Industries · Software as a Service
Everyone loves it.
Nobody's buying.
It’s the sentence I hear most from SaaS founders. Demos go well, the feedback is warm, and the pipeline doesn’t move. In my experience it comes down to three things, and none of them is the product.
Firms in this sector I've worked with
“Our previous marketing company gave us the tools. [Hannah Bink] gives us the insights.”
One
Wrong people
The demo lands because the person watching it likes it. Liking it and being able to authorize it are different things, and enthusiasm from someone who can’t sign is the most convincing false signal in B2B.
Two
No budget attached
The problem is real and nobody has money set aside to fix it. A budget line usually exists somewhere adjacent, tied to a number an executive is already accountable for. If the pitch isn’t pointed at that line, there’s nothing to fund it.
Three
Hard to buy from
Unnecessary friction between yes and purchase. Pricing requires a call. Security and procurement documents aren’t ready. It isn’t clear whether to buy now, start free, or contact sales. Buyers get bounced between people and repeat themselves.
How I sell, and how I teach it
Teach them something about their business.
I adhere to the Challenger sales model. It’s about teaching prospects something new about their business, rather than asking what they need and pitching your SaaS. You show them why their current approach is creating a problem or a missed opportunity, introduce a better way of thinking about it, and connect that insight to the problem your product solves.
It works. I’ve had people pull out a credit card in the room, no buyer committee consulted. That happens when the insight has already done the work the sales call usually has to. It matters most around a launch or a next-generation release, when the story is new and the market hasn’t decided what to think yet.
Case studies
How a rebuilt search advertising strategy lifted free-trial interest 477%
Search spend was buying traffic that never became trials. Rebuilding the strategy around buyer intent, rather than volume, produced a 477% lift in free-trial interest.
Read the case studyHow a focused trade show program produced a 30% increase in leads
Trade show presence was expensive and hard to measure. A tighter program, with a clear message and follow-up built in before the event, increased leads by 30%.
Read the case studyQuestions
What SaaS founders ask me.
Is this a sales problem or a marketing problem?
Usually it starts as a marketing problem and arrives as a sales problem. If the people in the demo can't authorize a purchase, or there's no budget line attached to what you're fixing, sales is being asked to close something that was mis-aimed upstream.
We're product-led. Does this still apply?
Yes, and it applies to the product too. In a product-led motion the first session in the app is the sales conversation, so it should teach the user something about their business rather than tour features.
Can you work with our existing agency?
Yes. I manage outside specialists and agencies as well as in-house teams and product managers who've inherited marketing. You don't need to change vendors before I start.
Are we too early for this?
If you're still working out who the product is for, that's a positioning question and a consulting engagement fits better than ongoing leadership. If you've found initial success and you're trying to reach the next level, that's the right moment.
How fast do we see a change?
The buying-friction problems are often fixable in weeks, because they're concrete: publish pricing, prepare the security documents, make one path obvious. Positioning and pipeline take a quarter or more to show in the numbers.
Find out where it stalls
Take 30 minutes to talk through where deals stall between the demo and the purchase order. You'll leave with a clearer read on it either way.