especially for longer pieces. But don't use them as a vague summary of everything the article covers. Make the TL;DR answer the primary question. If the article is about cart recovery strategies, the TL;DR should give me the main strategies. If it's about choosing between two tools, give me the key differences and who each one is best for. If it's "how to fix X," give me the key steps.

There's a strange fear that if you give people the answer upfront, they won't read the rest. That's fine. The point isn't to force someone to consume 2,500 words. If they got exactly what they needed from your TL;DR in 30 seconds, you did your job. If they want the examples, data, screenshots, reasoning or deeper explanation, they'll keep reading.

Look at the first 10 results and find what they're missing. This is where I think the AEO/GEO conversation gets interesting, but I'd put it after the fundamentals. Look at the pages already ranking and ask: what would make my version more useful?

Maybe all 10 have the same generic list. Maybe nobody has actually tested the recommendations. Maybe everyone recommends the same tools but nobody explains which one works for different use cases. Maybe they're all making the same claim without showing the data. Maybe nobody has included screenshots. Maybe the answers are technically correct but completely impractical.

That's your opening. If the first 10 results say the same thing, don't become the 11th result saying the same thing. Add something: original research, customer data, screenshots, experiments, examples, expert input, a useful comparison table, first-hand experience, a framework, or simply a better explanation.

The value doesn't have to be groundbreaking. Sometimes it's just answering the question everyone else skipped.

Make it easy to skim. Don't avoid tables, lists or short sections because you've heard that structured content looks like AI. Who cares? If a table makes the information easier to understand, use a table. If I'm comparing five products, show me the important differences before making me read five 500-word sections. If there are seven steps, show me the seven steps. If there are three options and the right choice depends on the situation, make that easy to see.

You're writing for a person who has somewhere else to be. Make their job easier.

Don't be afraid to talk about your product. This is where companies usually go wrong in one of two directions. They either turn every article into a sales pitch, or they're so scared of being promotional that they won't mention their own product even when it's directly relevant.

Talk about your product when it actually helps answer the question. If the article is discussing a problem your product solves, mention the specific feature that solves it. If a customer got a great result from that feature, show it. If you've got a case study that proves the point, use it.

A random "Try our platform" CTA at the bottom isn't very persuasive. "Here's the problem we just discussed. Here's how our product handles it. Here's what happened when a customer used it." That's a much stronger product mention. A product plug without backing doesn't go very far.

Use case studies inside the article. If you have case studies, don't hide all of them on your case study page. Turn relevant ones into in-content callouts or cards and put them next to the section where they're actually useful.

For example, if you're explaining how a SaaS improved activation rates, and you have a customer who improved activation using that exact feature, that's where I'd surface the case study. Not five screens later.

Technically, these can just be HTML callout blocks or cards. They don't need to be some crazy interactive experience. The important part is the placement. The reader should see the proof at the exact moment they're thinking, "Okay, but does this actually work?"

Add FAQs for the questions that remain. Don't add an FAQ because someone told you every article needs one. Use it to answer the questions that naturally remain after the main article.

I'd pull those questions from real places: search results, Reddit, sales calls, customer support, reviews, comments, and questions prospects keep asking. The goal isn't to squeeze five more keywords onto the page. It's to remove the questions still sitting in the reader's head.

Internal link like you're helping the reader, not checking a box. Don't add three internal links because your SEO checklist says you need three. Add the link because the reader has a reason to click it.

If I'm reading about one part of a problem and you have another article that answers the question I'm likely to have next, link to it. If you're talking about a category and have a relevant comparison page, link to it. If you've just explained a problem and have a guide that shows me how to solve the next stage, link to it.

Internal links become much more useful when you think about the reader's next question, rather than the number of links you need to place.

Give the reader a logical next step. Before publishing, I'd ask: someone just finished this article. What should they do now?

Maybe it's another article. Maybe it's a comparison page. Maybe it's a case study. Maybe it's a product feature. Maybe it's a demo or signup. It depends on the topic and where that reader is in the buying process.

That's also why I don't love one generic CTA slapped onto the bottom of every article. If the relevant next step becomes obvious halfway through the article, put it there. Don't make the reader finish the article, find the navigation, hunt down your product page and figure out the connection themselves.

Finally, read it like a customer, not a content marketer.

Forget the word count. Forget whether you hit the "ideal" number of headings. Forget whether you've used the keyword enough times. Forget whether your article looks like the pages ranking above you.

Read it as someone who actually has the problem. Did I get my answer quickly? Did I learn something? Did I get something I can actually use? Did you show me evidence instead of making a bunch of claims? Was it easy to get through? Did I understand what to do next?

And most importantly: did this make me trust this company more?

If yes, you're already doing a lot right.

I'd much rather publish something genuinely useful, with clear thinking, real examples and a sensible next step than spend hours trying to reverse-engineer whatever the latest AEO/GEO checklist says we're supposed to do.

For those working in B2B sales — what does your process actually look like after a demo goes well?

Once more people start getting involved (security, procurement, legal, technical teams, etc.), how do you keep everyone aligned? Email threads? CRM? Slack? Spreadsheets? Mutual action plans? Something else?

I’m especially curious about where things usually start getting messy or fall through the cracks.

Hi all, I’m a US based sales leader (29 years old), spent my whole career at Gartner (6 years) where I worked my way up the ladder in SMB (AM ➡️ AE ➡️ Sr AE ➡️ 1st Line Leader ➡️ Sr 1st Line Leader), finishing 2025 in the global top performing <1% of the company (earned around $245k doing so which is well above OTE at the time)

I’ve been having serious doubts about my future here as I don’t trust the business model as I used to with AI disruption despite the big brand we have, and in general am nowhere near as motivated as I used to be. I have been looking at 1st line SaaS/Tecb leadership opportunities outside with higher upside. I’ve received multiple offers, and after doing my due diligence, Navan seems to be the most attractive opportunity. However, I’m top candidate for a 2nd line leader promotion (Area VP) starting Jan 1st and been offered the role.

Below are both options I have:

1. Gartner SMB Area VP, leading a region of 3 leaders + 20 reps, $270k OTE

2. Navan Commercial Segment Regional Director, leading a team of 7 reps, $325k OTE

I want to maximize my upside and widen my skillset which Navan would help with, however I’d be walking away from a lot at Gartner. I want to make the move that will also strengthen my CV after 2-3 years of doing one of the 2 above roles.

Keen to hear everyone’s thoughts and what everyone thinks the stronger move is!

I keep seeing SAAS companies with good product do have strong marketing.....
why it's the issue.

#SAAS #marketing