One Year On

According to LinkedIn I’m about to begin my second year here at Surveil (thank you for your kind messages of support and congratulations). In truth, it’s actually the anniversary of when I managed to get round to updating my status on Linkedin, so the anniversary was in fact last week, but I’m still prompted to reflect on a year of building a new SaaS business. And what a year it’s been…?

It feels like so much has been crammed into the last twelve months. When I first joined Surveil, Covid still had a grip on our lives, ruining Christmas plans and disrupting festive cheer. Since then, we’ve had four Chancellors, three Prime Ministers, a couple of Monarchs, two Doctor Whos, and I myself have regenerated into the role of Sales Director, heading up our sales organisation as we spread across the globe. To say it was a fast start is an understatement.??

From day one, it was all about growth – and to achieve that growth, we needed partners. That’s because we’re a partner-driven business first and foremost; we fully support and go to market through our partners and so, in order to scale, we needed more channel partners and strategic partners of size. My first challenge was to identify these relevant prospective Microsoft and SAM partners, make contact, pitch to them, and sign them up. As the year progressed the team and I enthusiastically engaged this challenge, growing the partner base from a handful at the beginning of the year to in-excess of 30 as we stand today.?

Behind that primary activity was the effort required to build the processes to support the sales activities and to staff up at the pace required. It’s a subtle balancing act, managing cost against demand and trying to stay just ahead of the wave. Sometimes, the wave has been very close behind us, lapping at our shoulders as we bob up and down on our Lilo of hope, and more than once we’ve had to paddle hard to get back in front. Other times, we’ve been standing blissfully in the shallows, waiting for the tide to come in. So far though, we’ve managed to keep the balance right and stay clear of the riptide – and, thankfully, kept our Speedos on.??

For a while, I was on my own to plough my own furrow, making videos, pounding the phones, doing demos on Teams calls, getting the word out, and often shouting into the void. But with each new partner signed up, I was able to slowly start to grow the team and evolve the nature of the sales roles that I needed to create. We launched our Surveil Sales Champion program, which is designed to give our partners a fast start when rolling out Surveil to their new and existing clients. The Champion is, in essence, a sales resource dedicated to their objectives.??

Each partner is different, of course: some focus on Security products or SAM services, others on M365 or Azure. Almost all of them, however, are interested in our ability to provide a platform on which they can enhance their client offer and elevate the value they can deliver through a Managed Service provision that Surveil enables. My excellent team of Surveil Champions are now assembled and help their partners to build out and realise that vision, before accelerating them towards it.?

It can be said that I sometimes have a rather Zen like approach to business. My team have often heard me repeat some wisdom handed down to me in my youth by a wise old sales manager who had taken me under his wing. He said, “Do the right things and the rights things will follow – and not always from the places you might think”. From many years of sales experience, I truly believe that this approach is a valid one – the proof is visible in how our team of Champions fit the role perfectly. Almost magically, they match with our aspiration to be super helpful for our partners, while also complementing each other in terms or skills and knowledge. Licensing experience is balanced with commercial acumen and new business drive and initiative, meaning that the team of Champions I have in place now make me glow with pride. They are the right people for the task at hand, and that task is to make our partners shine.?

During my years in sales, I’ve worked in some amazing teams and have also had to exist in some very toxic environments. It was therefore a very heartening thing to find myself not only in an open and welcoming workplace, but also having the great advantage of working for a CEO and a Board who support and mentor. This extends to the wider team too – the Techies, Marketing, Finance and Product teams all pull together for the common good. When we succeed, we celebrate our successes together; when mistakes happen, we dust each other off and learn to improve together. So, I want to say thank you to each and every colleague. Such an environment nurtures success and I’m determined to ensure that this ethos remains part of our business DNA as we continue to grow – and that it extends to supporting our partners.?

Underpinning all this activity is a product which has evolved as we have grown, supported by our amazing Product Management team, who listen to our partners and customers and iterate on a sixpence. As we establish Surveil in the market as a foundation for our partners to deliver and grow a valuable managed service, Surveil continues to build upon its principles of delivering actionable optimisation, security, and identity insight in a clear and easy way for both partner and end user. Our hopes and dreams for the business grow with them.?

Next year, Surveil will continue to build its presence and impact in a changing world. My feet have hardly touched the ground as this year has raced by – but they hardly do when you’re flying. And while more Prime Ministers and Time Lords will almost certainly come and go, we’ll continue marching on with the plan… and I can’t wait to tell you more about it.?