Marty Kausas’ Post

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Co-Founder @ Pylon | Building the next Zendesk

We're only selling Pylon to good companies now. Selling to low-performers has only hurt us. Low-performers... 1/ Don't grow 2/ Waste time optimizing 3/ Try to cross-sell you their product 4/ Eventually churn to cut costs Your team loses so much time on educating them on best practices, getting them setup, and providing proper support. You're much better focusing on the companies that are more likely to have a successful future. -- Notes -- - A "good company" in this case really just means either a) a great team or b) obviously good business based on their growth. - This advice should often be paired with the advice folks give on not selling to non-ICP customers. Both only hurt you in the long-run.

Generally tend to think of these deals like empty calories. Eating a snickers or getting a end of the month deal with a low quality company does give you a hit of dopamine initially. But shortly down the road you are usually worse off than before.

Tremon McGrath

Partnering with Founders and Tech Leaders in Strategy, HR, Compliance - 🔍💰

1mo

Even if theyre knocking the door, everyone isnt always going to be a customer fit.

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Buying Pylon just to see if we make the cut

Rob Huffstedtler

Global Head of Solutions Architecture (Pre-Sales)

1mo

It’s always baffled me that basically all of the big name sales methodologies overlook validating that the customer can successfully deploy and adopt the product (either alone or with a partner). I imagine some would argue that in non-subscription models, there was enough margin up front on a single sale that it made sense, but I would have thought that even if you were selling a total commodity like printer paper that you would have wanted to optimize CAC/LTV.

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Sriharsha Guduguntla

CEO at Hyperbound (YC S23) | Building AI Sales Roleplay Simulations to upskill GTM teams

1mo

Glad we're a "good" company!! 😅

Eddie Park

I reduce your CAC by fixing conversions. → Founder of Gro.X

1mo

It's great to refocus on your ICP. It's tempting to sell to everybody during the early stage and I've seen most successful companies go through a 'refocusing'. You can also make the language on your website increasingly specific to your ICP so that you can prequalify before the demo. Great post.

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Peter Ahn

Find your authentic sales voice || 🇰🇷🇺🇸Tech Sales Coach || Co-host Decoding Sales Podcast || Speaker

1mo

💯 it's the "ankle biters" that can take up a lot of your time and zap your team's energy!

Nice - we're disqualifying based on quality of company I guess :)

William Funk

Customer Success Manager | Client Satisfaction & Operational Efficiency

1mo

It's very important to qualify leads quickly and effectively during the discovery.

Andy Cloyd

Co-founder & CEO at Superfiliate

1mo

Was glad to see our account hadn't been discontinued lol Awesome work team!

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