As a SaaS rep, your job is incredibly challenging as it is. You need to work so hard to attract the attention of your prospects and potential clients, but once you do, what happens next?

If you find yourself asking the question, “Now what?”, don’t worry. We’re here to guide you.

The natural path down the sales funnel would leave both you and your prospect onto a discovery call, which HubSpot defines as “the first conversation with a prospect after showing interest in your product or service”.

This call (a very important one indeed) will uncover the prospect’s pain points and goals, and help you build a rapport with them.

Want to seal the deal? Of course you do; that is why you’re here and reading this article! But for that to happen, you need to be asking the right questions.

Let’s manage your expectations first. It’s important to understand that the aftermath of living in an open digital world where information, preferences and behaviours are tracked and analysed means that people are subconsciously more closed-up.

There is a great desire here to keep some things a secret, and this is something we’ve seen after more than two decades of servicing multiple brands and businesses where professional customer acquisition campaigns are concerned.

This is even more evident if you’re in the SaaS business, a landscape that is becoming increasingly complex by the day. But as promised, we’ll share the secrets to success (and sales) with this list of 15 sales discovery questions every SaaS rep should know in order to close sales effectively – courtesy of our experts here at SalesWorks!

1. Tell me about your role and your day-to-day scope.

With this question, you can begin to find out more about the employee or prospect that you are talking to (not the business) and understand their position in the whole mix. Not only does this question work as an icebreaker, but it will also help you understand how they are looking to use your product or service.

2. What is the ultimate pain point for you?

Oftentimes, there are just too many leaks in the ship. Narrow it down to what really can make or break it. You can start by suggesting that they break down their top three pain points to open up the conversation more.

3. How are you currently dealing with that?

Get to the bottom of it and identify outdated or inefficient processes that can be improved. This also can be the perfect opportunity to educate them on the USPs of your product or service.

4. What’s the source of that problem?

It’s important to ask this question to uncover pain points (and where they stem from) or areas of friction, as it can help you shape an irresistible sales pitch.

5. How does this affect the broader business objective?

In other words, “Who else cares about this?” Asking this question helps you answer that, and get an idea of the level of commitment you will get through the partnership.

6. What kind of results are you expecting to see?

Manage their expectations and skew your strategy to achieve the ultimate goal. After all, you wouldn’t want to overpromise and underdeliver!

7. What metric is most important to you?

Remember, your first customer is not the wider business, but rather the prospect himself or herself. Help them so they can help you.

8. When do you expect to see the results?

This question helps you gauge their priority and understand how committed they will be in implementing the solution.

9. How do you make a decision?

It’s crucial to know what their internal process is like to brace you for the potentially multi-level procedure and gatekeeping before a sale is finalised.

10. Who is involved in the decision-making process?

Find out who else should be involved and what would matter to them in shaping that decision, as this could help you gear up for potential follow-up calls where you’ll need to impress the higher-ups as well.

11. How do you evaluate software purchasing decisions?

Be prepared for the event that a prospective client or customer may want a demo trial to conduct a self-evaluation, even if some of them don’t ask for it. Demo aside, it’s important that you understand what will shape their decision so you can develop your pitch accurately.

12. What is the budget range?

Part of tailoring your service is to be able to scope it within what the client is willing to spend. Most clients will ask if there is wiggle room or the possibility of bringing down the budget, so be sure to keep this in mind too.

13. What would be the main criteria you’re looking for in a vendor?

A business relationship is only successful and retainable if both parties have chemistry in their ways of working. Ask them what makes them tick and be prepared to adapt to that.

14. How does this fit into the business plan for the next couple of years?

Make your pitch a forward-thinking, long-term solution instead of a quick fix – after all, everyone’s looking to properly solve a problem instead of sticking a band-aid on it, so to speak.

15. What alternatives are you looking at?

Get ahead of your competition and understand their alternatives so you can effectively sell your product or service’s strengths.

Partner with SalesWorks to power up your customer acquisition strategy

SalesWorks is Asia’s leading face-to-face marketing and customer acquisition expert with an extensive network around the region. Our seasoned experts can provide customer-specific knowledge and expertise to help boost your customer acquisition efforts, and even train your company’s SaaS reps for a more effective sales strategy!

Find out more about how we can help by contacting us today!