10 Lessons I Learned Scaling a Multi-Million Dollar Company in 2018

9:16pm.

Sitting in complete silence here in my downtown office. San Francisco. Ground zero of the tech bubble.

Part of that’s a lie; I just hate to admit that I’m listening to Justin Bieber’s Christmas album.

You know what’s even worse? Realizing you are still going to be here when the cleaners have finished.

As I think about my plan for 2019,  my mind wanders to the past...

Coming to the United States three years ago, I was riding a tremendous emotional wave.

I had helped one of Australia’s fastest growing tech companies at the time scale at record pace. Barely in my twenties, I was filled with confidence that I had the ingredients to become a successful VP of Sales and Marketing here where dreams are made.

My first opportunity didn’t work out and after a period of great stress I ended up taking a role which saw me go from one of the youngest sales leaders in my country to your run-of-the-mill account executive.

I had no team reporting to me.

I had a limited set of tools.

I had no budget.

All I had was a phone, an email client and plenty of hard work.

But this was exactly what I needed.

Many athletes in their careers have credited injuries as key turning points; as they go from superstar to half-a-star; honing the very basics over a number of months before they return to optimal fitness.

I believe my confidence had turned to shades of arrogance and in this humbling role I was gifted with a number of powerful takeaways - the key element being Americans know how to sell. Period.

In Australia, I never received a formal career in sales at any technology company or at university; I was entirely self taught. Although I may have been strong at building relationships or opening doors, getting people to say “yes” to multi-million dollar software purchases is a completely different skill.

Seeing how some of the best companies in the world educate their teams on strategic selling methods was a key turning point in my career. If you haven’t already - please look at the main four; SPIN, BANT, Challenger and MEDDIC as points of reference.

On the back of this experience, I was extremely grateful to be granted the opportunity to once again lead here at GetAccept across the sales and growth marketing functions.

I’ve seen many companies fail to make it from $0-$100k ARR - who struggle to iterate from MVP to landing their first paying customers.

It’s hard to contain the excitement when our  team has not only soared past this hurdle, but now stands as a multi-million dollar business poised to overtake many competitors; most of which took 10x-20x the funding to get to a similar milestone.

As we are all aiming to build stronger businesses in 2019, I wanted to share some key tenants of our strategy which I hope helps you in your own strategic decision making:

1. You’re product isn’t good just because you think it is.

The best products create amazing impressions which cause excitement and spurn prospects to share their notes with their peers, on social media and with their own team.

2. Cost effective inbound lead generation makes the whole journey so much easier.

It is much easier to optimize the way opportunities are handled than to generate them in the first place.

3. Direct sales isn’t dead. It’s just done terribly 95% of the time.

There is a reason why 70% of Sales VPs don’t last a year, it’s extremely hard to get people who don’t know your company name from a bar of soap to buy your product. Why keep doing it you might ask? For me, there is nothing better than seeing the look on the face of a young man or woman when they close a million dollar deal having used nothing but a cell phone and Gmail.

4. Money Matters. Metrics Matter the Most

One of my pitfalls, especially earlier in the role was chasing dollars to cover costs and demonstrate traction. Chasing money in this way often results in an account prioritisation paradox -  accounts which are too small are selected out of desperation and accounts which are too large are selected out of optimism. Commitment to chasing and improving key metrics is a much better approach. In an early company I believe these are the Holy Trinity:

• Average Contract Value (ACV) should be increasing
• Average Sales Cycle Length should stay the same or decrease as ACV increases
• Win Rate should be increasing

Cost of Acquisition (CAC) is one that many critics demand I include in the Trinity but this can often be very hard to measure and define in a young business.

5. Logos are Golden

Set up and track a list of major logos and channel sales enablement principles to constantly keep your team appraised of these key wins. Credibility is in short supply until you approach $10mil+ in ARR and brand names can give you the boost you need to overcome objections and deflect reference requests

6. Don’t Underestimate the Importance of Relationships

In a day and age where most people contact their clients the week before they renew, prioritize keeping regular catch up calls with your customers even as your team expands in size. When the chips are down or you need to secure important business, you will find those people will never forget the times you supported them along the road.

7. Promote Customer Marketing and Customer Communities

Rather than hearing your own “spin” - your customers love hearing from people like themselves. Share win stories sourced from your power users and encourage your customers to talk to each other rather than always with your team. You will find that your community becomes increasingly “sticky” and management can make key strategic decisions based on customer sentiment

8. You can’t do it alone

Maybe it is an Australian tendency, but I was raised from a young age to pursue my independence as much as possible. I have always felt a sense of guilt accepting help from others. Throwing away this character trait has been one of the most helpful developments. The best leaders know how to ask for help when they need it and nominate others to spearhead internal or external communications if they are better equipped.

9. Closed Lost Deals are Only Lost for Now.

Most firms I have worked with look at the Closed Lost section of the CRM as their equivalent of the Windows “Recycle Bin” - with prospects being placed in there and never communicated to again!

I can’t stress the importance of maintaining positive relationships and setting reminders prior to the customers renewal date to check back in. Even if you convert a 15% of this pipeline next year - it means you automatically save yourself some stress and will only have to source 85% of your target quota in Year 2.

10. Build your own repeatable playbook - not every company has to be Salesforce 2.0

The last thing you need is too much structure in a young and agile team. If you have found a way to penetrate and generate success in an emerging market don’t feel the need to change a formula that works for the sake of uniformity.

If next year requires higher growth, stress test your existing model and see if it holds up to scale. If not, make the necessary adjustments and test again in a few months.

If it ain’t broke don’t fix it!

Hiring a crop of C-level executives from large enterprise companies to ensure you reach your number isn’t as simple as it seems. Buyers are aware of the methods used by the earlier companies like Salesforce, Yelp e.t.c to scale so instead of replicating the past, draw the best lessons to formulate an evolving strategy which keeps you ahead of the curve and not on it.

The time is now 10:23pm and so ends my 2018.

Just as time never stops, neither does the learning process.

As I had to learn by going back to the basics, overconfidence is our greatest foe and humility our greatest friend on the path to greatness.

Good luck and may be the force be with you.