Nate Nurmi’s Post

One of the reasons that revenue SaaS is in a mess is this: The entire model is predicated on seat expansion. More growth funding equals more sellers, which equals more seats. The bitter irony is that... If these companies do their jobs expertly as vendors, they cauterise that growth requirement, meaning seat expansion isn't happy according to the hockey stick on their VCs model. The cognitive dissonance is real.... PipelineHeroes consume consumption...

SaaS founders are increasingly being directed by investors to defer hiring salespeople and close their first deals themselves. While this demonstrates commitment, drive and fiscal stewardship, it often overlooks a critical element - expertise in penetrating large enterprises effectively. Founders are visionaries, experts in innovation, not necessarily in the nuanced art of enterprise sales. This gap can be the difference between a deal that closes and several that stall indefinitely. An Enterprise SaaS Deal Coach possesses deep insights and a proven track record in navigating the complexities of enterprises, helping founders: 💡 Have conversations that matter, centered on business outcomes vs. product jargon. 💪 Empower customer champions to sell internally, using the language of the C-Suite. 🤯 Align stakeholders to manage the impact of disrupting the status quo. 🔮 Identify blind spots and prepare contingency plans in anticipation of roadblocks and gatekeepers. 💵 Negotiate the right deals the right way. 🙌 Close more, higher value deals, faster. ⭐️ Establish a sound foundation to onboard sales teams at the right time. Now is the time for SaaS founders to close initial deals quickly, while setting a trajectory for sustained growth and liquidity. #SaaS #Founder #EnterpriseSoftware

“Free solo” selling and managing revenue, as a CEO Founder, is a risky move. Why? According to a Forbes study, “only 4.6% of our entire dataset hailed most recently from tech sales” and SaaStr reports that “salesperson CEOs burn a lot more money getting to $1m and $5m-$10m ARR”. (links in comments for your reading pleasure) So, if the most successful SaaS startups are built by those with a tech background and they presumably are good at engineering, wouldn’t it make sense to bring in the sales experts to build the revenue motions? Once you’ve grown to ~$1M in revenue, it’s time to set a foundation and make the revenue teams reflect industry best practices - no more Wild West 🤠. This is where fractional leaders, like ✨Litwin & Plumb✨ make a lot of sense. It’s a combination of deep expertise (seen the movie 🍿 more than once) and delivery of impact at warp speed. ……………………………………………………………………. 💥 Spark an idea for collaborating? Let’s chat. ♻️ Do you know someone who’d be interested in this content? Please share. 🤝 Kindness counts.

As many of you are deep into your annual planning, let me ask: Have you checked in on your team’s capacity to hit those goals? Is your Sales team: - Struggling to keep up with their pipeline? - Burning out with too many opps and not enough time to prospect? Is Marketing: - Chasing MQLs that Sales just doesn’t have time to follow up on? - Unable to explain how their budget actually ties to revenue targets? Is your Customer Success team: - Missing renewals because they’re spread too thin? - Losing out on expansion opportunities because they can’t keep up with existing accounts? If any of this sounds familiar, it might be time to sit down with your RevOps team. RevOps can align your teams and map out the right capacity planning strategies to make sure everyone is set up for success. By understanding your team’s bandwidth and focusing on the right processes, RevOps ensures that your annual goals are both realistic and achievable. #RevOps #AnnualPlanning #CapacityPlanning #RevenueOperations #2025Planning

In the race to scale revenue effectively, RevOps teams frequently encounter a series of hurdles. Far from mere obstacles, each of these challenges highlights critical areas within the business that require attention and improvement. Recognizing these issues isn’t just about spotting problems; it’s about identifying the areas of the business that need attention in order to hit those revenue goals. For instance, resistance to change underscores the need for better change management and communication strategies, turning potential setbacks into springboards for innovation. Data silos, while challenging, signal the necessity for integrated systems that can harness the full power of organizational data. Misalignment among GTM teams points to the opportunity for creating stronger, more cohesive strategies that align marketing, sales, and customer success around shared goals. Addressing tech debt by updating and optimizing technology not only smooths current operations but also prepares the organization for future scalability. By transforming these hurdles into focal points for strategic improvement, RevOps can lead the way in crafting a robust framework that supports scalable and sustainable revenue growth. This proactive approach doesn’t just clear the track; it paves a broader highway toward achieving long-term organizational objectives.

