Give Your B2B Saas Team a Reason to Care Beyond Customers Earning Money

I’ll say it straight up: lower level employees do not actually care about your company’s customers simply making more money.  I know, I know, that’s harsh. I don’t mean to make it seem like your workforce is composed of apathetic people who show up just for a paycheck. That’s absolutely not the case.

But one thing I see all too often is leaders getting really excited about customers making money because it means the company is making money. That’s a good thing, of course, because if the company isn’t bringing in money, eventually people lose their jobs.  

Beyond job security, though, think about it – what real reason are you giving your team to care about showing up and doing a great job?

Let’s dig in.

Who needs to care?

I get that it’s a privilege to even consider passion when thinking about one’s employment. For most of human history, I don’t think people were passionate about subsistence farming or churning butter or blacksmithing tools. They did it because they needed to eat and survive.

When someone is just getting started in their career or coming off a layoff and more concerned with securing income than passion for a company’s mission, they will sign up for whatever opportunity comes their way. Unless if the company downright operates against their morals (and even sometimes if it does) they will find some kind of connection that will help them make it through the day. There are bills to pay and often, people cannot afford to be picky.

But despite someone’s level of desperation in taking a job offer, one thing that can retain someone in a job when they could move to another opportunity is if they can connect to the company mission or the real, deeper outcomes.

Connecting to the company mission as a content marketer

This is a personal professional blog and I’m not an expert here on workplace satisfaction, so I’ll center the primary example on my own experience.

As a content marketer, it’s my job to tell stories and educate via content so new customers sign up and existing customers stick around.  It’s much easier to tell stories when you have some kind of emotional connection to draw upon.  

When I worked at Houzz, it was delightful working in the home renovation industry. Most of the customers of our advertising and then later business management platform were small businesses and they worked to make homes more beautiful or functional, or even developed new housing. I spoke with these customers and they talked about how their lives were changed by being able to be self employed and work in a field of their passion. Sure, we had our fair share of enterprise type customers (like Pella Windows or Jeld-Wen) that were larger. But for the most part, it was great to know our work made a difference to real people and their success didn’t just come in the form of truckloads of money.

I enjoyed writing about these small business owners and being surrounded by an industry that made our living environments more functional and aesthetically pleasing. It was interesting to see trends in how people used their homes. I had my moments where I felt sad and embarrassed of my ugly apartment with a terrible kitchen compared to the beautiful homes I saw daily on Houzz, of course. But, it gave me something to write about for over four years.

So when I was ready to move on from Houzz to get to the next step in my career, I interviewed around, and I found myself in discussions with a few organizations where I just could not bring myself to care about what they did as much as Houzz, or at all. One organization worked in selling foreclosed homes. Another was a small payment processing company. I didn’t feel a shred of passion about promoting either of those.  I’m very fortunate I could pass on those for something else, because I still had my job at Houzz.

When I moved over to Kajabi, I could see that the software empowered independent creators to build online businesses by selling knowledge based content. I could get on board with another tool that powered self employment!

It’s boring to keep rooting for the winners

But alas, I found that at another platform that set up independent entrepreneurs for success, and one that was doing very well, the internal motivation seemed to just revolve around making others money.  

At Kajabi, we had a wide range of entrepreneurs using and making money from the platform through their content sales and affiliate marketing. We had plenty of small creators earning anywhere from a side hustle income to somewhere around the median American household income.

But, I found that we consistently went back to hyping big names like Amy Porterfield and Brendon Burchard who defined knowledge commerce, and fitness creator Cassey Ho of Blogliates. These are people whose success is inspirational and aspirational for many.

There’s nothing wrong with being successful, but at some point, I ran out of energy to cheer for the same winners over and over. It’s like when Tom Brady played for the New England Patriots – it stopped being fun to watch for anyone who was not a Patriots fan because you knew they were going to win. (This led to a divide in my house because my mom was a Patriots fan while Dad and I cheered for the Raiders).

Now factor in that your employees are not rooting for a sports team but instead doing this for their livelihoods. Do you think they are genuinely excited at the prospect of making some other person, or a faceless enterprise company, more money on top of the amount that they already have – a sum that is greater than what your employees could ever hope to achieve in their own lives?

No.

What gives employees a reason to care?

In the world of B2B Saas, the end result usually comes down to generating more money or increasing efficiency… which then allows for more money to be made, or increased profit margins. We all get this. This is not surprising to your employees. But at least do a little to connect your company’s work to the bigger picture. Otherwise, it just feels so soul-sucking.

I think there is a two-step way that leaders can do this:

1) Extrapolate the value.

At Kajabi, they brought in customers who shared the real life changes they experienced as a result of using the product. One guest speaker was a couple who ran a hair salon and used Kajabi for their continuing education courses for hair stylists. They said their customers who took their courses and implemented the training ultimately were able to achieve meaningful milestones like finally buying new, safer cars for their families or paying off student loans.

I also got to speak to customers in my work creating case studies. I spoke to one woman whose prior full time career gave her such a bad health reaction her doctor told her to stop working, and she was able to use Kajabi to grow her wellness coaching business so she could work at her own pace.

So by digging deeper, you can uncover success stories that get at the heart of why people do what they do. I know I showed up more for the teachers trying to leverage their skills online because America does not pay them enough, or for the Deaf sign language teacher who was teaching online because he faced challenges and discrimination getting traditional employment.

I knew I was never going to make as much money as the top 1% of knowledge entrepreneurs, but if I knew my work helped someone overcome adversity, that would get me inspired to work hard and serve our customers better.

2) Be mindful of who you’re putting on a pedestal.

Remember that success is visible. You send a message in who you choose to speak at events and the success stories you share on your company social media.

Are you always calling up the top earners or biggest accounts? Are these customers sharing anecdotes that resonate with your team? If they’re Zooming in from their vacation home at the beach or driving into the office in a Ferrari, consider if that’s going to motivate your employees or instantly make them feel inferior or disconnected.

Call up those newer success stories and medium sized accounts. Ask to have a member of the team who actually uses the product speak rather than the C-level executive who just sees the report it generates or supports. They probably have something more useful to say to your team.

There’s a flip side to this too.  Of course, diversity is super important. Representation matters. But also, here’s a little reminder: don’t prop up your customers just because they fit a convenient demographic at a certain social moment. Black customers exist outside of Black History Month.

Why should companies provide the bigger picture?

After reading all this, you may wonder why leaders need to guide with the bigger picture. Why not let employees figure it out themselves?

Employees can and will, but not everyone gets to speak to your customers in their work. It’s on you to facilitate that. (You can delegate this to your trusted content marketer or brand messaging person on your team, that’s fine too).

Above everything else, management sets the tone. Going the extra effort to demonstrate the actual real world benefits in addition to pure moneymaking means a lot. They want to know that you know there’s more to their work than financial success they likely don’t get a significant part of.

Your team already knows that the main reason they are doing their jobs is to make money, and they accept that. But providing them with some other motivation might be the reason they stick around and make money for your company instead of another.