1000Steps 2023 Review: What Worked for our Clients and What Did Not

2023 was an amazing year for us. As a company, we grew from a team of 6 in 4 countries to over 37 people spread across 9 countries. The business has clearly transformed, and during a relatively tough period for most corporations, we seem to be find our niche.

Rather than write a self indulgent piece on how we did it, as a team we wanted to write a piece about our learnings from working with our clients, what's worked and did not work for them. Last year, we worked with over 60 companies, supporting them in Business Development, Sales Process, CRM and database optimization, and Training and Coaching their teams. Our primary role with most of these companies was centered around Business Development, but we also helped manage the other core areas.

Over the last week, we have conducted our annual review of data from last year, breaking it down into its component parts. We also did the same for our clients. The results of the data were not what we expected. We felt they were interesting and worth this article.?

We will write a separate piece on our own growth last year, making sure that it's a pragmatic approach. This article though, focusses on the results of our clients and the takeaways on what makes a successful sales organization as an SME. What do the good ones do well, what do the underperformers not do, and what can we all learn from this?

When we looked at the data, there were two clear data sets. The first rotated around the results and the second was what caused the results. The following article is our take on the causes, why they are there and how to fix them, we are certain we have missed parts, and any suggestions or questions are welcome.

As an overview of the data collected from clients and what we were measuring:

Quantitative data

1. Number of LinkedIn connection requests sent.

2. Number of acceptances of connection requests.

3. Number of personalized messages sent.

4. Number of responses to messages.

5. Number of messages total per week between clients and prospects.

6. Number of people interested in meeting.

7. Number of meetings booked.

8. Number of meetings completed.

9. Number of webinars

10. Number of invites to webinars.

11. Number of acceptances to webinars.

12. Number of attendees from these to webinars.

13. Conversion of attendees to meetings.

14. Number of networking events.

15. Numbers of contacts collected.

16. Number of contacts converted to meetings.

?Qualitative data

1. Attitude of clients to sales.

2. Clients time management in respect to sales activities.

3. Quality of responses to messages.

4. Timely responses to messages.

5. Sales process and its execution.

6. Ability to adapt and change tack.

7. LinkedIn profiles and their results based on changes in the profile.

8. Database optimization.

9. Content creation model.

10. CRM use.

Success and failure

We now turn to the matter of success and failure, it maybe seems basic but we had to start somewhere. We examined whether our model worked, achieved its goals, and whether we retained the client. Success meant yes it worked as descrived, and failure meant no, and normally we lost the client. Often, the loss was due to various reasons: budget constraints, lack of sales, absence of desired results, insufficient manpower, dissatisfaction with our services, among others. However, we felt that just looking at these reasons was too simplistic, and we really wanted to delve deeper. In the following analysis, we aim to examine the causes and consider what is happening with these clients and how we can change this.

P.S. Note that we are not haemorrhaging clients, but for us when it does not work for our clients its a personal thing and the losses should to be scrutinised. Often, it is only by examining our failures that we can truly create improvement.

After much thought and discussion, the following points were identified as the key areas, but are not all, of the variables that the data highlighted.?

What Made a Successful Client for Us:

·? 100% had an excellent LinkedIn profile and presence.

·? 89% followed up on all messaging on LinkedIn.

·? 89% had an amazing attitude toward running their BD and sales.

·? 86% had a clear go-to-market channel.

·? 81% had a clear sales process that the team followed.

·? 100% had no issues of underperformance on 1000Steps delivery of services.

·? 38% had product-market fit.

What Made for an Unsuccessful Client:

·? 53% had a poor LinkedIn Profile and presence.

·? 59% had poor follow-up on LinkedIn.

·? 53% had a poor or dysfunctional approach to BD and Sales.

·? 6% had issues of underperformance with 1000Steps delivery of services.

·? 65% had no clear go-to-market channel.

·? 24% had a clear sales process that teams followed.

·? 12% had product-market fit.

Our goal at 1000Steps is to assist our clients in going to market, having a clear channel/BD model, and being able to scale or maintain stable revenue streams. Although our primary model revolves around running a bespoke BD model solution for clients and replacing BDRs, we also recognize our responsibility in ensuring that leads turn into revenue.

What were the takeaways from last year working with our clients?

