What is the Sales Director / Head of Sales role in a SaaS Company?
Typically, a Sales Director (or Head of Sales) in a SaaS company is the one responsible for managing the sales operations and overseeing everything around it. Some of the responsibilities include establishing relationships with existing customers or potential clients. Other responsibilities are creating plans to achieve targets, and evaluating overall costs relating to selling services and products.
Let's dig deep and understand every aspect that the Sales Director or Head of Sales in a SaaS company undertakes.
What is a Sales Director?
In general, a Sales Director is a company executive who is responsible for the organization's regional and national sales force. They are the top managers responsible for selling certain services and products to potent clients on behalf of the enterprise. They are directly responsible for sales that fall within their designated area.
These areas could be domestic, international, or both. A person holding this post works along with other executives of the company at senior management levels such as finance professionals and marketing managers. In addition, they have to report to the President or Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the company.
Because a Sales Director in a SaaS company is one of the responsible positions, the profitable part of the enterprise falls under their management. As such, sales plan implementation while maximizing profits depends largely on their professional and personal qualities. In short, they build the sales strategy and system.
The main purpose of the Sales Director is to increase the overall sales of services and products. Moreover, they coordinate and manage the marketing and sales departments of the company. Other roles include human resource management, sales planning, employee development, leadership control, working on strategies for high-quality service, and so on.
As of today, a Sales Director is one of the biggest positions in any company and probably counted among the highest-paid employees in an organization. Although sales directors tend to grow from salespersons, anyone can get to this position if they are a marketer, an owner of the company, or a marketing director.
What is a Head of Sales?
The Head of Sales in a SaaS company creates, persuades, and implements different strategies required for selling the organization's services or products. The Head of Sales is responsible for developing forecasts and workable strategies so that the company can achieve sales through set price levels.
That way, the organization ensures profit through selling its SaaS products or services. The Head of Sales is actively on the lookout for major new customers while retaining the existing ones so that the company attains sustainability to a great extent. Besides, they are in charge of forming good relationships with buyers and influencers.
A Head of Sales should keep themselves updated on the latest market trends and evaluate competitors' activities so that they can be ahead in the game. Also, they serve as business representatives at industry events, trade shows, or conferences. In addition, they lead presentations that are important for business development.
They are involved in crucial meetings with major business stakeholders as well. Apart from that, they are team leaders that bring motivation to the table and manage highly-efficient sales teams and managers. Some of the major skills that they possess include negotiation, problem-solving, and strong influence.
What are the responsibilities of a Sales Director or Head of Sales?
1. Leadership role
One of the biggest responsibilities is to provide leadership to the sales department. As a Sales Director or Head of Sales, you are in charge of almost every important aspect that the company runs. In short, you play a mentorship role in some of the important positions within the company. And, you do that through your experience and expertise.
2. Analytics
As a Sales Director, you make good use of analytic tools and work closely with the team so that they can make informed decisions based on sales performance and other aspects. Through proper analysis, you identify areas for improvement and come up with actionable insights for improved sales and profits.
3. Strategy
As a Sales Director, you implement sales strategies that drive revenue generation necessary for the business. You deliver an optimized market relative to the targeted customers while identifying the roadmap leading to the achievement of the company's overall goals.
4. Collaboration
As a Head of Sales or Sales Director, you monitor the development of products from their inception to testing and finally, launch. Also, you collaborate with the analytics department to work on information that would drive sales.
5. Building relationships
Sales Directors are entrusted with the duty to manage important relationships on behalf of the company. You build a robust relationship with external partners and customers. You interact with them through seminars, events, workshops, etc. for the SaaS services.
What are the biggest challenges in selling SaaS for a Sales Director / Head of Sales?
1. Lack of support and communication
Several studies show that inefficient support is the main reason why most customers cancel their subscriptions. Besides, people are willing to pay more for the services if they receive better customer support. Failure to deliver proper support to the customers results in poor retention rates.
2. Clients struggle to find the value of the SaaS service
Whenever customers have concerns about the SaaS service, they can't find the value that it provides. SaaS services are meant to help customers make their work easier. But when the operational gap between the software and their on-site system is too much, customers struggle to find the value of the SaaS service.
3. Users look for features that the service doesn't provide
With plenty of products available on the market, customers have choices. As such, it leads to customers asking for more features than the service provides.
4. Insufficient knowledge about products
If the sales representatives don't have deep knowledge about the SaaS service, it can drive business away. Lacking fundamental knowledge of the services or products or not knowing how to obtain the information can't convey the value that the service has for the customers.
5. Onboarding users
Successful onboarding of users is one of the biggest challenges faced by SaaS companies. Perhaps, it is the only reason why users are abandoning a certain product.
Related article: SaaS Sales Jobs
Want To Start Working In SaaS Sales?
If you are interested in both sales and technology then there is no greater marriage of the two out there. It can be a great career choice in Saas Sales.