After Jeff Haller (CEO/Partner) and Kathi Haller (CFO/Partner) attended the SaaStr Annual in 2018, they knew they had to find a way to take some of their learnings back to the rest of the team. After putting together some training on their own, Jeff and Kathi found SaaStr Pro, which seemed like a much easier way to get everyone trained on the SaaS best practices. We caught up with them to see how their team has been using SaaStr Pro over the last year.
So why did you decide to try out SaaStr Pro?
It’s just a much better way to share all the things we learned at the annual event with the rest of our management team in St. Louis. Being outside the Bay Area, it’s nice for them to receive training from experts directly … especially with some people on our team coming from a non-SaaS background. We trust SaaStr’s content and connecting the management team to the industry expertise has been great.
Lastly, the recurring weekly training component is huge – it allows us to stay sharp all year.
What are some of the main benefits you are seeing from the weekly trainings?
The discussions that we have about the material forces us into a weekly regiment of reading and absorbing new topics over time. We can take a step back and be a little more strategic and think about how the business should be run by stepping out of the day to day.
We like to say that it straightens out path our a bit, so we don’t have to always be trial and error.
Who all is using SaaStr Pro in the company? How did you roll it out?
We signed up our entire management team: CEO, CFO, directors, and managers, which right now is roughly 10 people.
What do you think about the training being cross-functional rather than role specific?
I feel like we are a close enough group that our management team all needs to know this stuff, and all our groups work together to make that happen. We all have an interest in what’s happening on other teams, so even if the topic is marketing or sales, everyone wants to understand it at a leadership level. We don’t have the luxury to say “that’s not my job” — every topic is at least relevant to someone, and if it’s relevant to someone it’s relevant to everyone.
How exactly are you using it — what does the process look like?
We have a weekly meeting where we take about 45 minutes to discuss the content. We’ve played with the time, like including it in our standup time, but we ended up with 45 minutes weekly to discuss it — it works out really well. Everyone has read the material and digested it, and provided thoughts, then we dive in. We often find a little piece that is relevant to us, and then we discuss how we can apply it. Sometimes the material is theoretical, and reinforcing things we might already know, and sometimes it’s specifically applicable; but in either case, it’s valuable. We don’t feel like we have to do something from every session, but we at least discuss it.
What’s an example of a change you made as a result of a SaaStr Pro lesson?
One lesson (week 17) on improving our website conversion rates was very valuable — we chatted about the topic, and then came up with a free tool we could add to our website that might improve top of funnel, so our website visitors could get a score for free, modeled after the ‘website grader’ idea from the lesson. It was a great teamwork approach between Sales, Product and Marketing (Sparketing!). We just deployed the new tool in March, and we’re excited to see the impact it will have.
Overall, what’s your team’s feedback?
The most valuable thing we’ve got from SaaStr Pro is really just keeping us close to SaaS industry and knowledge, and keeping it fresh and in front of us all the time.
About DataServ:
DataServ simplifies document and process automation for Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, and Human Resources. Founded in 1994 as a SaaS company to change the way software is delivered, DataServ believes that clients deserve more value from their investments and has made it a goal to guarantee client success with shared responsibility. We believe that trust earned is trust kept, and we’re proud that 70% of our clients have stayed with us for more than 10 years. DataServ subscribes to a tailored delivery approach to solutions that are pragmatic, sustainable, and affordable. DataServ is headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri and has approximately 60 employees. For more information, please visit www.dataserv.com.
About SaaStr Pro:
SaaStr Pro is the best way to train your team on SaaS best practices, automatically. It is an online course with 52+ weeks of structured content, relevant cross-functionally. Management teams use SaaStr Pro to learn together, taking one step forward every week, in just 15 minutes a week. To sign your team up, go to SaaStrPro.com.