Before we start, let's address the elephant in the room: 1000Steps appears angelic from the way we laid it out above, seemingly focusing entirely on client-centric topics and us not making mistakes. And indeed, they are. But — and this is a big but — we believe we are responsible for addressing the client issues. Logigically if the client does not drive leads and the leads do not convert to revenue then everyone loses. This responsibility ranges from how we approach the client, manage them, guide, and coach them.

We broke the areas down based on what we could see from our metrics quantitatively and qualitatively affecting clients. Each of these areas is not merely an opinion but a solid piece of data that impacted results. The seven core areas we work with are as follows; yes, there are others, but these are the ones we felt had a significant impact on results and, when addressed, all but one was easily fixable.

·? Excellent LinkedIn profile and presence.

·? Followed up on all messaging on LinkedIn.

·? An amazing attitude to running their BD and sales.

·? Clear sales process that teams follow.

·? Clear goto market channel.

·? 1000Steps underperformance.

·? Product market fit.

Breaking Down Each Area: What it is, Learnings, and Actions

1. Excellent LinkedIn Profile and Presence:

This is one of the most critical areas for our clients. A well-crafted profile is crucial, and if a client neglects this aspect, it's a clear warning sign that they might not grasp the bigger picture. While not all our BD work for clients is centered on LinkedIn, it remains a key component. A poor profile negatively impacts various areas such as:

1. Connection Requests: People often hesitate to connect with a profile that appears unprofessional. A poor profile leads to missed connections. Our data shows an average acceptance rate of 30% for connection requests is good; anything less is concerning, while good profiles can reach up to 50%. A professional picture and background, the right title, a completed “about” section and an accurate history, significantly improves these metrics.
2. Messaging: If your LinkedIn profile doesn't align with your professional image, people may be reluctant to communicate. Just as in real life, first impressions matter. We are not suggesting sacrificing your individuality, but if LinkedIn reflects your personal persona, it should be considered carefully. You can express your personality on other platforms like Twitter or Instagram, ideally you should be pushing out your business persona.

People often form an emotional attachment to their LinkedIn profiles. My approach is more logical: we focus on how LinkedIn wants their platform to work, how the AI works, its design, and what's effective and then follow the process thats going to get the best results.

?Why Clients Resist Change:

·? Some are complacent.

·? Some believe they know better.

·? We are not presenting the data to them the right way.

·? Time constraints prevent them from getting a professional picture.

·? Reluctance to invest in their profile.

·? Lack of trust in our advice.

Summary:

While there are various reasons for resistance, we always bring clients back to the data. This is the only truth and if the results are important then getting it right also is important. Often the last 1% change has the biggest effect.

Actions for us in supporting this:

This year, we plan to be more assertive with our clients. We'll clarify the data, provide better education, and assist in coordinating necessary changes, even booking a photographer for the client if that’s what it takes.

2. Following Up Promptly and effectively on All Messaging on LinkedIn

You build a base of contacts, and through messaging, you can engage directly with them. We do this by patiently building up relationships through the platfrom. Effectively using LinkedIn involves a combination of a strong profile, thought leadership, nurturing and building conversation through messages and posts and ongoing prompt followup and communication. While opinions vary, it's indisputable that LinkedIn is a powerful tool for business growth. However, we've identified several issues with how responses and messages were being managed:

·? Responses are not prompt.

·? Lack of personalization in messages.

·? Communications are overly formal, resembling cold emails.

·? Messages are too needy or were blatent pitches.

Why Do These Issues Arise?

·? Underestimating the importance of messaging style.

·? Being too busy.

·? Complacency.

·? Lack of messaging skills.

·? Habitual reliance on an email-like approach.

·? Overly focused on using LinkedIn as a sales tool.

Summary

In our busy lives, adding another job isn’t desirable. Often, Business Development (BD) is not prioritized, viewed as a lower value task typically assigned to junior staff or the marketing department rather than salespeople, founders, or managers. This perspective reflects the company’s BD model and the responsibilities assigned within it.

Actions

1. Assess the importance of BD in your business.

2. Determine whether BD is part of the individual's role.

3. Evaluate how BD success is measured.

4. Consider implementing support systems to optimize BD efforts.

5. Focus on training and coaching your teams effectively.

We are committed to working with our clients on these aspects, seeking ways to better support them, implementing effective systems, taking over some responsibilities from the client, and measuring BD efforts more effectively.

