Building Powerful SaaS Professional Services Teams

Being a Tampa Bay resident, I can’t help but be amazed at the stroke of luck we’ve experienced with our professional sports teams last year and now this year with Tom Brady successfully leading the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to a Super Bowl win. With some of our recent successes, I’ve been thinking about what it takes to build winning teams.

In business, we don’t have to typically worry about just one competitor, but many at the same time. Our performance last year may not be enough to keep our customers happy this year, and one small slip-up may mean a competing firm can get the upper hand and run away with our client. So how can we continue to provide great service year after year and build great professional services teams? In this blog, we’ll discuss five ways to build and engage powerful professional services teams.

1. Hire Passionate Professionals – Some of the most successful members of professional services teams I’ve worked with are truly passionate about the clients they serve and they really believe in the SaaS product they are delivering (warts and all). These high-level performers are committed to their clients success as if it were their own.
2. Create Engaging Learning Opportunities – High-performing professional services teams demand opportunities to help them learn more and grow. Typically, these teams are already aware of knowledge gaps and the training or skills needed to fill these gaps. A leader of a high-performing professional services team needs to listen to the team and look for ways to satisfy learning and development needs.
3. Eliminate Mundane Tasks – Are your talented team members spending a lot of time on expense reports or other mundane tasks? Why? Could these valuable team members be spending their time helping clients with more complex challenges instead? If yes, look for ways to eliminate the tasks that can be outsourced so that your team can focus on what is most important: solving your client’s most complex challenges. In Steve Glaveski’s article, The Professional Services Firm of the Future, Glaveski offers great ideas on how to make the best use of some of the most creative problem solvers at your firm and not burn them out in the process.
4. Fire Abusive Clients – Nothing can be more demoralizing than working with clients that really don’t appreciate your team’s time. If you’re growing a powerful professional services team, catering to a client that doesn’t understand the value your team brings is a waste of time. Many times, the clients that are the most problematic are not your highest paying clients. Don’t let an abusive client bring your team down. It’s better to break away from that client before you lose a valuable team member.
5. Always Celebrate Success – Anniversaries, birthdays, project wins, and personal victories are all worth celebration. Nothing can erode morale faster than getting too busy to celebrate the little things and the big things.

Building a top-performing professional service team is key to successfully onboarding clients and increasing adoption. In order to help your clients get the most value they can after signing their initial contract for your services, make sure you are focusing on building the team that will impact that value the most within the first 90-days: your professional services team. By hiring the right professionals, creating learning opportunities, eliminating mundane tasks, firing abusive clients, and celebrating success, you’ll ensure that this critical team continues to help set your firm or product apart from your competitors.