Your B2B SaaS app will not sell itself unless it is designed to do so. This is a guide to getting your B2B SaaS to 'sell itself' was created by noted SaaS Marketing expert and Growth Hacker Lincoln Murphy of Sixteen Ventures. This guide is full of actionable, unique, and thought-provoking ideas - Growth Hacks if you will - that are designed to allow your product to sell itself. From attracting the right audience and driving user engagement, to making it easy to buy and easy to share through orchestrated virality, this guide covers all aspects of what's necessary to drive growth with SaaS companies of any stage and serving any market. Whether you have a self-service sales model or one that requires outside sales reps to drive business, the tips and techniques contained in this guide and the source blog post will help you achieve your goals of efficiently scaling your sales process.

1. SaaS Sales Funnel:
Stop Optimizing for the
Wrong Customers
A guide by SaaS Marketing expert and Growth
Hacker Lincoln Murphy of Sixteen Ventures

2. He was Frustrated...
“OMG… That’s not who’s
signing up for my app!”
exclaimed Jerry, after
we discovered who his
ideal customers are and
that he’s been
optimizing his Sales
Funnel for the wrong
customers.
Copyright© 2013 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved.

3. A Broken, Leaky Sales Funnel
Jerry told me that he didn’t know what was
wrong
He kept “optimizing” the marketing site, the
on-boarding and engagement process, kept
running and testing new ads on BuySellAds,
he even created an email course for those
who weren’t ready to buy yet so he could
nurture them.
He was doing everything he’s supposed to do,
right?
Copyright© 2013 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved.

4. The Wrong Kind of Traction
It turns out he wasn’t without “traction”…
people were signing up for his Free Trial,
and some were even becoming “active”
users... but none converted to paying
customers
In fact, because of that, whenever he would
get a sign-up for his Free Trial it was more
frustrating than something to celebrate.
All of these people trying his stuff and not
converting to paying customers. That’s it!
http://sixteenventures.comCopyright© 2013 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved.

5. No More Mr. Nice SaaS
Jerry told me that he was done messing
around and it was time to get serious with
his Free Trial conversions.
First… no more 30-day free trials for you…
he was going to take it down to 7 days!
Oh… and you have the audacity to want to
evaluate his software without a credit card?
No way, son. Not anymore!
Time to put up that Credit Card wall!
http://sixteenventures.comCopyright© 2013 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved.

6. Punishing Prospects
Won’t Help Conversions!
Yep, he basically wanted to trap people and
make them have to actively cancel the
subscription and payments if they wanted
out.
I told him those were 100% the wrong things
to do and would likely result in even fewer
people trying his product (there wasn’t a
whole lot of downward potential, but it was
there).
Okay… so he’s calm. But where do we go from
here?
http://sixteenventures.comCopyright© 2013 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved.

7. SaaS Sales Funnel
Presentation Source
This presentation is based on my
popular “SaaS Sales Funnel: Stop
Optimizing for the Wrong Customers”
post... you can find a lot more
detail on the techniques and ideas
presented here:
http://sixteenventures.com/saas-
sales-funnel
Copyright© 2013 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved.

8. Who’s Your Ideal Customer?
I asked Jerry who the type of customer was that
would immediately see the value in this product
and who – once they started – would quickly
start to realize value from the offering.
Jerry went from frustrated to speaking
passionately as he described who would benefit
from this product.
He said his Ideal Customer was just like his
software development company: a specific range
of employees, adherence to certain
methodologies, working with certain types of
customers in certain ways, etc.
http://sixteenventures.comCopyright© 2013 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved.

9. Ideal Customer Definition
http://sixteenventures.com
That criteria would yield a customer that
instantly understood the value of the SaaS
app, would quickly realize value once they
started using it, and would continue to
realize value for years to come.
Oh, and it didn’t hurt that he figured these
would also be the most profitable customers,
stay the longest, etc.
What really helped this process along though,
was another exercise…
Copyright© 2013 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved.

10. Who’s the Wrong
Customer?
Who won’t see the value in your offering?
Who won’t recognize value quickly once they
are in the app?
Who will need lots of help and support?
Who is the functionality and feature set -
current and planned – of this offering
simply not a good fit for?
And then it hit him like a ton of bricks…
http://sixteenventures.comCopyright© 2013 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved.

11. The Wrong Customers
are Signing-Up!
He realized as he was describing his ‘wrong
customers’ that those are exactly the people
that are signing up for his product!
Even more, he realized that those are the
ones he’s been targeting inadvertently with
his advertising.
And since his marketing site doesn’t clearly
state who the product is for – and in the
process who it isn’t for – it isn’t until
they get into the app that they realize it
isn’t for them…
http://sixteenventures.comCopyright© 2013 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved.

12. And Then They Don’t
Convert to Paying
Customers!
http://sixteenventures.comCopyright© 2013 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved.

13. No Matter What you Do...
It’s pretty much impossible to convert the
wrong prospects to paying customers.
Putting up a Credit Card wall or reducing
the Free Trial length to 7 days would not
fix that. In fact, the CC-wall would
probably just irritate people who thought it
was for them and quickly realized it wasn’t.
And for those who got charged – forced
continuity – this would leave a very bad
taste in their mouth, right?
Just fix the glitch and...
http://sixteenventures.comCopyright© 2013 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved.

14. Optimize the SaaS Sales
Funnel the Right Way
Keep your “ideal customer” definition in
mind in as you develop every aspect of your
SaaS sales funnel
With your “Ideal Customer” definition in
mind we can review your Sales Funnel for
problems that will hinder your customer
acquisition efforts
Having the additional context of your ideal
customers and their expected or known
behaviors helps us look at your Sales Funnel
from the correct POV
http://sixteenventures.comCopyright© 2013 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved.

15. Let’s Optimize your
SaaS Sales Funnel
Get your SaaS Sales Funnel
Optimization Review and I’ll help you
start converting more customers…
fast!
http://sixteenventures.com/saas-
sales-funnel-optimization-review
http://sixteenventures.comCopyright© 2013 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved.

16. SaaS Sales Funnel
Presentation Source
This presentation is based on my
popular “SaaS Sales Funnel: Stop
Optimizing for the Wrong Customers”
post... you can find a lot more detail
on the techniques and ideas presented
here:
http://sixteenventures.com/saas-sales-
funnel
Copyright© 2013 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved.

17. Thank You!
Lincoln Murphy
Sixteen Ventures
lincoln@sixteenventures.com
http://sixteenventures.com
@lincolnmurphy
Copyright© 2013 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved.