Three SaaS sales models: top down, bottoms up, land and expand

Executive overview

Giving a demo without a sales methodology produces maybes, not revenue. The choice of model depends on how your customer wants to buy, not how you want to sell. Three models cover the full spectrum from enterprise transformation to self-serve viral adoption.

The right sales model is dictated by your product's role in the customer's business, not by your preference.

Top down model

• Suited for software that is core infrastructure or a system of record for the business
• Start at leadership level; work through multiple stakeholders and decision makers
• Longer sales cycle, but larger deal sizes and low churn once embedded
• Warning: if deal sizes are small but the sales effort is top down, the model is unsustainable

Bottoms up model

• Suited for tools where a single user can get value immediately — systems of engagement
• Users self-adopt (trial, low-cost license); adoption spreads organically within the company
• Sales team enters mid-process, already warm, to convert critical mass into a site-wide deal
• Risk: low-intent users may not propagate the tool or use it properly

Land and expand model

• A hybrid: sales-led pilot with a small subset of the organisation, then structured expansion
• Avoids the two failure modes: a 12-month top-down slog and a sea of low-intent free users
• Pilot is the "landing" — defined scope, defined timeframe (e.g. 30-day pilot, sometimes paid)
• Plan the wedding: before the pilot starts, co-create an explicit exit plan with the customer — what success looks like, when it ends, and what the next deal looks like
• Without a wedding plan, 30-day pilots drift into months-long limbo, becoming a worse version of the top-down model
• Expansion path can be: small team → department → country → global; or 2 users → 10 → 100

Choosing the right model

• System of record → top down (users won't self-adopt a core platform)
• System of engagement, single-user value → bottoms up
• Mid-market deals where you want speed and control → land and expand
• Let customer buying behaviour guide the decision, not founder preference for or against salespeople