So some of you are just crushing it now, things are great.  Or things are little more challenging that the Go Go Days of 2021, but still just fine.  That’s great.  Good for you then.

But there will be times when almost all of us not only struggle … but are just sort of out of ideas.  About how to do better.

Well, this is SaaS.  The revenue recurs.  So that means there’s always a play to do at least do better.

Here’s my best advice on what to do … when you don’t have any ideas on what to do. 🙂

#1. Spend more time with existing customers.  Go visit all your top customers in person.  And do 5 more Zooms a week.

his always works.  I never lost a customer I met, or at least got to know well.  Never — not on my watch.  So when you don’t know what to do, go visit your customers in person.  If you do, they’ll churn less.  Recommend you buy.  Buy more.  And maybe, some of the conversations will stimulate your brain a bit.  And you’ll come up with 1 or 2 new ideas about how to do better.  I always did when I met with customers.  A bit more here:

#2.  Hire 1 great VP.

Yes, we’ve said this 100 times on SaaStr.  And yes, it’s still true.  A great VP will tilt the curve.  A great VP of Sales will sell more with what you have.  A great VP of Marketing will get you more leads and opportunities from the same budget.  A great VP of Product will pick better features.  A great VP of Engineering will ship you more features.  And a great VP of Customer Success will make your customers buy more, and churn less.  So at least pick one.  Pick 1 VP level position to go fill.  And fill it with someone great.  More here:

#3.  Drive Up NPS.  This always works.

Because it drives down churn, and drives up upsells, and net retention.  I prefer driving up NPS as a core KPI to just driving down churn.  Because there are too many excuses for not driving down churn.  But there are no excuses for not making customers happier.  Ever single SaaS company can drive up NPS.

I Was Wrong. NPS is A Great Core Metric.

4.  Join more sales calls. Everyone loves to talk to the CEO.

If you don’t know what to do in sales, do this one thing: join more Zooms and calls.  Customers and prospects love to talk to the CEO.  Even the CEO of a 5 person company.  They just respond to it.  And you know how to answer so many questions, and instill confidence.  Go join every key call, if the sales team wants you.  At least, let them give you a quota of say 5 sales calls a week they can bring you into.  More deals will close, at a higher ACV.

5.  Focus your leads on your top reps.

If you don’t know what to do, get the leads in the hands of those who can close.  Stop routing leads to the wrong reps.  Get the biggest potential customers into the hands of your top enterprise closer.  Get the smaller deals into the hands of your top high-volume closer.  Getting each lead into the hands of the right rep can easily increase revenue 20% or more in one quarter.  Often more.  With the exact same leads you already have.  More here:

5 Simple Tips to Improve How You Allocate Leads (In The Early-ish Days)

Think about it a bit … each of these 5 initiatives can increase revenue 20% with the leads and product you already have.  Each of them.

(note: an updated SaaStr Classic post)

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