What is the purpose of a Deal Desk?

As a SaaS startup scales, one of the biggest challenges is figuring out create specialized functions / teams within the business while fostering a highly collaborative environment to bring it all together.

Teams like Revenue Operations begin to emerge with a designated role of being the bridge between Sales, Marketing, Customer Success, and Finance teams. They create the businesses processes required for these teams to function as a single unit and scale Go-to-Market Systems that help delivered streamlined workflows.

The Deal Desk team is no different. It's a cross-functional team responsible for facilitating the pricing strategy and negotiation process of complex deals. This team typically includes ties into Sales & Sales Operations, Finance, Legal, and Product who collaborate to optimize the value of deals while minimizing risk to the company.

The main benefit of a Deal Desk is taking the burden of crafting a complex deal structure off the plate of Sales Reps so they can spend more time selling - instead, Deal Desk Analysts support the Sales team in crafting proposals and pricing that meets the specific needs of the customer while ensuring company revenue and profitability targets.

The Deal Desk analyzes pricing and deal data to identify trends, develop pricing strategies, and optimize deal structures. This can involve working closely with product teams to understand the value proposition of new features or products and incorporating that information into pricing models.

How big a typical Deal Desk team?

The size of a Deal Desk in a SaaS company can vary depending on the size of the Sales organization and complexity of the business. In some smaller SaaS companies, the Deal Desk may consist of just one or two people handling all aspects of deal management, pricing, and contract negotiations - in these cases, it may not even be the full-time job of these individuals and it's likely they sit in the Finance or Revenue Operations org.

In larger companies, the Deal Desk may be a dedicated team of 5-20 Deal Desk Analysts and Managers, who work collaboratively to manage more complex deals and provide specialized expertise in areas such as Legal, Finance, or Product. The size of the team can also depend on the volume of deals, the range of product SKUs and services offered, the geographic scope of the company's operations, and the complexity if your pricing, discounting, product bundling, and renewals strategy.

Ultimately, the number of people on a Deal Desk will depend on the specific needs of the SaaS company. But regardless, organizations have to be looking at adopting Internal Tools and GTM Systems that create a more efficient and scalable Deal Desk model.

This is undeniably a function that can be operationalized with proper implementation of processes and systems.

Overview of 6 Deal Desk Teams

Let's take a look at 6 high-growth SaaS organizations to get a glimpse of their Deal Desk team size as it compares to the overall Sales organization.

While headcount alone doesn't tell the full story, you can spot some big differences in team size that lead us to conclude which Deal Desks have been properly setup and enabled with technology.

Cloudera

A team of 16 Deal Desk Analysts for 600 Reps in Sales and Business Development.

Cloudera is a confirmed Salesforce CPQ Customer with a 15-person Salesforce / GTM Systems team in-house.

Procore Technologies

A team of 14 Deal Desk Analysts for 1,200 Reps in Sales and Business Development.

Procore is a confirmed Salesforce CPQ Customer with a 28-person Salesforce / GTM Systems team in-house and one of the more well established, centralized Business Systems Leadership structures we've seen in the market.

Five9

A team of 15 Deal Desk Analysts for 600 Reps in Sales and Business Development.

Braze

A team of 14 Deal Desk Analysts for 585 Reps in Sales and Business Development.

Samsara

A team of 8 Deal Desk Analysts for 1,100 Reps in Sales and Business Development.

Snowflake

A team of 8 Deal Desk Analysts for 2,200 Reps in Sales and Business Development.

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Deal Desk is one of those areas that Revenue Operations teams should use as a way to justify further investing in Revenue Systems teams.

Just look at the data! Snowflake has only 8 Deal Desk Analysts for an org of 2,000+ Sellers, while Five9, Cloudera, and Braze have 2x the number of people on Deal Desk with 25% of the total headcount in Sales.

This is a 7-figure savings Snowflake can point to based on the heavy investment they've made in the GTM Systems stack that automates and streamlines the entire Deal Desk process rather than simply throwing headcount at the problem.

Internal Tools used by the Deal Desk

The GTM Tech Stack used by a Deal Desk can be wide ranging, since the function touches so many different teams cross-functionally.

These are the main categories of tools internal tools you should be thinking about to ensure you are building an efficient, scalable Deal Desk:

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Without a doubt, your Deal Desk team will be working out of your CRM, whether it's Salesforce, Hubspot, or another platform. Since Deal Desk Analysts have such a close collaboration with Sales Reps, they will be managing customer data, tracking sales opportunities, and monitoring most activities throughout the sales pipeline as a co-pilot to your Sellers.

Pricing and Quoting Tools

You have probably heard for CPQ (Cash, Price Quote) platforms, which is a fast-growing area within SaaS Technology infrastructure.

Company pricing and billing models continue to evolve, whether it's PLG, usage-based billing instead of per-seat, or some other shift in market dynamics. And CPQ platforms allow your Deal Desk to create accurate pricing proposals and manage the pricing process for complex deals.

The more time your Deal Desk Analysts are spending building complex deals in CPQ, the less time your Reps can do it and instead focus on creating more revenue generating opportunities.

Contract management Tools

Contract management tools such as DocuSign, Conga, or Adobe Sign are used to manage the contract negotiation and signature process for deals, ensuring that all legal requirements are met and the process is streamlined.

Analytics and reporting Tools

Deal Desk teams may use analytics and reporting tools such as Tableau or Power BI to analyze pricing and deal data, track performance against revenue targets, and identify trends and opportunities for optimization.

It's important to remember that Deal Desk sits in between Revenue Operations and Finance teams, which are both highly analytical, data-driven functions. And Deal Desk is no different. Leveraging historical data helps to provide insights that may lead to more effective pricing strategies and pairing this with Finance data helps ensure company revenue and profitability targets.

Collaboration and communication Tools

Collaboration and communication tools such as Slack or Microsoft Teams are often used by Deal Desk teams to communicate with sales teams, share information, and coordinate efforts to manage deals effectively. As we've stated, Deal Desk is one of those centralized functions that acts as a bridge between 4-5+ teams spread across your organization so collaboration is key.