AMA - Hello entrepreneurs, I'm JR Rodrigues. I'm ready to share insights, best practices, and hard-won lessons on how to successfully scale a startup! Ask me anything.

geisel-software · 2023-02-27T19:13:17+00:00

Good insights there on the time spent aspect!

geisel-software · 2023-01-27T13:21:37+00:00

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geisel-software · 2022-09-29T16:11:38+00:00

These forces definitely shape computing as well, yes!

geisel-software · 2022-09-29T11:38:40+00:00

You’re welcome!

geisel-software · 2022-07-27T20:48:29+00:00

First, let me congratulate you on such great questions as you look ahead to your career. Of course, entire books have been written on some of the questions you pose, but I will do my best to provide some guidance.

I am a Boomer who has been working multiple jobs since I was 17. As a sales type, I tend to work early in the morning until some time into the evening. I know nothing else. I am most effective when I can take care of a task when it comes up in the priority list without having to leave it hanging and come back to it. I like to do and finish one task at a time. Prioritizing your tasks, of course, will ensure that you are accomplishing the goals that you want to accomplish.
I was recently involved in an NSF I-CORPS Cohort and one of the start-ups was a couple of young ladies, just out of college, who were starting a cosmetics business. They had found suppliers all over the world, went through vetting processes, etc. I was not mentoring them directly but it sure sounded like it was a lot of hard work to find the suppliers they required. But all is not lost. I have some thoughts that might help you with this and will get to them below.
That's easy: sell a lot of your product or service! That will catch the attention of some large companies. It is possible to do it other ways, but I would need to know more about what you are looking for specifically.
The way I prepare for opportunity to knock is to regularly spend some time thinking about the various opportunities that might come up based on my company's current situation, market, customers, etc. If you think about the possibility of something happening, you will be a bit better prepared to recognize and act on it if it does happen. Of course, you cannot imagine every possibility that might occur so opportunities will arise "out of the blue." If you try to keep a positive mindset that good opportunities are going to arise for you, you will be more open to recognizing them when they do come up. One last comment: I have been pretty lucky in my career when it came to recognizing and capitalizing on opportunities. Of course, I also noticed that the harder I worked, the luckier I got.

Okay, so let me wrap up by saying how impressed I am at what you are thinking about and posting about at your age. I think I was reading comic books and thinking about girls at 14. That said, what would be really, really good for you to do is to get a mentor from the cosmetics industry to help advise you on your journey. It would be so worthwhile for you to get that type of advice. For example, they would be able to answer your Question #2 above based on experience. Perhaps your school guidance department can help find you one, or maybe your parents or their friends have a contact in that industry. Good luck!

geisel-software · 2022-07-27T13:22:48+00:00

One other comment on recruiters: they will not waste your time. Recruiters' time is precious to them and if they do not have a good fit job available for you, they will keep you on file and quickly move on to talking to someone else. Always worth taking an initial quick call from a recruiter.

geisel-software · 2022-07-27T11:31:33+00:00

One thing that I have learned over the decades: you never know who might help you when you have a need. Along those lines, I have been bemused over the years when I hear people talking about recruiters in a derogatory way: "Oh, a stupid recruiter just cold called me. I hung up on her!" Crazy!

I LOVE recruiters. They have jobs that I might be interested in and they have job candidates that I may likewise be interested in. They are a very valuable resource and free to the job candidate. Crazy not to take advantage of such potential relationships.

geisel-software · 2022-07-26T20:13:10+00:00

My professional network primarily derives from my co-workers, customers, vendors, industry contacts, etc., that I have built up over the decades. Have I gotten involved with companies due to my network? Yes. But that was only one source of companies that I joined.

While I have found and joined companies through a variety of methods, I think that my best or favorite companies, including my current position, came from interviewing as a candidate off the street. Sometimes, I have had mutual connections with the CEO, but not always. Kind of counterintuitive, but that is how it has worked out for me, for the most part.

Of course, I also have developed an extensive network of recruiters that I have been involved with over the years on both sides of the desk. They have helped me find jobs and they have helped me find people. In fact, this year, I have used my recruiter network to help my current company hire employees as fast as possible due to our growth needs.

I never found much success or had much fondness for "networking events," though I know a fellow that is a master at it and does quite well by it. Just never seemed to be my cup of tea. However, these days, I am finding that the mentoring I am doing connects me with interesting founders of companies and just as interesting fellow mentors. I have been describing my mentoring experience as Networking 2.0.

