Q: Should an early- stage B2B startup meet every customer face-to-face to receive feedback?
Now that we’re back to in-person meetings, it’s in some ways a different world. We’ve gotten used to closing bigger and bigger deals over Zoom. Prospects and customers aren’t really expecting face-to-face meetings anymore, even for the biggest deals.
And yet … now we’re all seeing deals close faster, win rates go up, and customers buy more, when we actually meet them again in person.
So as a rough rule, who should you take the time to go meet? Because it does take time. The answer really is — meet as many as you can in person.
But some rough rules to think about:
- Meet every local customer that you can Uber/drive to in the early days … if they’ll take a meeting (a lot won’t want to). Try to meet every single of your first 100 customers in person that are local, no matter how small the deal size.
- The more your product is a “solution” vs. just a tool — the more meetings you should take. To learn how your solution is really being used.
- Meet with ALL your top 10, or top 10% customers. So if you have 50-70 today … if nothing else … meet in person with at least the Top 5 or so. It will dramatically increase the odds they deploy, expand, and stay. Customers love to meet with the CEO. You owe it at least to you top customers.
- If nothing else, try to spend 20% of your time with your existing customers. Everyone spends too much time on prospects, and not enough time with closed customers.
The post Dear SaaStr: How Many Prospects and Customers Should I Meet Face-to-Face? appeared first on SaaStr.
via https://www.aiupnow.com
Jason Lemkin, Khareem Sudlow
