The Four Levers of SaaS

There are a lot of SaaS posts out there with some pretty fancy math in them.  I’m a math guy, so I like to geek on SaaS metrics myself.  But, in the heat of battle running a SaaS company, sometimes you just need to keep it simple.

Here’s the picture I keep on my wall to help me do that.

It reminds me that new ARR in any given period is the product of four levers.

• MQLs (marketing qualified leads) which emerge from the company’s marketing programs and typically have to meet a basic set of criteria including predictive and behavioral scoring.

• The MQL to stage 2 opportunity conversion rate (MTS2CR), the rate at which MQLs convert to stage 2, or sales-accepted, opportunities.  Typically they pass through a stage 1 phase first when a sales development rep (SDR) believes there is a real opportunity, but a salesperson has not yet agreed.

• The stage 2 to close rate (S2TCR), the rate at which stage 2 opportunities close into deals, and avoid being lost to a competitor or derailed (e.g., having the evaluation project cancelled).

• The annual recurring revenue average sales price (ARR ASP), the average deal size, expressed in ARR.

That’s it.  Those four levers will predict your quarterly new ARR every time.

Aside:  before diving into each of the four levers, let me note that sales velocity is omitted from this model.  That keeps it simple, but it does overlook a potentially important lever.  So if you think you have a sales velocity (i.e., sales cycle length) problem, go look at a different model that includes this lever and suggests ways to decrease it.

So now that we have identified the four levers, let’s focus on what we can do about them in order to increase our quarterly new ARR.

Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs)

Getting MQLs is the domain of marketing, which should be constantly measuring the cost effectiveness of various marketing programs in terms of generating MQLs (cost/MQL).  This isn’t easy because most leads will require numerous touches over time in order to graduate to MQL status, but marketing needs to stay atop that complexity (e.g., by assigning credits to various programs as MQL-threshold points accumulate).

The best marketers understand the demand is variable and have designed their programs mix so they can scale spending quickly in response to increased needs.  Nothing is worse than an MQL shortage and a marketing department that’s not ready to spend incremental money to address it.

The general rule is to constantly A/B test your programs and nurture streams and do more of what’s working and less of what isn’t.

MQL to Stage 2 Opportunity Conversion Rate

Increasing the MQL to stage 2 opportunity conversion rate (MTS2CR) requires either generating better MQLs or doing a better job handling them so that they convert into stage 2 opportunities.

Generating better MQLs can be accomplished by analyzing past programs to determine which generated the best-converting MQLs and increasing them, putting a higher gate on what you pass over to sales (using predictive or behavioral scoring), or using buyer personas to optimize what you say to buyers, when, and through which channels.

Do a better job handling your existing MQLs comes down ensuring your operational processes work and you don’t let leads fall between the cracks.  Basic activity and aging reports are a start.  Establishing a formal service-level agreement between sales and marketing is a common next step.

Moving up a level and checking that your whole process fits well with the customer’s buying journey is also key.  While each step of your process might individually make sense, when assembled the process may not — e.g., are you irritating customers by triple-qualifying them with an SDR, a salesrep, and a solution consultant each doing basic discovery?

The Stage 2 to Close Rate

Once created, one of three things can happen to a stage 2 opportunity:  you can win it, you can lose it, or it can derail (i.e., anything else, such as project cancellation or “slips” to the distant future).

Increasing your win rate can be accomplished through better product positioning, sales tools, and sales training, improved competitive intelligence, improved buzz/aura, improved case studies and customer references, and better pricing and discounting strategy.  That’s not to mention more strategic approaches via improved sales methodology and process or product improvements, in terms of functionality, non-functional requirements, and product design.

Decreasing your loss rate can be accomplished through better up-front sales qualification, better sales tools and training, improved competitive strategy and tactics, and better pricing and discounting.  Improved sales management can also play a key role in catching in-trouble deals early and escalating to get the necessary resources deployed to win.

Reducing your derail rate is hard because project slips or cancellations seem mostly out of your control.  What’s the best way to reduce your derail rate?  Focus on velocity — take deals off the table before the company has a chance to prioritize another project, do a reorganization, or hire a new executive that kills it.  The longer a deal hangs around, the more likely something bad happens to it.  As the adage goes, time kills all deals.

ARR ASP

The easiest way to increase ARR ASP is to not shrink it through last-minute discounting.  Adopt a formal discount policy with approvals so that, in the words of one famous sales leader, “your rep is more afraid of his/her sales manager than the customer” when it comes to speaking about discounts.

Selling value and product differentiation are two other discount reduction strategies.  The more customers see real value and a concrete return for their business the less they will focus on price.  Additionally, the more they see your offering as unique, the less price pressure you will face from the competition.  Conversely, the more they see your product as a cost and your company as one of several suppliers from whom they can buy the same capabilities, the more discount pressure you will face.

Up-selling to a higher edition or cross selling (“fries with your burger?”) are both ways to increase your ASP as well.  Just be careful to avoid customers feeling nickled and dimed in the process.

For SaaS businesses, remember that multi-year deals typically do not help your ARR ASP (though, if prepaid, they do help with year-one cash).  In fact, it’s usually the opposite — a small ARR discount is typically traded for the multi-year commitment.  My general rule of thumb is to offer a multi-year discount that’s less than your churn rate and everybody wins.

Conclusion

Hopefully this framework will make it easier for you to diagnose and act upon the problems that can impede achieving your company’s new ARR goals.  Always remember that any new ARR problem can be broken down into some combination of an MQL problem, an MQL to stage 2 conversion rate problem, a stage 2 to close rate problem, or an average sales price problem.  By focusing on these four levers, you should be able to optimize the productivity of your SaaS sales model.