Dear SaaStr: What's a Good Target for Monthly Calls in SaaS?

And How Stressful is it to Run a Venture-Backed Startup?

Dear SaaStr: What's a good target for monthly calls in SAAS?

SDRs can do a lot of calls.

But for AEs: it depends on what the point of the calls are.

AEs at startups with (x) very low ACVs (and very fast closes) and (y) tons of inbound leads can actually function on the classic “50 calls a day”. For this to work in a modern SaaS environment, it really means you have to have a torrent of inbound leads that only take 1–2 calls to close on average. Otherwise, the follow-up is too much to handle. You can’t do 50 calls a day as an AE if each call needs 5 demos, a plane flight, contract negotiation, etc. Then each of those 50 calls leads to 250 subsequent, time consuming interactions. This falls down a few months later — not enough time in the day. But if you can close fast, this works.

It can be done and is one way to make a sales model at $99-$299 a month work.

50-closing-calls-a-day only works in a very hyper-transactional model. It can work, but only in a very fast close, and very organized process. You likely do not have this. You don’t have the leads, and you don’t have the tools and processes in place for your AEs to efficiently do so many calls. But you can get there if the close rate is close to 1 call, and your tools line the calls up almost automatically for the reps.

AEs at $10k-$20k+ ACVs can usually do 2–4 demos a day — that’s all the time they’ll have. The structural challenge with bigger deals is demos. They take a while to set up, create a lot of questions, and almost always result in more calls and more discussion and often a second and third demo. A good demo probably takes an hour of your day with a buffer, and requires an additional 30–60 minutes to prep for. That’s great, but it starts to limit how many demos you can really do. 4 a day is close to the max, and even for that, an AE will need SDR or administrative help to do that many efficiently. 2–3 is more common without more organizational help.

So these are your rate limiters. Back solve into a practical model from there.

What we’ve all learned the last few years is that specialization really helps here. If AEs walk into work with 4 demos already on their calendar, without even having to set them up themselves — 4 a day is easy. If they have to do all the admin work and setup themselves — 4 is way too many.

Similarly, asking AEs to qualify all their own leads at higher ACVs is a relatively bad use of time. It may make sense perhaps at the 50 calls, 1-call-close type deals. But not really for a $20k or $40k deal. Let closers close, openers open, and qualifiers qualify.

On a related note, a great session on building your SDR team with Snowflake’s Head of Outbound here:

Dear SaaStr: How Stressful is it To Run a Venture-Backed Startup?

Being a venture-backed startup is really only more stressful than any other company for two reasons:

• You have to carefully manage to your Zero Cash Date. You need to know exactly when you run out of money. More here: Knowing -- and Sharing -- Your Zero Cash Date | SaaStr. Of course cash in the bank also matters if you aren’t VC backed. It’s just different. VC cash in the early days is used to let you run at a larger loss than you otherwise would. But it doesn’t last forever.

• You have to carefully manage to your investors’ growth expectations. When you bootstrap, you (and your team) determine your growth expectations. But when you take VC money, that’s no longer the case. VCs will expect you to do whatever you can to grow at outlier rates, to at least try to build a unicorn.

So the pressures to manage your cash but also increase / maintain your growth rate are higher if you take VC money. Sometimes, much higher.

Don’t like the stress? Then maybe:

• Don’t spend it all. Just because you’ve raised it, doesn’t mean you have to spend it. Do not listen to VCs that pressure you to spend what you’ve raised. They don’t know. You know. At least, you know the most.

• Raise less. The less you raise, the less pressure you’ll be under to achieve insane numbers, and a unicorn exit. Your investors want to see an “exit” of at least 10x what they invest. The less you raise, the less pressure here. A bit more here: The 10x Rule: What Raising $1 of Venture Capital Really Means | SaaStr

• Embrace it. It may push you to go bigger. The best of us tend to rise to meet expectations. Having the stakes raised may lead to a better outcome for you. I think perhaps it has for me.