3. An Amazing Attitude to Running Their BD and Sales

Describing an attitude towards BD and sales might seem strange, as it's neither purely quantitative nor qualitative. Yet, we've observed that it's a game changer, with 89% of successful clients doing well in this area, countered with 53% having a poor approach to sales. BD and sales aren't one-size-fits-all; each company is unique, and getting sales right is a challenging task. It requires:

·? Discipline.

·? A well-defined process.

·? The ability to embrace change.

·? Clear metrics, with proper regular reviews.

·? Consistent coaching.

·? Ongoing development.

·? Teamwork across the company.

Many small companies struggle to scale, often due to shortcomings in these areas. We can quickly identify when someone is receptive and willing to learn, with all levels in the organization engaged and ready to learn and adapt. Finding the right channel and building a scalable sales model is challenging, but a critical aspect to consider is your attitude towards these endeavors.

What Can We Do Better?

We plan to work more closely with our clients on emphasizing the importance of a positive attitude in BD and sales, focusing on the data that reflects good practice/results. This involves providing feedback and helping them develop in this area. Crucially, this is a company-wide initiative. We've found that the likelihood of success is much higher when we engage the right stakeholders at the beginning of a project.

We are also going to chart this area, aiming for all clients to sit at 100%. [Unrealistic I know]

It's noteworthy that 53% of our struggling clients have a negative attitude towards sales[not allocating the time, focus and energy on revenue generation], contrast with only 9% showing a negative attitude in the well-performing section. This disparity highlights the significant impact of attitude on business success.

4. A Clear Sales Process That Teams Follow

We believe that, following product-market fit, the most significant cause of failure is the absence of a clear sales process. This is especially evident in introductory and discovery meetings. Too often, salespeople enter meetings without structure or a plan, leaving them puzzled as to why clients aren't buying. A clear sales process entails a thorough understanding of lead generation, conversion of leads to meetings, nurturing leads, and conducting effective introductory meetings. A poorly executed introductory meeting leads nowhere; it leaves the potential client unimpressed, perceiving you as merely a salesperson, without fostering any progression to meaningful next steps.

A well-conducted introductory meeting should include:

·? Thorough research.

·? Building rapport.

·? A concise introduction, lasting no more than a minute.

·? Engaging questions and discussion around these points.

·? A summary of the meeting's key points.

·? Defining clear next steps.

?If executed well, this approach naturally leads to:

·? A follow-up introductory meeting.

·? A scheduled future meeting.

·? A discovery meeting.

·? An opportunity to nurture a contact.

·? Occasionally, no further contact, which can also be a positive outcome.

The ideal outcome is a successful discovery meeting. In discovery, we conduct a deep dive under an NDA, working through a collaborative process. However, we've found that this is often not well-documented with most clients. The contrast in our metrics is telling, only 24% of struggling clients have a clear process, compared to 81% among those who are successful.

5. Clear Go-to-Market Channel

We view the clarity of our clients' go-to-market channels—encompassing marketing, lead generation, client management, etc.—as a crucial factor. The statistics reflect this importance: 86% of our struggling clients lack a well-defined channel, in contrast to 65% of our successful clients have a clear, effective channel.

Personally, we would have preferred these numbers to be higher, and establishing a clear channel is one of our primary goals with clients. Identifying and optimizing these channels can be challenging, but it's essential for business growth.?

What Constitutes a Channel?

A channel is a pathway through which you drive and create leads for your business. This can include, but is not limited to:

·? Google search.

·? YouTube.

·? LinkedIn.

·? Email campaigns.

·? Referral models.

·? Partnership models.

·? Networking.

·? Groups.

·? Sponsorship.

·? Webinars.

·? Generic inbound strategies.

Typically, one channel is dominant, supported by one or two secondary channels. We advocate for having a minimum of three distinct channels clearly defined and actively pursued. For us in our own business of 1000Steps we have four, these channels are:

·? Referrals.

·? Partnerships.

·? LinkedIn.

·? Networking.

Moving forward, we plan to integrate email campaigns into our strategy, and we will also be testing some lead magnets over the next three months to further engage with clients.

6. 1000Steps Underperformance

Ultimately, we at 1000Steps hold ourselves responsible for our clients' failures and successes. We take this responsibility very seriously, and it's always a setback when things don't work out as planned, which unfortunately happens more often than we'd like. We're continuously learning what works for our clients and how to support them more effectively on their journey. However, our greatest challenge arises when a client does not dedicate the necessary attention to the process. This then creates a barrier to exploration of the issues, experimentation and innovation around solving the problem. If the model is not working, we want to change or find a new one that does work. The crucial question for us is: how do we keep our clients focused, ensure they understand the importance of their involvement, and help them prioritize this work?

