The Reasons We Created a Slack Community specifically for SaaS and Software Professionals --
- Global concentration.
- More established professionals and businesses (less students and startups in the early stages).
- Moderation by professionals.
- A lesser amount of attention is paid to financing rounds or venture capital.
- An extremely supportive group without a smidgen of tolerance for disrespectful or unprofessional behavior.
It's true that elements such as a international business perspective and knowledgeable expert moderators (that's me!) are things we would like to have on the online forums.
That post touched on what's in it for members, specifically as when compared with other groups on the internet.
But you might still be thinking, "But what's in it to do ?"
It's a valid concern, and I'll try to discuss it due to the motives (plural) the reason to invest in this project might not be as straightforward than the most skeptical people think.
As a business person yourself You know how it operates. Companies don't just invest in new programs to help random businesspeople on the internet; they invest in it to benefit their personal company in some way.
Yes, having a successful online community can be a fantastic method to increase its brand recognition and maybe even generate prospects every once in awhile.
But marketing is only one of the reasons we're doing this. No matter if you're a client or not, our would like members to gain from the group, otherwise it won't succeed anyway.
Our Guiding Principle We believe that our Software as well as SaaS Community Must Be Good to You for it to be Successful.
It's pretty straightforward, but the bottom line is that if you don't feel that our community is a beneficial and stimulating place to hang out then you'll never hang out there.
It's crucial to its success -- both for you and for us for us to work hard to be a amazing group to be member of.
(And if we seem to not be following that standard in some way, or if you have any suggestions for how we can make it more effective, let us know. Further details on that are in the next paragraph.)
What Has to Gain From Hosting an online Community
There must have a reason behind this else we wouldn't have to do this, would we?
Of course. But we want our goals to be clear.
Here's what we'd like to do with this project.
Understanding What is Important to your business
One of the things our CEO David Nachman said to me in an interview about the mission and mission for the group was the community provides an opportunity to lessen the nature of transactions in our relationship with customers and other software as well as SaaS business.
There's a valid reason to be concerned: We assist in facilitating the process of transactions with online businesses It's not difficult for everyone to get stuck in the routine of having a -- well, transactional relationship.
We offer a service. you earn money, then Repeat on autopilot.
If we allow this to go on for too long could make us unable to enhance our B2B business by implementing strategies that directly benefit the success of your business as well as aiding online companies to succeed is a priority for us.
This is of course applicable to our current customers, but it's also applicable to software companies who are considering making the switch to . If you're uncertain which payment system and merchant of record (MOR) for your B2C, B2B or B2C SaaS firm, we'd like to know about the questions and concerns you have so we can consider that our consideration while we continue to build the products and features we offer.
For more information on the ways David hopes to get to know your company, watch the video interview with his members, that I conducted in his own capacity as a member:
We also expanded our vision for this community , to create an individual contributor, executive, entrepreneur, and founder members -as we believe we can learn more about companies (and serve them better) when we've got a diverse layering of community members.
Our goal to increase the intimacy of our relationships with companies (and obviously, with those who find or are employed by them) is an additional reason why we do things like conducting interviews with our members. Apart from helping members get to know one another, it also helps in getting to know the members and their current business concerns.
Enhancing customer relationships
Learning more about your business is a great way for us to strengthen the relationship we have with you, regardless of whether you're a client or not.
Our relationships with our customers could also be strengthened by giving members additional access to those who work for us .
We already have a broad friendly and prompt support to customers as well as their purchasers, and we have customer success managers for some of our clients with big or complicated businesses.
But we know most companies are able to improve the ways they help their customers and strengthen those relationships.
Ninety-nine percent of the time, out of a hundred, creating a ticket is the best method to receive assistance. Our support team can effectively route requests according to the nature or urgent nature of the issue and it aids us in tracking the support requirements of a company in the course of time.
(That last part also helps us to gain a greater understanding of the firm's demands.)
It could be beneficial to periodically contact leaders in person, especially when someone is in a position to address a company-related need that doesn't have to do with technical issues related to the platform. We're a community of experts on our platform and not only end-user technical support specialists.
Product managers, tax and payments experts and customer service experts and even the occasional sales or marketing manager might be in there and can answer similar business-related questions. They could even provide insight on the future from the's platform.
Our goal is for the experiences our customers have with to be the kind of positive experiences they're telling their colleagues about, and we think making ourselves more readily available can increase the possibilities. In the event that you're a current customer that is not having that kind of interaction with us, the community is also an avenue to let us know that.
Yes, Leads
This is part of the blog that we must be really transparent.
Yes, we'd love it if some of our members that aren't currently a merchant of record would sign up for our services.
Luckily for them, that isn't the sole goal of this community.
Since we have also set the goals of strengthening customer relationships and learning all possible about SaaS and the software needs of business:
- It's safe to say that signing up new customers is only a small part of the goals we have for this community, and we won't solicit anyone who hasn't expressed the desire to us in advance.
- There are a higher chance in securing new users when we're able to meet those two objectives we mentioned above, so we're going to work a lot harder on achieving them.
We're confident that if our community members see us taking care of clients and sincerely soliciting feedback, they'll become a lot more interested in our role as a platform for commerce and merchant of record -- because they'll be able to witness the hard work that we do and the care we show our customers in person.
If you've thought about previously it could be the perfect opportunity to establish a relationship with us a bit more casually. The community members are able to connect with other customers, read conversations that take place between customers and , and (remotely) meet individuals who are part of the business it is.
What Can You Expect From Joining This Community
However, while the article focused on some of the features that are available to members of the GSL community but didn't fully cover the actual advantages gained by joining a group such as this one.
