Why sell virtually?
During 2020 and 2021, many SaaS businesses transitioned to virtual selling because they did not have any other choice. But what are the long-term benefits of virtual selling? In this article we will explore a few key advantages of selling SaaS virtually.
Easy international expansion
The first benefit is something we at APAC Virtual Selling have quite a bit of experience with and find very exciting: the ability to easily expand into new geographic markets. The idea here is quite straightforward. Essentially, it’s the ability to start selling in new markets (meaning new geographies or new countries) without the time-consuming, resource-intensive logistics of opening offices, hiring new local employees, etc. A key thing about this benefit is that not only you’re able to be quicker in getting things started, but without this kind of overhead you are also a lot nimbler to make adjustments or pull out of a market altogether depending on how things go for your organisation.
Handle more customers
With virtual selling, you not only have the ability to enter new markets easier, but because of huge time savings you’re also able to handle more prospects and customers; be it at your current markets or new markets you’re expanding to.
Quicker sales cycles
Another awesome benefit is potentially quicker sales cycles for your SaaS business. As your probably know from your experience, coordinating to do things in person can really stretch the timelines of your sales cycle. When reading this, you’re probably thinking of some deals you and your team closed and how you would be able to get the revenue on these deals quicker. However, it’s equally important to have a think about the deals that went nowhere. If their sales cycles moved quicker, especially at the start, you would be able to qualify out of these engagements much faster and focus your resources elsewhere.
Cost reductions
Virtual selling typically brings a substantial reduction of travel and other costs. We’ve worked with some organisations that were able to reinvest these savings into their teams in some really cool ways, but that’s probably a topic for an article itself.
Embracing technology
Virtual selling requires a certain amount of technology adoption. What we’ve discovered is that embracing sales technology and technology in general tends to increase for organisations that leverage virtual selling. This is in turn makes these organisations more innovative and gives them an edge over their competition.