From Impossible to Inevitable

How SaaS and Other Hyper-Growth Companies Create Predictable Revenue

Aaron Ross, Jason Lemkin

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781119531722
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Betriebswirtschaft
• Subtopic: Marketing
• Index: Marketing

Break your revenue records with Silicon Valley's "growth bible"
" This book makes very clear how to get to hyper-growth and the work needed to actually get there "

Why are you struggling to grow your business when everyone else seems to be crushing their goals? If you needed to triple revenue within the next three years, would you know exactly how to do it? Doubling the size of your business, tripling it, even growing ten times larger isn't about magic. It's not about privileges, luck, or working harder. There's a template that the world's fastest growing companies follow to achieve and sustain much, much faster growth.

From Impossible to Inevitable details the hypergrowth playbook of companies like Hubspot, Salesforce.com (the fastest growing multibillion dollar software company), and EchoSign—aka Adobe Document Services (which catapulted from $0 to $144 million in seven years). Whether you have a $1 billion or a $100, 000 business, you can use the same insights as these notable companies to learn what it really takes to break your own revenue records.

• Pinpoint why you aren't growing faster
• Understand what it takes to get to hypergrowth
• Nail a niche (the #1 missing growth ingredient)
• What every revenue leader needs to know about building a scalable sales team

There's no time like the present to surpass plateaus and get off of the up-and-down revenue rollercoaster. Find out how now!

PART I
Nail a Niche

The Painful Truth: You've been struggling to grow because you're not ready to grow.

CHAPTER 1
“Niche” Doesn't Mean Small

How do you know whether you're ready to grow? Don't let a big vision, or wanting to serve too many kinds of customers, trap you into sounding vague or confusing.

ARE YOU SURE YOU'RE READY TO GROW FASTER?

You're excited about your business, your ideas, products, and services … and you're ready to grow faster. You might be a startup, a consultant, or a Fortune 100 brand.

And you know that lead generation is the #1 lever that drives revenue growth and can create hypergrowth. You've been trying to grow your leads, and thus sales, but it's been harder than you expected … maybe a lot harder.

Are you sure you're ready to grow faster?

Because when it feels like you're swimming upstream every day to generate leads, or to sign new customers from the ones you do get, you usually have a bigger problem. All that time, energy, and money invested in growing new leads and closing sales can be poured into a black hole—if you haven't Nailed a Niche.

You can be a Fortune 100 company, or the greatest expert at organization design, or have a killer SaaS (software as a service) subscription model app for managing employees. But, if you can't predictably go out and generate leads and opportunities where you're needed, win them, and do it profitably, you're gonna struggle. It's frustrating. But there's no shortcut here, whether you're a business or an individual. Struggles often mean there's a niche problem, either at the company, marketing department, or salesperson level.

Clues You Aren't Ready to Grow (Regardless of What the CEO or Board Expects)

• You've grown mostly through referrals, word of mouth, and up-/cross-selling.
• Inbound or outbound lead generation has been disappointing … or abysmal.
• You realize, looking back, that you're dependent on preexisting relationships or a recognized brand to get in the door, even if your product or service is amazing.
• You're good at too many things, and struggle focusing on the one best opportunity to sell and deliver over and over again.
• Even when you get quality appointments, too few people buy.

---

If you can't predictably generate leads and opportunities where you're needed, win them, and do it profitably, you're gonna struggle.

---

Most Frequently Seen When…

• You hit a plateau between $1 and $10 million in revenue, and you start trying new kinds of leadgen programs.
• When you launch a new product or service or enter a new market.
• In getting your first 10–50 customers, getting to product-market fit or a minimum sellable product.
• You're in consulting or professional services.
• Your company offers a wide range of products and services (Portfolio Attention Deficit Disorder).

Everyone Hates to Admit They're Not Ready to Grow

Swallowing the “we're not ready to grow yet” pill is bitter. Especially when you have a board or CEO breathing down your neck, a payroll to meet, or big family bills.

No one likes admitting they're a nice-to-have rather than a need-to-have. Or that the elevator pitch the CEO came up with is totally off-base and confuses prospects. Or that you can't yet measure or document other customers’ results.

Companies with a large portfolio of products face the same problem. Do your salespeople or customers get confused by all the product options? They don't know what to buy or sell first, and so they struggle along trying to buy or sell a little bit of everything. Confusion stunts growth. A lack of focus distracts you from being “insanely great” at just one thing.

HOW TO KNOW IF YOU'VE NAILED A NICHE

When you're a startup getting to your first million, or launching a new product, lead generation program, or market—one of the indicators that you've Nailed a Niche is that you are able to find and sign up unaffiliated customers. Unaffiliated. Paying. Customers.

---

One of the indicators that you've Nailed a Niche is that you're consistently able to find and sign up unaffiliated customers.

---

We don't mean friends of your investors, or your old coworkers or boss. They aren't past customers, partners, or part of your LinkedIn network. They weren't referred to you; they didn't hear about you from a group. They started out “cold” without the advantage of prior relationships.

Whether they found you by coming in through the ether, or whether you went out and pounded the (physical or virtual) pavement to source and close them.

And now they're paying you—profitably.

Because here's the thing: Ten customers may not seem like much. We called these guys “beer money” in the early days at EchoSign. Ten customers was $200 a month, which didn't come close to paying the bills for four engineers and three other guys—it barely paid for beer. But 10 clients are actually amazing. Yes, you may still fail, of course, because of cash-flow issues. But 10 is a first sign of presuccess—even though it's very likely that more than one will turn out to be a dud, while you're learning which customers you can make successful. Because it means three things:

1. Since you have 10, you can definitely get 20… and then 100. If you can get 10 unaffiliated customers to pay you (no small feat), I guarantee you can get 20. And if you keep going at it, you will get at least to 100. And then 200, at least. At a minimum, you can keep doubling and doubling. I'm not saying it's easy, but it's possible.
2. More importantly, it's amazing you got those 10. Ten is not a small number! Because why the heck should they trust you, and pay for your product? It stands on its own w...