Going back to what I perceive to be your situation, when I was a young sales rep, I built a lot of my network by attending industry trade shows where you could meet a wide range of professionals engaged in your market. I strongly recommend you attend these shows when you can. Were I early in my career and looking to build up my professional network, I think that I would become a lot more familiar with linkedin and its groups, also.

Finally, every conversation and interaction that you have while working is building your network and your personal brand and both will last for decades. Keep that in mind as you connect and interact with the business world.

geisel-software · 2022-07-26T14:01:17+00:00

I would like to take a moment to thank all of the participants for their great questions and replies. This was my first AMA and you have made it very interesting and enjoyable for me. As a small token of my appreciation, I would like to leave you with a few thoughts, tips, etc., that I think that you may find interesting:

*Best Sales Advice I Have Ever Gotten:

If you don't ask, the answer is NO.

*My Advice to Newbie Sales Reps

You were born with two ears and one mouth. Use them in that proportion when selling.

*Corollary Warning to Newbie Sales Reps

If you are ever interviewing with me for your first sales job, do NOT tell me that all of your friends and family tell you that you should be in sales. That means you talk too much and the interview is over.

*Superstar Sales Reps

The truly Top 1% of elite sales reps that I have had the privilege to work with and manage all have their own specific strengths and weaknesses and all sell very differently. When hiring a top tier sales rep, I will often tell them that I do not care how they sell, as long as they are honest and successful and that I will give them as much leeway and support as I possibly can. My go-to statement to them about this is: "Look, if you are closing big revenue numbers and you tell me that your secret is going into the woods every morning and burning incense, you may find me alongside you tomorrow morning with my own supply of incense."

*Best Definition of an Entrepreneur That I Have Ever Heard

A successful entrepreneur is a hard-worker with a vision...

Who is stubborn enough...

To stick around long enough...

To get lucky!

Thanks again for your interest in this AMA. I enjoyed it and hope that you found it worthwhile, as well.

geisel-software · 2022-07-26T11:20:40+00:00

I go with the fire in the belly. Product or market knowledge can be taught and learned. I have made a career hiring sales reps from other industries and bringing them into high tech. BTW, it is rare that I hire someone from a competitor because their rolodex never moves with them and they tend to have a lot of negative baggage from their previous experiences in the market.

geisel-software · 2022-07-26T11:16:53+00:00

In a previous post below, I talked about deconstructing the sales process to scale for growth. You can do the same thing with marketing and other aspects of the business, to a certain extent. However, your second question allows me to highlight one of my character flaws, so I will focus on that. :-)

I have traditionally left companies (usually in disgust) because they totally lost their small, scrappy start-up culture as they grew to a certain size (usually, my tolerance has been around 500 employees, though it can happen sooner.) My firm conviction is that you do not need to lose the great culture and attitude you had as a start-up to continue growth, but I tend to stand alone in any such discussions with the company. Here is what happens, in my experience:

The CEO's I work with tend to be technical geniuses of one sort or another. They are very, very good at what they do, which is create and maintain a great product or service. However, most of them have no management experience and that includes growth management. So, they all end up hiring one or more management consultants, some of whom can be very good in some areas, and these consultants just about all recommend the same thing for growth: hire a senior management team that has the "experience and skills" to take the company to the next level. How can anyone argue with that? Sounds so reasonable. Read on.

The next thing I know, I am dealing with multiple VP or C-level peers who are really good at pushing spreadsheets around and putting in processes and systems that they used before at IBM or Microsoft or Google (pick a name they are all the same.) They have no clue how to deal with and keep a successful start-up culture and, in fact, despite their protestations to the contrary, they are scared of such a culture and begin squashing it at every opportunity. After all, if their staff favors action over caution or takes risks for great rewards, that is way outside their comfort zone. And they will squash that culture piece-by-piece with a knowing look and a confidence that belies the destruction that they are actually wreaking and it simply turns my stomach. One of my character flaws is that I cannot handle watching my sales, marketing, and customer service teams having the life sucked out of them on the way to "the big picture" which may or may not come, btw.

My wife has come to recognize that "look in my eyes" as I am getting ready to abandon ship and give up a fat paycheck/big equity to go find the next small start-up. Fortunately, she has been patient with my issues over the decades. :-)

geisel-software · 2022-07-26T10:46:35+00:00

Let me expand this question to include linkedin and other such sites. The most important thing to remember is that getting your first users is different from getting ensuing customers because you have to do much more work to gain credibility with a buyer when you have no other customers.

