The State of SaaS Sales In 2023

The software as a service (SaaS) industry is, without a doubt, here to stay.  SaaS is a word that was first coined less than a decade old but is now one of the most ubiquitous terms in software, and almost all software is sold via the SaaS model.  

Software as a Service has enjoyed explosive growth in recent years, and global spending will exceed £630 billion in 2023.  Aaron Wallis has commissioned research into the burgeoning SaaS sector, and the results can be found here:

The State of SaaS Sales in the UK, 2023

Aaron Wallis Sales Recruitment is a national sales recruitment agency with dedicated recruitment consultants to tech sales recruitment and SaaS sales recruitment

How to Effectively Plan and Execute a Competency-Based Interview

Competency interviewing is a highly potent tool to add to any recruitment process. 

 The main three reasons are:

1. It helps to take the 'halo and horns effect', or unconscious bias, out of a recruitment process;
   
   
2. It helps make better and considered recruitment decisions based upon logic rather than ‘gut feel’;
   
   
3. And most importantly, it takes the emotion out of the recruitment decision-making process.

We’ve been eulogising about the benefits of competency interviewing for years and introduced hundreds of hiring managers to this reasonably simple interview technique.

Guide to Competency Based Interviews

So, we’ve put together a comprehensive guide to competency interviewing, which includes:

• An overview and a guide to choosing hiring competencies.
  
  
• How to plan competency-based questions with the follow-on questions.
  
  
• Using the STAR (or STARR) interviewing technique to help guide your questions.
  
  
• The outcome and benefits of competency interviewing
  
  
• A full battery of competency-based interview questions.
  
  
• An example competency interviewing template for a Sales Manager with competencies for leadership.
  
  
• Details of how to build an adequate competency interviewing scoring system
  
  
• A system of involving colleagues in the interview scoring and decision-making process.

The guide finishes with ‘Golden Rules’ when designing and implementing a competency interview process into your business.

It is free to view and download (not even an email signup is required). We hope that you find it useful and that competency interviewing helps improve your future hiring decisions.

Rob Scott's Recommended Books on Sales

The Psychology of Achievement on cassette!

I was fortunate to have a brilliant first Sales Manager, Mark Bailey. He introduced me to Brian Tracy (still right up there as one of the best) on cassette.  As you can see in the picture, I still own it today, even though I've got nothing to play it on!.  

Since then, late 1991 I reckon, I've read or listened to about two hundred books on sales and marketing.

I'm a bit of a geek when it comes to sales and love both the science and theatre of selling. Clients and contacts that know me well often ask me what books I'd recommend for staff at different levels.  With most stuff being a bit too repetitive and American for me, my 'go to' authors tend to be British authors like Jeremy Cassell and Tom Bird, Phil M. Jones, Sean McPheat and Grant Leboff. 

However, this list also includes some of the American greats and what seems to be the hot property of the 2020's 'The Challenger Sale'.

I hope that Sales Managers and Sales Directors may find some gems in here for their teams, so here goes! Rob's recommended books on sales and marketing