PE ROI – Revenue Growth is a Key Value Creation Driver (Revenue > EBITDA > Successful Exit)

This is how Top-Line Growth or Revenue Growth is the primary Value Creation driver for Tech PE portfolio companies. In PE, focusing on increasing revenue and profitable revenue growth initiates a cascade of beneficial downstream effects: – Increasing Revenue and Profitable Revenue Growth (Capital-Efficiently) Initiating with a strategic emphasis on  Read More >

PE: Top KPIs for CROs Driving Growth at PE-Backed Companies

As the simplest level, here are the fundamental KPIs every Chief Revenue Officer should focus on in Growth PE.   New Logo Sales  / New Customer Acquisition Note: these should be measured per segment / per team / per territory, etc. # of New Business (aka New Logo) Opportunities in  Read More >

A Key GTM Metric in PE – CRC: Customer Retention Cost

Retaining customers is more cost-efficient than acquiring new ones. Once a customer is acquired, focusing on repeat business is crucial due to the higher cost of acquisition. Customer retention is more cost-effective than acquisition, which can be three to six times more expensive. Balancing acquisition and retention strategies is essential  Read More >

PE-Backed CRO Guide to Growing New Logo Sales (Growth-Stage & Lower MM PE-Backed Companies)

Growing Your New Logo Sales The blueprint below is meant to be strategic and is focused on driving growth at PE-Backed companies beyond an average benchmarked industry organic sales growth. Assumptions: Consistent Sales Pillars across Every B2B Company (especially software/SaaS) every B2B SaaS company has many “commonalities” – i.e. Sales Pillars  Read More >

Top Signs a CRO Must Troubleshoot the Sales Strategy

Several times a year you must do a quick checkup and get a gauge on whether you need to rethink your Execution or troubleshoot your SaaS Sales Strategy. This is primarily about the “New Business” deals/sales rather than expansion sales (i.e. not as much about AM/CS driven renewals or upsells  Read More >

Personal Note: Warren Buffett’s Advice When We Met

This weekend marks the 90th birthday of Warren Buffett who is one of the greatest investors and one of the wisest and highest-quality people I’ve met in my life. And he is one of my few role models. Back in 2004 when I was finishing my MBA, I was fortunate  Read More >

How PE-Backed CROs Should Develop a Sales Strategy – an Operating Plan for Your SaaS Sales Team

In the past, I discussed what companies should include in their “Strategic Plan” which focuses on the “Corporate Strategy“. Of course, the right sequence requires the executives to craft their Corporate Strategy first (i.e. should be planned and finalized first before any other business functions craft their strategy) – it  Read More >

Use “Sales Systems” to Systematize & Operationalize Your Sales

If you aiming to build a “sales machine” that generates repeatable, predictable, scalable and sustainable revenue and growth, you need to first systematize your sales – i.e. you have to develop a System for yourself. Such system, just like coaches develop for their professional sports teams, in turn comprises several sub-systems and  Read More >

The CRO Blueprint for Effective Sales Execution

John Wooden who is one of the greatest sports coaches of all time said “Don’t mistake activity and achievement“. And Lou Gerstner, a former CEO of IBM who turned IBM’s fortunes around, similarly instructed – “Don’t confuse activity with results“.  Being busy and making an effort doesn’t mean you’re actually  Read More >

Getting More Sellers to Attain Quota

The other day I read an article from Michelle Vazzana at Vantage Point about “How to get more sellers to quota” and I wanted to summarize and add a few things. The focus is about coaching to activities because it is the seller’s activities that drive performance (i.e. hit Sales  Read More >

Coaching Sales Reps on Pipeline Prioritization

Pipeline Prioritization is a critical process for a Sales Manager to coach their reps – see “Sales Coaching on Pipeline Management and Sales Forecasting“. Here is what Sales Manager should coach reps to start by looking at these key factors in their pipeline: Opp Age or Duration in Stages =  Read More >

What is an A-Player in Sales?

