Jan 10, 2025

Leah Tharin - The Death of Classical Sales in B2B SaaS

Takeaways

πŸ“˜ Sales teams built around short-term incentives create long-term drag. Here's what's happening inside most B2B SaaS companies. Sales reps like β€œGary” overpromise because they're incentivised to close deals, not build sustainable value. Product and support teams get blindsided. Customers churn. Internal trust crumbles. Gary's just doing what he's paid for - but the cost to the business is compounding.

πŸ“˜ The future isn't no-sales. It's product-led sales. Let the product drive intent. Let data tell you when an account is ready. Then - and only then - sales steps in.

πŸ“˜ Sales-led growth relies on converting intent with people and pitches. Product-led growth earns trust through usage and value - before a conversation ever happens. Both have value, but they need to be integrated, not opposed.

πŸ“˜ Product-led sales takes the best of both worlds. You let users explore and activate inside the product. Behavioural signals define when an account is sales-ready. Not before. The result: shorter sales cycles, higher close rates, and lower CAC.

πŸ“˜ Product needs to know how their features connect to revenue. Not fluffy OKRs - real metrics. Can you quantify retention impact? Expansion value? Use that in your roadmap.

πŸ“˜ Fix Sales Incentives. Tie comp to long-term value. Add clawbacks. Penalise selling phantom features. Fire serial offenders.

πŸ“˜ Shift from MQLs to Aha-qualified leads. How much does it cost to get one ideal customer to value? That's your new north star.

πŸ“˜ Build Growth Teams. Growth teams own the messy middle: onboarding, activation, paywalls, upsells. Their job is to turn traffic into monetisation, inside the product.

πŸ“˜ Start With One Question. What's your product's aha moment? Define it. Measure it. Build around it. Until you understand that, your sales will stay messy - and Gary will keep winning.

Top Quotes

πŸ’¬ We are punishing you on selling on promises for stuff that is not in the product; we do not want you to trick our customer - first time you lose your bonus, second time you're fired.

πŸ’¬ Wait for your B2B accounts to reach out to you or to be activated - there's no two ways about it because salespeople will go into your funnel with their dirty little fingers and then they're just like, you know, marketing.

πŸ’¬ Modern product-led sales in this form is about putting the customer success front and center by showing and not talking

πŸ’¬ The main problem that we have is that we think that someone that does not want to buy our product is not valuable - but someone that loves your free product could recommend it to someone that has the money and the buyer intent.
About Max Antonov
I’m Max, a father of two, Product Director & Product Coach from Sydney. I write about leadership, product management and life.
Feel free to reach out: [email protected].
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