Thanks to Charlesbank Capital Partners for a great #RevenueGrowthSummit in Boston last week for #B2BSaaS Executives. OutVox has worked with several portfolio companies, helping to elevate their messaging & positioning to speak to urgent buyer pain, cut through the noise, and make it easy for buyers to buy. Christopher Walker and Eugene Grinberg, CFA spoke about our work with SOLVE in creating a cohesive messaging framework that can support multiple acquisitions, elevating the pitch to speak to value and sell upstream, and how challenging it can be for Founders to "get out of their own way" when it comes to talking about differentiators and what matters most to buyers. After leading Outvox's GTM practice for 2 years and working with B2B SaaS Companies ($5M ARR to $350M+ ARR) in Cyber, Fintech, Healthcare, and Ai, here are a few #growthhacks: 🛫 A B2B SaaS company will scale faster when selling to urgent buyer pain (as tempting as it is to talk about features, like how fast your performance is or how cool your tech is, that hinders growth) 📣 Make it about them, not you. The more you speak to how your company solves and alleviates THEIR pain, the faster they "get it", the faster they buy. 🎯 Understanding urgent buyer pain requires empathy. You have to spend time with buyers (not users), to get into their deepest fears and concerns on their business. It's not just "I need a way to quick fix for my knowledge worker" - but how do you get to the heartbeat of the Executive so you can sell upstream. 🔮 Talk to value first (how you solve their urgent pain). Then talk about your "how" or your differentiators, and how you do it differently then competition. #B2B #SaaS #revenuegrowth #GTM #Growthhacks

Don't underestimate the power of sales compensation changes. RevOps teams do a lot of initiatives to improve the business and rarely need to put a lot of thought into the impact of it being more successful than expected. Compensation is different in that changes are often successful but can create problems in other areas. Example: A company has a product they see as critical for their future, so built a compensation plan designed to sell more of it. The result is a 3x increase in sales of that product, but this focus led to a decline in core product sales, which represents 90% of the company's annual revenue. Your initiative was successful, but led to negative overall business results. Good compensation plans drive changes in behavior, so require as deep an analysis of the halo effect as the impact itself. Changes should never be made without modeling and socializing the change. #salesops #revops #salescomp

Is there a good way to sell a business to a competitor without revealing your hand? Founders are generally nervous about including a competitor on their list of buyers. But competitors usually have good synergies and can make great buyers. Still, founders' concerns aren't unfounded, so they should be wary about what they share and when. For example, you shouldn't share items like customer data and your product roadmap until late in the process (usually right before closing the transaction). #founders #pathtoexit

Maximize the potential of #RevOps: building the right team is key to #growth! From structuring your team to talent acquisition, every step counts. Our #guide provides actionable insights and strategies to empower your team for success. Don't miss the chance to revolutionize your operations. Download now: https://lnkd.in/g6yPfruj #RevOps #B2B #B2BStrategy #BusinessGrowth #GrowthStrategy #CreateGrowth

Is your go to market strategy aligned to the customers that want to buy your solution or to the ones you hope will buy your solution? All companies want customers that are highly profitable, buy all solutions and rarely churn. Go to markets version of unicorns. While these are usually called strategic customers, their really isn’t much strategic about them. Everyone wants these customers, which means only the best solutions win. The companies that are succeeding are more focused on acquiring customers that are the best fit for their product instead of the unicorns. Seems obvious, but I talk to companies all the time that are totally focused on catching unicorns and ignoring the markets where they have an advantage because their executive team doesn’t think their current customers are lucrative enough. #salesops #revops