In SaaS Roundup, we comb through the noise to find you only the best SaaS-flavored reads of the week — just our top three.
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This week’s top reads
Bookings vs. Billings in a SaaS Company
Dave Kellogg, Host Analytics
“It wasn’t that long ago when a key reason for moving towards the SaaS business model was that SaaS smoothed revenues relative to the all-up-front, lumpy on-premises model. If we could smooth out some of that volatility then we could present better software companies to Wall Street. So the industry did [6], and the result? Wall Street immediately sought a way to look through the smoothing and see what’s really going on in the inherently lumpy, backloaded world of enterprise software sales.”
It’s time to get deep into metrics with Dave Kellogg again! This time, billings. It’s a metric that’s used mainly in the world of financial analysis and publicly-listed SaaS, but it’s useful to understand the purpose (and value) of billings. Read more
Timo Rein, Founder & CEO @ Pipedrive Discusses How To Make It Big In The US As A Non-US SaaS Startup
Harry Stebbings talking to Timo Rein on the SaaStr podcast
“I think US, overall, has this very simple mentality of getting to a customer because there’s so much noise around there. In some areas, other than US, you might think you need a sophisticated approach in your messaging. In US, you have to be the simplest, easiest to understand, easiest to differentiate. That’s a valuable lesson.”
If any company has the authority to talk about going global from day one, it’s Pipedrive. Starting up in Estonia, Timo and his team knew they had to have a global mindset to succeed, and this discussion exposes a lot of his thinking on the topic of internationalization. Read more
5 Ways Not To Start a Sales Call
Josh Jordan
“The best way to convince them that your call has value to them is by mentioning why you’re calling them specifically and why now. Is your prospect just another booked meeting in your calendar that goes to your quota? Just a stat in a spreadsheet that you’ll fill out under “Number of Calls Made” before you go home for the day? Or are they people who you’re calling for a specific reason?”
This one might be a little bit controversial. Josh argues that formalities such as “thanking them for their time” or “how’s your day going?” is exactly the wrong thing to do if you want to have a successful sales call. Whether you agree or not, he puts forward an excellent argument for empathy over everything else. Read more
That’s all for this week! Don’t forget you can still receive upcoming issues of SaaS Roundup in your email inbox. See you next Friday.
