How to sell to Heads of Sales at SaaS companies in United States
Heads of Sales at SaaS companies are primarily measured on their quarterly revenue growth. They are likely to respond to outreach that directly addresses how to reduce churn rates or improve sales team efficiency. Demonstrating an understanding of their need to optimize sales processes and drive predictable revenue will catch their attention.
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
- inefficient sales processes
- low conversion rates
- extended sales cycles
The playbook
- 01
Identify churn reduction opportunities
Use tools like G2 or Capterra to find SaaS companies with declining reviews or increased customer complaints. These companies may be struggling with churn, making them more receptive to solutions that address customer retention.
- 02
Research sales team performance metrics
Look for publicly available sales performance data or industry reports that highlight struggling sales teams. Target outreach toward companies that report low conversion rates or high sales cycle times, as they are likely seeking improvement.
- 03
Segment based on recent funding rounds
Filter your list for SaaS companies that have recently secured funding, as they are often looking to scale operations quickly. These companies might be more open to exploring new sales strategies to maximize their growth potential.
- 04
Craft messages around team efficiency
When writing your outreach, focus on how your solution can enhance sales team productivity. Use specific examples of how similar companies have streamlined their processes and achieved better results, which will resonate with their goals.
- 05
Leverage industry events for follow-ups
If you've identified a company that attended a recent SaaS conference or webinar, reference that event in your follow-up. This shows you’re engaged with their industry and can lead to a more meaningful conversation about their challenges.
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
- Reducing churn for SaaS teams
- Boosting sales efficiency
- Improving conversion rates
Questions
- Why do Heads of Sales at SaaS companies ignore outreach about sales tools?
- Heads of Sales often receive numerous pitches and may perceive them as generic or irrelevant. If the outreach doesn't directly address their specific pain points, such as churn or efficiency, they are likely to disregard it.
- What challenges do Heads of Sales face during scaling?
- As SaaS companies scale, Heads of Sales often struggle with maintaining sales quality and managing team performance. They need to implement effective training and processes to ensure new hires can quickly adapt and contribute to revenue goals.
- How can outreach be tailored to Heads of Sales in SaaS?
- Outreach should focus on specific pain points like churn reduction or sales optimization. Using industry-specific language and examples of similar companies that have succeeded with targeted solutions can make the communication more relevant.
- What are common objections from Heads of Sales to new solutions?
- Heads of Sales may object to new solutions due to budget constraints, skepticism about ROI, or concerns over implementation time. Addressing these objections upfront in your outreach can help facilitate a more productive conversation.
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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