5 SaaS Growth Strategies I’ve Learned From Non-SaaS Businesses

About this video

Martell shares five growth lessons borrowed from non-SaaS businesses, under the principle ’learn wide, practise narrow’ and what he calls rob and duplicate from non-competitive industries — noting Henry Ford learned the assembly line from a Chicago meat packer. First, upsells from gyms: via friends Leila and Alex Hormozi of Gym Launch and his CrossFit experience, he argues SaaS should be ‘success as a service,’ using an account review after purchase to upsell coaching or a better tier. Second, use cases from consulting: consultants package intangible capability into specific solutions; his friend Ryan’s body-shop software has separate use cases for lead generation, selling quotes and scheduling. Martell claims solution selling can almost double win rates and halve the sales cycle, enabling land-and-expand, and warns against ‘featuritis’ from building every requested feature. Third, activation from gaming: level one is a tutorial that teaches jumping and ducking in play, and double-digit monthly logo churn usually signals users never felt the promised value. Fourth, product from manufacturing: drawing on Lean Startup author Eric Ries, an advisor to his company Clarity, plus the Toyota Production System and Six Sigma, including the principle that anyone can stop the line. Fifth, pricing from everywhere, especially the fastest growers — he cites his friend Matt at Pela Case and urges studying the Inc. 100’s pricing pages, offers, emails and ads, because success leaves clues.

Key takeaways

• Learn wide, practise narrow: steal repeatable systems from non-competitive industries and implement them narrowly in your SaaS for an unfair advantage.
• Borrow gym upsells: don’t just sell the membership/product — do an account review and upsell the fuller solution, such as coaching or a tier that fits their integrations.
• Sell use cases, not the broad product: package specific outcomes like consulting firms do, land on one urgent problem, then expand the account.
• Fix activation like a game tutorial: teach the success path inside the product so new users feel the homepage promise quickly, rather than building new features.
• Study manufacturing and fast growers for product and pricing: use Toyota’s stop-the-line principle for quality, and pattern-match pricing and offers from the Inc. 100.

Episode details: published November 15, 2021 · 12:50 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Dan Martell’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

← Previous: How To Hire & Retain High Performers For Your Startup · Next: How To Stop Micromanaging And Start Leading →

All Dan Martell videos · Dan Martell profile · Dan Martell (official site)