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Robbie Kellman Baxter shares her latest post on key subscription-based business strategies. This week she covers the new metrics of subscription models.

Selling is hard.

You have to find the prospects, attract their attention, build their trust, understand their needs and goals, and then get them to sign the agreement.

It’s much easier to keep the customers you have, and focus on extending and expanding that relationship.

That’s why there’s been an explosion in the “Anything-as-a-service” models (XaaS)–in the business world.

If you’re in sales, and moving to a subscription model, or even if you’re already selling something as a service and need a refresher, here are some tips to help you attract, engage, retain and expand relationships with the most profitable customers.

From Big Game Hunting to Farming

In a traditional business, the goal of selling is to get the customer to buy. That moment of transaction is when you’re done—hooray! And you go out to sell the next account. It’s like big game hunting, and you’ve brought in the woolly mammoth and left the carcass on the floor of the cave while you go out to win the next big deal.

But today, with SaaS and the emphasis on recurring revenue, the goal is to get the customer to come and stay. In this Membership Economy, it’s all about building a long-term relationship, with an emphasis not just on the initial transaction but on extending and expanding that transaction over time. If you need to optimize for lifetime value, you need to bring in the right customer (a customer who is going to get value out of what they’re buying) and then you need to optimize the customer experience for engagement and retention.This means that it’s not enough to close the deal–you also want to make sure that they are onboarded for success, and that your colleagues are tracking engagement.

Key points include:

• The importance of underlying metrics
• The focus on recurring revenue
• Developing the customer relationship

Read the full article, B2B Subscription Secrets for Sales: How to Build a Forever Transaction with Your Customer, on LinkedIn.