jasonRmoore

The annual TED conference is happening right now in California.  Expect to see a lot of buzz around mind-blowing presentations and conversations from the some of the world’s finest thinkers.

The first TED talk that hit one of my chords was by Jamie Oliver (video below) on the effect that the world’s eating habits are not only having on current death tolls but also our children’s expected lifespan.

Jamie presents a simple pyramid diagram of where the effort is needing to come from, so our children learn the important food lessons that the vast majority of my generation were not taught properly.

Watch the video above.  I would love to hear your take on his message.

Is it realistic?

Are we ready?

An important aspect of being a true SaaS model is the ability for your customers to become a paying customer without the need to interact with someone directly.  Many SaaS companies also utilize the efficient practice of auto-renewing their clients with an easy option to cancel their subscribed services.  The advantages to this are lower acquisition costs due to the absence of man-power, and — if your cost structure is low enough — an almost “under the radar” effect for the renewal.

We approach this transaction differently, though, for our HelpDesk ticket software for specific reasons.

NOTE: One key aspect that should be considered when making this decision is the size of your average transaction.  If you have a $2.00/month subscription, an auto-renewal system is a must.  This is vastly different than a $2,500+/year subscription relationship.

Our clients predominantly choose an annual contract versus a monthly subscription based on the impact to their business.  Switching costs are high when you are serving as the backbone for an entire department or across multiple departments.

Due to the nature of our clients and how they use our products, we view renewals as a chance to build upon our relationship with them as well as look for opportunities for cross-selling, up-selling, or identifying needs not being met with their current subscriptions.  This is where renewals go from merely keeping the lights on to being a growth stream for your company.

Many of our clients are also education and government organizations.  Many times, having a credit card on file is not something they prefer when buying.

There is more than likely a formula that can be derived based upon some key factors:

• Renewal amount/frequency
• Number of clients
• Compensation of employee responsible for renewals
• Internal opportunities for cross- and up-sells
• Do clients need PO process associated with invoice?

Although auto-renewals are an extremely valuable addition to most SaaS offerings in the consumer marketplace, be aware of some of the opportunities that your company may miss out on when not utilizing the opportunity to build on your personal relationships.

Sign-up forms on your website are a critical component for any successful SaaS company.  Are you paying enough attention, or are you putting the responsibility on your prospects to navigate rough waters?

Taking this thought further, most SaaS applications are an in-depth form with specific functionality wrapped around it.  With that thought in mind, how much time is spent during the development process thinking of the interaction with your SaaS as a conversion opportunity?

This post from the Conversion Room Blog is geared towards your website forms, but the information is extremely valuable when it comes to application design, as well.

Our HelpDesk Ticket software is a very clear example of the “app as a form” concept.

The thought of each interaction with our HelpDesk as a conversion opportunity is brand new to me.  I’m hoping to get feedback on this concept to flesh it out further.

One complication that many SaaS products will encounter is their highly configurable nature.  Taking into consideration your clients’ desire to add more and more fields to your standard form will certainly increase the amount of care needed for pre-launch design.

How will the conversion rate change when too many custom fields are added?

Will the intended “simple” feel of your application be lost once a local administrator has their say?

How can you preempt this common behavior?

Thinking of our application as a conversion calculator for organization’s support structure is interesting (to me).  What would our conversion funnel –for brand new clients– look like from logging in through work order request completion?

Note: I apologize to Seth Godin for a post of similar names on the same day. I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone when I saw his post in my reader this morning.  I kept the “Gatherers’” part even though his “Farmers” is probably more accurate due to the active nature of farming versus the passive nature of gathering.

Hunters and Gatherers are roles that are critically important to every civilization throughout history.  Your organization (expecially your sales team) is no different.

The key to successfully building your sales team is identifying up-front who on your staff fits each role as both are needed.

Gatherers are task-oriented and better suited to cultivating your current client-base for up-sells, cross-sells, and farming for referrals.  They are people who are better suited in roles of consistency.  Gatherers are able to identify potential trouble areas and apply the right amount of care to get them back to a healthy state.  Meticulous, observant, and patient are key attributes for your Gatherers.

With bigWebApps HelpDesk ticket software, it is vitally important to maintain our referral percentage above 90%.  This is the lifeblood of any SaaS model. SaaS Churn is discussed from a mathematical stance by Joel York in a recent post on his must-read Chaotic Flow blog.

The continual revenue stream from renewals affords the company stability for those periods of drought that your company is certain to experience.  Are you making sure your Gatherers are getting the praise that they deserve?  It is easy for them to be over-shadowed by the glitz and glamour that comes along with your Hunters’ new business.

Hunters, on the other hand, are not naturally gifted at the tasks necessary for cultivating your current fields.  Hunters are restless folks who excel at tracking moving targets.  The challenge of finding the right spot, establishing a valuable working relationship, and bringing them in as a client is what motivates them.  Hunters must be challenged in a different way than Gatherers.  Going to the same fields each and every day throughout the year not only doesn’t excite them; it demoralizes them.

Hunters have the ability to boost overall morale at a company.  At bigWebApps, we intentionally communicate “big wins” throughout the company in an attempt to let them know that without their specific services, the Hunter would not be able to perform.

Growing our business with both Hunters and Gatherers for our HelpDesk ticket software is vital for the future of the company.

Renewals are for today.  New business is for tomorrow. (note: this statement is being contended internally. more to come in a future blog post)

bigWebApps is currently looking for Hunters for our Atlanta office.  If you are interested in hunting with us for our HelpDesk ticket software, click here to see the job description.

Photo Credit: The Library of Congress. Click on the image to see their Flickr photostream.

New technology is not always about inventing a better process.

Many times, your client may already have a fantastic map of how they perform a specific function for their organization.  When you encounter this, is your SaaS application ready to be the tool that helps them better execute on their plan?  Or is your application built in a way that forces them into what you perceive (or at least market) to be a “better” way of doing things?

Building your application in a way that allows your client base to transition through your offering is one key to building a successful sales process.  The decision maker that your sales team is talking to may agree that you have a “better” process, but she does not feel it is worth the pain of interrupting her team’s flow for incremental benefit.  This is one of the toughest roadblocks to encounter as a salesperson.  The best response your team can have for this line of thought is to have the transition process well documented based on past successes.  These are very specific case studies that don’t talk about long-term success with your product as much as it focuses in on the successful launch of your product.

Getting a prospect to envision her and her team successfully crossing the bridge is the primary goal.  Your product is going to make her team more successful.  It’s your job to help her visualize the navigation of the trip.

There are times when a prospect’s process needs to be sent to pasture, but on the flip side of that coin are the cases where your application needs to merely grease the wheel of their current model.