Hard vs Soft sales: Which is the best SDR approach?

It seems obvious that to be successful as an SDR you must have the best attitude and mindset in order to close meetings.

But in front of this situation, it often arises the following question: is it better to adopt the role of wolf or lamb? Extremes don’t tend to be good and especially when it comes to sales within the SaaS B2B sector. Let’s go deeper into these two approaches.

Hard sales

On the one hand, we have the wolf seller profile. They close meetings at any cost with an aggressive approach, and focus on getting what they want.

While this type of behaviour is unhealthy and quite mean, it also hurts SaaS companies. Because if the client doesn’t renew the contract, our company won’t earn anything from following up on the client.

In fact, the startup is likely to lose money and time because of the cost of the onboarding process and all the follow-up provided to the lost client.

Soft sales

On the contrary, the lamb seller operates with a frail attitude, offering a way too soft sales approach, not being able to influence their prospects.

This can seriously weaken the image of the company. It is very likely that they will manage to close few sales with customers that will take profit of this fragility.

The bottom line

Faced with this contrasting situation, it seems that consultative selling is an efficient solution. This is not just about offering advice, but also understanding the needs of the prospect to find a way in which your solution can adjust to them. After all, a sales representative might have the knowledge and previous product-related experiences that the potential customer is unaware of. That’s why a good salesperson should have a respectful dominance on prospects.

To sum up, the type of sale (more or less aggressive) will vary substantially depending on the product being sold and the situation in which the economy finds itself.

Moreover, it can sometimes be useful to reward meetings depending on the quality of your opportunities, and not on the quantity. As previously discussed, getting many meetings won’t always be a sign of success. But this is already another topic!


Want to learn more about B2B SaaS recruitment? Check out how to recruit remotely.

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