Currently, our team is performing exceptionally well on a technical level. Don't get me wrong. We make mistakes, and even one is not acceptable but it does happen. What we do then is assess the issue, look at making sure it does not happen again with this client and also then review as a team is it happening with others. An example of this could be, the search. We always start by building lists of accounts for clients. These need to be the right companies, in the right location and when this deviates the whole model grinds to a holt. Getting this to be accurate though is tough, the AI is not good enough, the search tools are not accurate and needs to be done by a human. As soon as you have the person managing it, you are then affected by consistency, skill, diligence and many other factors. This is what we do as a business and we are getting better but we can always improve.

This year, however, our focus will shift more towards the management of accounts. Our goal is to improve our performance metrics, ensuring that all clients are following and engaging in the most effective manner. We believe it's our responsibility, not just the clients', to make this work. That’s our stance, and we are eager to see the outcomes of these efforts.

7. Product Market Fit

Let's conclude with product market fit, arguably the most critical aspect. The statistics are quite revealing. Only 12% of underperforming accounts have achieved product market fit. In contrast, even among our successful clients, only 38% have found it — meaning, at best, 62% of our clients lack proper product market fit. This statistic is particularly alarming to me.

So, what exactly is product market fit? Whilst we appreciate Wikipedia's definition of it as “a unique product offering that people desperately want,” we believe that's only part of the story. Product market fit also involves a product that piques client curiosity and leads to regular purchases.

Many founders and owners misunderstand product market fit. It's not about their opinion; it's about how clients interact with your product. Key indicators include:

·? Client curiosity.

·? A desire to try the product.

·? The product's intrigue to prospects.

·? Actual purchases and the buying process

·? Its utility in the industry.

A product doesn’t necessarily have to be new or unique, but it must spark interest and initiate conversations to have PMF.

Many companies don't focus on product market fit as seriously as they should. In assessing your product fit, essential questions should include:

·? Who needs your product, is it obvious and do they know it?

·? Who are they buy from at the moment?

·? Where are they currently purchasing similar products?

·? Why are they buying these products?

·? What about your product creates curiosity? Note facts only, not your opinion. What I mean by this is randomly 10 people ask the same question. You now know you are onto something.?

·? If you speak to 10 well-targeted individuals, would at least 4-5 show interest?

·? Of these, would 2 be inclined to try your product?

·? Would they consider your product over competitors?

·? What makes your product delivery indispensable?

·? Is the product's appeal driven by founder-led passion, or more importantly, what does the client/data say? [ps, usually no one knows the data for this]

The last point is crucial. Data alone, devoid of feelings or emotional connections, reveals the truth. Analysing the data in the context of the above questions will clarify whether you truly have product market fit. There is a journey to product market fit and will be something we write about in future.?

?

Wrap-Up

So, there we are. We've worked with a diverse range of companies across multiple industries, including engineering, software, consulting, services, products, widgets, and more during 2023. The data speaks for itself. Now, how are you addressing these key areas?

·? Your LinkedIn profile and presence?

·? Your timely follow-up on all LinkedIn messaging?

·? Your attitude towards running BD and sales?

·? Do you have a clear sales process that the team follows?

·? A well-defined go-to-market channel?

·? Achieved product market fit?

We recommend you assess these areas by asking yourself a simple 'yes' or 'no' for each, with 'yes' indicating excellence and 'no' signifying a need for improvement.

It's becoming evident that addressing these areas is manageable. It requires a strategic decision, some training, possibly restructuring a model or two, and maintaining clear data and discipline. The toughest challenge, however, lies in achieving product market fit. For insights on this, Peter Theil’s "Zero to One" is an excellent starting point.

Takeaways

The key elements for scaling your business include the right attitude, a clear sales process, precise metrics, relevant training, effective coaching of teams, and an expanding knowledge base in business development and sales processes. Companies that adopt this mindset and framework, and establish solid processes, tend to thrive. When they achieve product-market fit and synergize it with these components, they become unstoppable. We currently have six clients who are on this advanced journey, embody all the aforementioned qualities, and are on their way to becoming unstoppable. The perennial question, however, is how can we elevate all our clients to this level of success?

Hopefully, this has given you some food for thought. If you have any questions or need further insights, please feel free to reach out.

?