Although we've got big goals for Global SaaS Leaders -- and we're continually working on community building -- here are some of the advantages we already have to offer to software and SaaS founders, executives entrepreneurs, marketing professionals as well as engineers, developers and more.
Join a Network of Software Professionals From Everywhere Over the World
Whether you're a SaaS marketer trying to improve your SEO by the region, or a people and culture manager who is concerned about international onboarding and in-person meetups or even someone who is a SaaS founder looking for tips on selling into specific countries Accessing those in the international community provides makes "going global" a lot more simple.
So far, we have members representing over fifty countries spread in 17 time zones.
Find out about new markets you Are Interested in Expanding or Introducing Within
The main benefit of being part of a global network is that you can tap into it for advice when you're working on breaking into new markets.
There is a place to post on the community, asking individuals from specific nations to assist you and you may also reach out to me, principal moderator, and I can contact members in your area on your behalf.
You can also keep the discussion in the forum for previous questions pertinent to the SaaS markets you're working to enter into.
You can also watch our videos of members recorded on a rolling basis with members who'd want to be a part of it (like the one above, with CEO David Nachman).
One of the questions we ask interviewees in general is "What's something people don't understand about the process of selling software in your country?" The goal of this type of question is to help you understand the culture and business standards that might influence the ease to offer software to customers in your country.
Take a look at SaaS Company Leaders and Experts
While our membership is spread between different roles and level, we have a lot of executives, SaaS founders, and department heads within Global SaaS Leaders who are eager to share their experience with fellow members.
Some members are software and SaaS founders who have several SaaS businesses, others have worked for internationally recognizable businesses, while others are entrepreneurs who have pivoted careers or industries and have a wide range of knowledge to provide advice.
In addition, several senior executives and managers are available, such as Our Chief Executive Officer, the International Tax Director as well as our Vice Director for Global Customer Operations. They're present in the community because they want to help our members as best they can.
(For additional information on this topic, check out Kurt regarding this subject, check out his standing-room only presentation on SaaS Pricing Strategies That Work: How to Design an Optimal Pricing Model at SaaStr Europa earlier in 2022.)
We're happy to respond to questions like this, and we're happy to provide an area where issues like these can be debated among our international colleagues.
Position Yourself as an Expert
If you're already known as a SaaS professional or industry expert, great! We'd like to see you contributing to the community while you continue to increase your personal and professional brand through knowledge sharing.
In the event that you're trying to create your own identity in the first place taking part in professional forums is a great method to get started. It doesn't mean that we have the status of SaaS founders to become experts in the fields we work in. actively sharing that knowledge with others establishes each of us as not only well-informed, but also friendly and gracious -- and it's an excellent public image to build.
The Community will be shaped as it Grows
We started this program and SaaS community in March 2022. It's grown quickly. We want to make it the ideal location for people like you to virtually "hang out" this space is still flexible and open to new ideas.
For example, a member recently suggested we add an option for a particular type of use case.
We then turned that request into a poll asking the members to share their thoughts on what channels they'd like to have added to the Slack workspace:
So whether you'd like to vote in a quiet way on community updates or confidently suggest your own, we're open to suggestions!
If you're interested in specific forum channels, service recommendations for providers, LinkedIn and social media connectivity opportunities, a podcast or facebook group in-person meetups, webinars and templates, or just additional software or SaaS development hacks all over the world, we'd like to hear about it.
Share Your Thoughts
There are many options for members to express their views than in relation to the group, however. One of the most recent requests we had for members was to tell us which benchmarking statistics and metrics they'd like to have released.
The use of these measurements can assist software and SaaS business owners better formulate strategies for increasing their revenue.
We want to offer relevant and helpful data to developing and successful software and SaaS businesses, we reached out to the public directly to inquire about benchmarking information we might want to collect in the future:
Some of the responses included retention rates for a particular sector, MRR growth in a specific industry, failed payments metrics (unintentional conversion rate churn) as well as churn and conversion rates in different regions.
This poll was open to members of all kinds, regardless of their customer situation.
As we mentioned above, being aware of what matters most in software or SaaS businesses is important to , and we want the Global SaaS Leaders community to be somewhere you can express the things you need to do in order in order to move your business to the highest level.
Make use of the community to find out More About (If You're Interested)
The poll above was posted on the channel devoted to the community, which exists so discussions about (as opposed to general business-related discussion) are posted to that channel and kept out of our main feed.
This is because we do not want our customers -- particularly those who aren't customers -- to be enticed by the constant messages we're marketing . As we've said before the software and SaaS community has to be something you can benefit from to be successful And we believe excessive salesmanship can create a negative impression and make it a place that which you do not wish to be.
With that said, if you're not a current customer, however you've thought about trying us out, then joining GSL is a great opportunity to learn more about the company, by viewing customer interactions with our leadership, seeing the types of comments and questions users have about GSL, and much more. The -specific channel is open to members of all kinds.
And if you have no desire to read ? It is fine to go away from the -specific channel not read. There are many other things for you to do within the community, without having to read articles about platforms there is no need for.
Join The Global SaaS Leaders Community
We're really proud of the Global SaaS Leaders community already and are proud to be able to offer an international social networking and discussion forum featuring features like live interviews and member introduction videos as well as a variety of expert opinions.
In the future, we will be focusing on building communities and our member base expands, we'll introduce more features. We'd love to provide many more individual networking opportunities start a podcast, host more real-time events, and integrate social media in the future.
But if you join now, you can have an influence on what the club develops into, too.
To maintain a high quality of membership In order to maintain a high quality of membership, I'm reviewing each new member applications There aren't any automated systems that allow spammers or bots. This is why sending your LinkedIn URL is crucial. We appreciate your patience while I go through your application and don't hesitate to contact us via email if you have any concerns prior to applying!
About
