How to sell to Heads of Sales at SaaS companies in Australia
The Head of Sales at a SaaS company in Australia is primarily measured on quarterly revenue growth. They respond to outreach that demonstrates a clear understanding of their current sales challenges, such as high churn rates or ineffective lead generation strategies, which directly impact their ability to meet targets. Insightful conversations about optimizing their sales process or improving customer retention can prompt engagement.
Written and maintained by the SoloRiff team, who build outbound software and run outbound with it. The figures below are our own: we measured 559 saas company domains over public DNS on 2026-09-03. Last updated 2026-09-03.
What actually hurts
- high churn rates
- ineffective lead generation
- long sales cycles
- low demo conversion
The playbook
- 01
Identify churn metrics
Use tools like Gainsight or ChurnZero to find companies experiencing increased churn rates. Target those with a 5% or higher churn in the last quarter. This indicates they may be seeking solutions to improve customer retention.
- 02
Find recent funding announcements
Search for Australian SaaS companies that have recently secured funding through platforms like Crunchbase. These companies are often looking to scale their sales teams and may be more open to discussions about sales strategies.
- 03
Highlight specific sales process inefficiencies
In your outreach, mention common issues such as long sales cycles or low conversion rates from demos to closed deals. Tailor your message to address these pain points, as they resonate with the daily challenges faced by Heads of Sales.
- 04
Leverage industry-specific events
Reference upcoming SaaS industry events or webinars in your emails. Mention how you can help them prepare for these events by optimizing their sales strategies, which can prompt a response from those looking to make an impact.
- 05
Set a clear call to action
Conclude your outreach with a specific request for a 20-minute call to discuss their sales goals. Make it easy for them to respond by suggesting two time slots, showing respect for their busy schedule.
Can saas companies even receive your mail?
We measured the DNS of 559 saas companies, sampled evenly across company sizes, to see how many authenticate their own email. It matters in both directions: a domain that does not authenticate is a domain whose team is used to mail going missing — and if your own domain is in the gap, yours is the mail going missing.
Publishes a DMARC policy of quarantine or reject — the domain actually asks receivers to act on failures.
The gap is the finding: 16.7% of 1–10-person companies against 80.9% of the largest — 64 points apart. Small companies are where the unauthenticated domains are, and small companies are who most cold outreach is aimed at.
Where does your domain sit?
Same three lookups, run live against your domain. Nothing is stored and nothing is emailed to you.
How this was measured
Company domains were sampled within employee-count bands, then queried over public DNS for SPF (TXT at the apex), DMARC (TXT at _dmarc.) and MX. One domain per company, deduplicated. Anyone can reproduce any single row of this with dig.
DKIM is deliberately absent. A DKIM key lives under a selector that cannot be enumerated from outside the domain, so a company with flawless DKIM under a name we did not guess would be counted as having none. That would measure our guess list, not the industry.
Domains with no MX record are excluded rather than counted as failures — parked and redirect-only domains would otherwise drag every figure down and make the result an artefact of the sample.
Sampled within bands, so this describes the population of companies, not of employees: a 10-person company counts once, as does a 10,000-person one. Each band is at least 60 domains; bands below that are not published. Figures are percentages of the sample, not of the whole industry, and we publish no company names — only counts.
Measured 2026-09-03. Re-measured monthly.
The full census across every industry — sortable, with sample sizes, free to reuse under CC BY 4.0.
Subject lines that fit
- Improving your sales conversion
- Tackling churn in SaaS
- Streamlining your sales process
Questions
- Why do Heads of Sales in SaaS ignore outreach about sales tools?
- Heads of Sales may ignore outreach if it lacks relevance to their current challenges. If your message doesn't demonstrate an understanding of their specific pain points, such as high churn or ineffective lead generation, it may not capture their attention.
- What common objections do Heads of Sales have to new sales strategies?
- Common objections include concerns about the time required to implement new strategies and skepticism about their effectiveness. They often prioritize immediate revenue impacts over long-term changes, making it essential to demonstrate quick wins.
- How can I effectively engage with Heads of Sales at SaaS companies?
- Engagement can be enhanced by referencing industry trends, sharing insights on best practices, and asking thoughtful questions about their current strategies. Showing genuine interest in their challenges fosters a connection that can lead to productive conversations.
- What role does data play in the decision-making process for Heads of Sales?
- Data is crucial for Heads of Sales as it informs their strategy and helps them track performance. They rely on metrics such as conversion rates and customer feedback to make informed decisions, so any outreach should be data-driven to resonate with them.
Or have it run itself
SoloRiff does every step above on its own — finds the companies, finds the people, writes each of them individually, and handles the replies. Drop your URL and watch it work before you sign up for anything.
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