The growth challenge of most SaaS vendors can be boiled down to the following simple formula:

revenue growth = price x volume
= average MRR x new sales velocity

Delivering on the promise of low total cost of ownership, the price of SaaS is often an order of magnitude lower than the price of licensed enterprise software. This low price point creates enormous pressure on volume. Reaching profitability may require a new customer every week, every day or even every minute! Increasing sales velocity is the essence of the SaaS business challenge.

At each stage of the buying process, your SaaS prospect will encounter adoption costs and risks that reduce your sales velocity. I like to compare this to scaling a cliff where adoption costs are measured by the height of the cliff and adoption risks are measured by the difficulty of the climb.

How high are the adoption costs and risks
that your SaaS prospects must surmount?

In your prospect's eyes, adoption costs simply increase your price. As such, they constrain your market to only those prospects that see sufficient value in your service to motivate the long climb to the summit. Adoption risks make for a cautious and slow journey, with delay after delay from detailed evaluation of every perilous step. In a high velocity SaaS business, delay is the enemy.

More succinctly, the higher your adoption costs, the fewer your prospects. The higher your adoption risks, the longer your buying cycle. Few customers divided by long buying cycle equals low sales velocity. Therefore, increasing sales velocity amounts to eliminating adoption costs and risks.

Here are seven proven strategies for increasing SaaS sales velocity by reducing the adoption costs and risks faced by your prospects at each stage of the buying process.


I've seen SaaS companies with sales velocities ranging from one customer per month to one customer per minute. At Xignite, we are currently adding a new customer every day, which is pretty good for our market and stage of development, but it is never good enough. We continually look for new and innovative ways to increase sales velocity by making it easier and faster for prospects to find, try, and buy our services. What is your strategy for SaaS sales acceleration?


Joel York is CMO and Vice President of Direct Sales at Xignite, the leading provider of on-demand financial market data. He is the author of the popular Top Ten Dos and Don'ts of SaaS and shares his thoughts on SaaS strategy on his blog at http://chaotic-flow.com.