The term (or a portmanteau?) that we all hear a lot in sales management is “A-Player” and you typically hear it in “you should only hire A-Players”.  But what does that mean – what is the definition of an “A-Player” in sales? Here is a great definition – see this  Read More >

Pipeline Integrity is a Function of Pipeline Hygiene & an Effective Sales Process (Key to success for PE Investment)

“If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing.”  – W. Edwards Deming ——- These are the topics the CEO & CRO of a $20M-$100M+ in ARR PE-Backed company must consider: First Step for PE Portfolio Companies Engineer & Optimize an Effective Sales  Read More >

Private Equity – Record Demand for Operating Partners

  According to Private Equity International, PE firms are looking to boost portfolio company valuations while operational issues are becoming increasingly more complex. Source: https://www.privateequityinternational.com/record-demand-operating-partners-gps-seek-boost-portfolio-company-value-survey/ “Operating partner roles are the fastest-growing positions in private equity…” Here is value creation in 5 charts: https://www.peievents.com/en/event/operating-partners-technology-forum/value-creation-in-5-charts/      

CRO – The Key Role in PE Operating & Portfolio Support Group

A lot of the traditional PE firms have great Portfolio Support teams. Many of the professionals are former CEOs.  Here is one example about a PE Operating group: “To enhance our own operational capabilities, we’ve developed relationships with over 100 senior industry executives, or Operating Partners, who act as independent  Read More >

PE Value Creation – Sales Excellence & Revenue Acceleration

Historically, Private Equity (PE) firms looked to add value to their portfolio companies in the following ways: Financial engineering Strategic initiatives Operational improvements Over the years, financial engineering was no longer as impactful on value creation as it was in the 80’s and 90’s so PE firms started adding value with  Read More >

PE: Top GTM Acceleration Drivers to Create Sustainable Value (Revenue Growth, Higher EBITDA Margin, & Multiple Expansion)

Today, creating value in Growth PE & Middle-Market PE primarily begins after you invest or own the portfolio company. Historically, the strategy was different – you could rely much more on financial engineering, buying low to sell higher, and using leverage (which today is a smaller portion of the deal  Read More >

Creating a Culture of Accountability in Sales

As a Sales Leader you have to create a culture of accountability – everyone across the organization has to be accountable for their own performance and results. What is Accountability?  “It is a force that provides rewards or consequences for actions. A leader imposes the consequences for failing to meet  Read More >

Forecasting – the Commit Process

I know every other VP of Sales or a front-line sales manager (FLM) struggles with forecasting accuracy so I thought to share what has worked really well for me with very high level of accuracy.  It’s the Commit Process.  This is part of the way to build up your rep  Read More >

Best Practices for Effective Decision-Making (and My 6 Steps for Making Better Decisions)

Business managers/executives are hired for the primary reason to make good decisions.  But making good and smart decisions is very complex. Additionally, many business decisions can affect a lot of important things in the organization including people (and their families).  Good decision-making requires more than just critical thinking skills (analyzing  Read More >

CHAMP Sales – Selling Qualification Methodology

  The CHAMP Sales System Qualification Criteria   Here is a summary of the CHAMP Qualification Criteria and you can find some example questions below.     The best way to align with your Buyer – is to ask them questions and actively listen with the goal of being helpful  Read More >

The 4 Things You Must Nail Down To Scale Your SaaS Sales

Every B2B SaaS company must be able to communicate to every employee on the Revenue Team (sales or marketing or customer success) the following: Who – who is the ideal type of buyer – or what is called the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)? Your targeted Ideal Company Profile (size, type,  Read More >

Managing: Bringing Out the Best in People

One of the best books I give new managers is Alan Loy McGinnis’s Bringing Out the Best in People.  It’s a rare book that most people have not heard of or read but it’s definitely one of the best in my library on management and leadership.   One of the reasons that this  Read More >

Match Your Selling to the Way Your Customers Want to Buy

Today too many SaaS companies have fallen into a trap of designing their sales processes to optimize for their own sales and marketing teams rather than for their buyers.  They approach buyers as just another transaction and focus on checking off a couple of checkboxes but this doesn’t match the way  Read More >

Sales Org Design: Sales Management – Scope of Control

I notice in many B2B SaaS companies there is a wrong organizational design starting with too many “player/coaching” issues which is function of what is known as a “Scope of Control“.  Read on… and if this is feeling like it’s just academic or theoretical then I really recommend you to  Read More >