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Ask HN: How can technical folks break into SaaS sales?

by thoughtpeddler·4y ago·6 comments·view on hn ↗

Those in tech on the build-side (engineering, devops, data, design, PM), how can one break into SaaS sales as a side hustle?

As someone who procures SaaS solutions for my company, I interact with SaaS salespeople all the time. Most don’t have a similar background to us build-siders, and whoever that does, I’m way more inclined to purchase from. So I can’t help but wonder to myself…

“I’m more in-the-know than these people, and I have the personality and hustle to match, but I don’t want to make sales my career, but if all it takes is getting on some calls every week to close deals, why can’t I do this on the side for some extra cash?”

Note: This isn't about the rank-and-file at the top of the funnel who cold-call for hours, but rather more senior people who are brought in toward the middle or end of the funnel, once a deal is further along.

6 comments

Tough to do as a side hustle, most SaaS companies sell their products on 6 to 18 month cycles. (This really depends on the product. A password management solution may be sold within 60 days, a cloud vendor may take years to fully run most of an organization's solutions.)

My advice is to break in as a sales engineer instead of an account executive. You get to experience some variable compensation, stay very technical, build trust with senior leaders at prospective companies, and not go "full sales."

This will likely be a full role change, though.

I was a QA earlier, I switched to Saas Sales.

If youre in early stage startups ( which has a small team generally), Then you can be added on a demo call on mute. But if you want to close deals without changing your role, thats where it gets tricky. All sales guys have monthly/quarterly/yearly 'targets' which they have to meet, based on how much business they brought in decides there 'variable' component (All sales guys have a fixed and variable component in their remuneration).

So if you want to close some deals, the only way to do it is make your salary strucuture change accordingly and communicate this to your CTO and CMO/CRO and HR ofcourse.

No pain, No gain.

"but if all it takes is getting on some calls every week to close deals, why can’t I do this on the side for some extra cash?”"

If you are working full time already, how will you find time during the day to do these calls on the side unless you work remotely and are doing it on your current employer's time ? Sales calls do not happen after 5 PM or weekends so you will have to juggle. What if you have a meeting set at the same time ?

Also, it takes more than just a few calls to close deals. You have to follow up, you have to engage with stakeholders from the client's side, may be do another meeting etc. It depends on the product you are selling and the sales cycle. You cannot just wing the sales calls.

This can be done with a remote job timezone arbitrage. Someone on Pacific time working for a company on Eastern time (6am-2pm), can easily fit in 3-4 hours of work for another company after 2pm PT. This is to say nothing of those who don't have to work synchronously and have even more flexibility built into their schedules.

Sure, it's theoretically possible to structure a day in this way (assuming the company only has clients on their own coast, which would be unusual for SaaS)

The question is why a company would wish to hire someone who is only available during a short window in late afternoon for sales? That needs a stronger answer than "I'm a developer working on an unrelated product who would like to gain sales experience but only as a side hustle", because sales engineers and product managers who love talking to clients are willing to make themselves available when the clients want the meeting, not when they've finished their real job.

The more obvious way for technical folks to break into SaaS sales is to be interested in contributing to the sales effort of the company that also employs them to write the SaaS. If that involves a different employer or renegotiating their compensation package to add in bonuses... well see it as practice.

You can, the problem is that the near zero payoff doesn’t seem like a good use of your time when you have other income.

The payoff is low for so long that people with alternatives don’t stick to it long enough for it to make them more than a few bucks.