A Kevin "KD" Dorsey interview with Andy Paul arguing that the long-standing "predictable revenue" SaaS playbook is failing in complex enterprise contexts because win rates are low and prospects are scarcer. Companies are rethinking team structures (e.g., pairing SDRs with senior sellers) and experimenting with omnichannel outreach, but the core issue is human interaction: SDRs are too pitch-oriented and often lack basic conversational skills. Paul recommends investing in training new salespeople in human skills (curiosity, probing, conversational techniques) before product training so they can better start and sustain senior-level conversations and raise win rates.
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SaaS is a business, the overall win rate that companies have is relatively low. And when they try to bring that type of win rate into a more enterprise, complex enterprise environment where there aren't as many prospects, you can't be as wasteful, you know.
And also too, I think people forget how old predictable revenue is. 20 years, it's more 20 years where like getting an email was like, ooh, that's fun. Particular to SaaS, it's so product focused.
They don't necessarily. And then let's teach them how to be a seller.
What are some of the learnings you've had over the past four to five years? Speaking to people in this space of like, what seems to be working or maybe the opposite, what you know, isn't working, that people are still out there doing well.
Yeah, a lot of it is not working. Right. So there's been a change over this period as you've seen the conversation shift from the enthusiasm for sort of the, I'll label it the predictable revenue model to people thinking, okay, well, you know, it's not quite as black and white as we thought near. We all sort of rushed into it now for certain situations and certain environments. Maybe that's not the model for us. Right. And so you're seeing, and I hear more and more frequently as sales leaders say, yeah, we're sort of modifying that or we're migrating away or maybe we're doing a more complex enterprise sale and, and maybe we team an SDR with a senior seller, but maybe it's not even an sdr. Maybe it's really only a senior sdr. So there's changes afoot and it's not going to be as I think applied, as in blanket fashion. It's sort of been in the past.
What do you think is driven that.
Change results or the lack of. Right. I mean, I think that SaaS as a business, the overall win rate that companies have is relatively low. And when they try to bring that type of win rate into a more enterprise complex enterprise environment where there aren't as many prospects, you can't be as wasteful. And so you have to make sure that you win a higher fraction of your deals. So that says, look, we have to reevaluate everything about what we're doing, starting with how do we initially engage with people and prospects all the way up to how we work the deals and close it.
And I think that's where, if you think about, you know, and also too, I think people forget how old predictable revenue is. 20 years, it's 20, 20 years where, like, getting an email was like, ooh, that's fun. Oh, oh, you want to know who to talk to? Sure. Andy, here's who you want to talk to.
Right.
And they're trying to apply it to this new space where, you know, everyone's doing it. So if you take that next step, how do you stand out?
Right.
When you are trying to prospect, when you are trying to kind of break into some of these accounts, what are some of the ways that you're hearing and seeing to stand out? Right. Where you can kind of garner that attention to get the conversation started?
That's the $64,000 question. Right. And I think that's the place where most companies are struggling. Right. How do you stand out in the noise? How do you command the time and attention of the people that you're. You're trying to outreach to?
And.
It'S a tough one. Right. I think that that where we're seeing companies say, is, look, we have to experiment more widely with what we're doing. It may be a combination of things that. Yeah, may not. Well, we know about Omni Channel. We got to be more present in more places. But at the end of the day, it does boil down to how do you as a human interact with another human being when you have that opportunity? And everything that goes into the randomness of being able to intersect with somebody so you can get them on a phone or having them respond to a message or so on. But for me, what I focus on is really, when you have that opportunity, what do you do with it? And we're still too pitch oriented. This is how we set up our SDRs. Let's pitch. And there's been some studies that show that actually, if you get hold of a senior person and you start the conversation on the right foot and you pose a question to have them think about a potential outcome, they'll engage. We're not doing SDR as a favor by saying, look, this is the way you have to do it. I think too many sales leaders, sales bosses, are sort of caught up in this framework because it's become this playbook that everybody does. Everybody does this playbook. It starts at the top. We're not enabling our sales managers to be able to help their sellers do better jobs of these things.
And it's a shame, because if you think about where, especially on the SDR side and in SaaS, I think part of this is very particular to SaaS is it's so product focused, and it's like, all right, people get to know their product. They don't get to know the prospect. They don't know how to have a conversation with that senior leader. They have no idea.
Yeah, it comes to an idea that I've been talking about more recently, which is something actually I borrow from soccer. And people listen to the show, know I'm soccer obsessed. And I remember seeing this interview with a coach in the Premier League who was talking about, well, you know, when you bring young people into the team, we spend a few months training them how to be a person before we train them how to be a player. And to me, this is something we're missing in sales, right? Where we know this is a human business. We know that the ability to connect with another human being, the ability to unleash your curiosity, to keep probing, to be able to help the buyer, some of these things are just human skills. And we make the assumption that people coming into the workforce in sales know how to do this. They know how to be human and they don't necessarily. And so let's spend the time to invest in them, to help them with sort of these just basic human oriented skills and then let's teach them how to be a seller.
