Issue #6 - DiveIn, Digest, Ditch
In this issue: No sellout | Paid Social Addiction | Redefining Enterprise | Why Are Personas Useful? | ABM For Client Growth
March - end of Q1 is coming and we know in SaaS many sellers will miss their Q1’s target. It’s ironic that VC’s turn the money tap off but keep growth targets the same, as if funding isn't needed somehow needed for revenue growth.
At Buyingtime you can consider us an “active investor”, equally annoying and opinionated but without the ability to run your business. Our saving grace is we're a little bit funnier 🙂
No Sellout
I’m a big advocate for the warmth of a human relationship. I really enjoy those first 5 minutes when you tentatively crack a joke, see the reaction, watch for the moment the other person relaxes into the conversation.
As I get older I’m told authenticity is one thing people value about me in business. Saying what I think, having an opinion. That works whether talking about me, our business, your value proposition - all of it.
As we approach Q2 and the sales desperation that sometimes creeps in - we want to advocate for less force, fewer sales tactics and more honesty. Our community groups always crave greater transparency in the buying process, and never more so than this year when budgets are tight. Let’s face it, if you do the wrong deal the customer will simply churn. At MACH ONE the Boohoo team told me they’d never sign any deal longer than 12 months for software now - and IMHO this timeframe will actually get shorter.
Paid Social Addiction
For retailers whose growth has been driven by paid social, Google max performance and a variety of other acquisition models - this year is proving really difficult. Performance marketing departments and agencies are quietly having a tough time as ad spend plummets.
We’re pretty close to a number of merchants as they try to cope once again with an unpredictable year, but many are clear that their business had become addicted to ROAS-based paid social campaigns in the same way B2B companies are still addicted to events.
The real addicts have moved to google max - where there is limited control, no SKU data included and a blended set of channels automated to reach a single goal. Super-risky is an understatement.
The answer for some merchants has been cold turkey - turn off paid and go back to basics, fix the merchandising and re-start the ESP’s segmentation. If you’ve done this it’s paying off, right?
Redefining Enterprise
Our lovely events brand Commerce Futures is 11 years old, and to celebrate we’re running our own big conference in May in London. It’s deliberately targeted at mid-market online retailers, our original heartland. We’ve even given it an ICP in the sales deck…. NOT enterprise focused.
We probably have 120 tech firms each year give us an ICP, target account description, and there is one trend that sticks out already in 2023: redefining what “enterprise” means. Whether it’s a desire to make the number, or a desire to fill the room, or even a reaction to the focus MACH has on this group - we’re seeing the turnover figure mostly used to define “Enterprise” fall.
No longer are we talking about SAP’s old $1bn+ as the bar - but instead we reckon descriptions are settling on about £250m in the UK and $400m in the States. In other words, SaaS is manipulating the target audiences to fit the revenue target - there simply are not enough $1bn firms to fill the funnel 🙂
Why Are Personas Useful?
Talking about ICP’s every 3 weeks made us think about our own. Buyingtime has a pretty clear customer type who we are particularly successful working with. “Challenger SaaS” pretty much sums it up - companies who are trying to scale, partner and sell into new regions, identify new target B2B customers, and such.
As we embark on our own marketing, the voice of our MD Jamie Hancox is often recognised in this newsletter, but in fact we have created a “voice” that means all of our content team can write in this persona. It’s a blend of Louis Theroux and Ross Kemp from Eastenders (for our U.S. readers basically an east-end thug actor). We even did an AI picture of their two faces (it just looks like Jamie but 30lbs heavier unfortunately)... but it’s really useful.
The article that follows on from the last issue of #norocketships is all about community-generated referrals - and we’re running a competition about who wrote it - Jamie Hancox or Jamie Howden, our copywriter. Feel free to DM either Jamie on LinkedIn with your guess. One of us wrote this, the other wrote the article.
ABM For Client Growth
ABM is the term most of our clients use to talk about their new acquisition strategy - it’s all about Net New. Increasingly, however, we’re being asked about building customer advocacy groups, communities or advisory boards which not only build trust with key customers, but have an ROI.
Equally, if you read our section on “redefining enterprise” earlier, the opportunity to grow existing customers (provided they’re not going to churn) takes ABM into its own. The tactics available in working with an existing client are so much more powerful than one you do not know… think about it?
We’ve spent the last couple of years working with a global software company (founded in the 1970’s) growing their top 20 accounts. We’ve helped their customer leaders gain speaking slots to improve their own careers, run workshops and collaborations in their offices about subjects that they care about - all to cement the relationship and provoke genuine solution selling.
In SaaS, the relationships are often truly transactional. We find often that there are no C-Suite relationships, or even any real ongoing contact with people spending $000’s each year - it’s criminal 🙁
More in one of the Jamie’s article here
Abusive word of the week:
Drillbit - "Small boring tool"
Tech company names - 30 yrs of shoving two words together
IndigoBlue - Best ever (everyone we spoke to already thought they knew them)
MarvelousMobile - Worst (what do you do on the day you’re a bit crap?)