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In periods of slow spending, customers obsess over value. They want to know how each of their tools directly impacts their bottom line. If they can’t draw a straight line from a solution to their most important metrics, it will likely get cut from their tech stack. 

At the same time, SaaS sales teams spend periods of slow spending doing more in order to meet their quarterly goals. They send more emails, schedule more conversations, and try to create more opportunities, even if it means branching out from their target audience members. 

While there is nothing wrong with doing more in order to reach your business goals, it isn’t always the most efficient strategy for growth. Like your customers, your team should prioritize value over volume. 

If you’re wondering how to build effective, efficient strategies that can cut costs and grow revenue despite the slow customer spending, we’re here to help. We’ve put together a list of the three most important changes to make to your operations. Let’s start with the most important. 

1. Define what adds value for each customer segment

When we talk about the state of the market, we tend to talk about it as a universal rule. Everyone is slowing their spending. Everyone feels the impact of the economic downturn. But the truth is, certain companies or industries are thriving. Think about the way Zoom’s value skyrocketed in 2020. 

The first step to ensuring you deliver value to your customers and potential customers is to understand their needs. You want to determine the specific pain points they are experiencing right now so that you can speak directly to them. Don’t make assumptions about one of your customer segments based on trends you see in others. While they may be true, it’s important to validate everything so that you are solving each account’s most pressing issues. 

Once you know what adds value for each of your customers, how to execute against those activities in a way that’s sustainable. For many teams, that means saying no to other activities. If a workflow or process your team is doing doesn’t roll into what your customers find most valuable, consider hitting pause on that motion. Or eliminating it altogether. Your goal is to find a way to deliver for your customers without creating burnout for your team. That means focusing on what you know works and deprioritizing what isn’t valuable. 

2. Repeat your best practices to deliver value daily

How many times have you heard the phrase “that’s the way it’s always been done” and thought it was compelling? For me, I can count the times on less than one hand. But often, when we look into the workflows and processes our organization uses, that is part of the foundation. Someone trained us to work that way, so we learned it that way and continued working that way without much thought. 

To run an efficient organization that delivers value consistently, your processes should be driven by data. That means having a clear, granular view into what activities drive your most important metrics for each account. You should know both how to move the needle on those metrics, as well as how long to spend on the activities that make an impact. 

Of course, based on experience or other responsibilities within the organization, certain people will be able to spend more or less time on certain activities. But in order to be the most efficient organization, each process and procedure should have a standard best practice based on updated data. If you are building strategies from outdated or incomplete information, it’s likely that you are not as effective as you could be. 

3. Share knowledge in real time

The final step is to make sure everyone on your team knows where to go to find the best practices for your organization. Too often, especially as companies scale, training and knowledge sharing becomes unstandardized. Each person has their own way of completing their daily tasks. In some ways, personalization is helpful and effective. But, there should be a single source of truth employees can reference to ensure they are following best practices and working as efficiently as possible. 

When your entire organization understands the way best practices are created, the data used to inform the strategies, and how their productivity is measured, they will be set up to work most efficiently. Ultimately, a team that is clear on their goals and the best way to achieve them has no choice but to be successful. 

To see how Retain.ai can help you kickstart your most efficient workflows and deliver value every day, schedule a demo with us today!