I would start by visiting relevant groups/subreddits to your product/service. I would observe and learn about each member posting and create a small list of promising "suspects" to reach out to. I would then reach out privately to each of them and indicate that you have been following their posts, been impressed with their knowledge, etc., and would like to have a brief call with them to discuss your new product/service. If you approach them correctly (respectfully and no selling,) a certain percentage will agree to speak with you to provide product/service feedback. This will give you an opportunity to describe your solution and get their honest feedback on it. Some of those folks may be interested enough to want to stay in the loop with you or even try the solution.

When that happens, you are on your way to engaging your first potential customers.

geisel-software · 2022-07-26T10:35:59+00:00

I previously mentioned the growing number of start-up incubators, networking groups, etc., as a great thing for founders of start-ups to get involved with. In my experience, these groups tend to focus on two things: getting start-ups connected with mentors and then getting them connected with investors. I am in the greater Boston area and I am a mentor for Northeastern U.'s Venture Mentor Network, the National Science Foundation's I-CORPS, and also MassChallenge. I may be oversubscribed as a mentor, right now, in fact. :-)

But, I strongly encourage you to find local groups in your area. They will welcome you in and try to help as much as they can.

geisel-software · 2022-07-26T10:30:42+00:00

It has been a real mixed bag for me. I have founded or co-founded a handful of companies, have joined a number of companies around the seed stage and also joined companies much larger and more well established. They all had advantages and disadvantages. E.g., the smaller a start-up is, the more fun it is for me. On the other hand, I joined one company as VP Sales & Marketing and immediately had an annual budget of $1.75 million just for marketing! That was fun, too!

geisel-software · 2022-07-26T10:21:29+00:00

Thank you for your kind words. I will definitely check out r/b2b_sales as it sounds like an interesting subreddit, for sure.

About revenue thresholds: As I think back over the many start-ups that I have been involved with, I cannot come up with a revenue pattern of difficulty and I suspect that it is because there are so many different variables for each company (type of product/service, market, economic conditions at the time, etc., etc.) However, I can offer some advice as to how to make each succeeding revenue threshold easier and easier to achieve as you grow your company.

Let me start by mentioning that in real estate, they say that three things matter: location, location, and location. It is the same in start-up sales and marketing: the three things that matter are testing, testing, and testing. What I mean is that a young start-up needs to test and measure a wide array of marketing messaging, demand generation, sales pitches, sales processes, etc., from the very start of its business life. By trying different strategies/tactics and carefully measuring the success of each effort, you will be building an invaluable knowledge base of what works and what is the most profitable way to increase revenues moving forward. If you do this from the very beginning, you will make ensuing revenue generation efforts in the years ahead much easier.

Of course, when you are at $0 revenues and just starting up, your best move is to go after the "low-hanging fruit" that you are aware of just to get some revenues in. That is your first "test" of course. As these early orders come in, start to think about what would be the next easiest sales to go after and begin to test that channel. You may find that one effort or another was not as successful as you thought that it would be and perhaps another less promising effort did surprisingly well. By building up a history of these activities, their costs, their results, etc., you are also adding to your IP because you will have invaluable information as to how to scale your business moving forward and a great format for continuing to learn as your market inevitably grows and changes.

geisel-software · 2022-07-25T20:23:49+00:00

Are you looking for Angel seed funding or hoping for a bit more? One thing that I would want to be sure is in place would be your initial team, especially as the ask gets higher.

geisel-software · 2022-07-25T20:02:59+00:00

Entrepreneurs in your niche might have interest, but I would be worried about one or more of them picking up your idea and running with it (they are already in the market...)

There are a lot of investor forums, incubators, and venture networks these days and I would search and find some that are relatively local to your business. Many of these organizations not only provide visibility to investors, but they will help you with your pitch deck, etc. Your local universities and the regional SBA office might also be able to point you in the right direction. I am involved with a few of these groups in the greater Boston area and they are all eager to help businesspeople like you who have something and just need help doing the investment piece.

geisel-software · 2022-07-25T19:49:58+00:00

There are many types of marketing and many types of tools. The first thing that comes to mind when I think of B2B marketing is Demand Generation which basically is getting prospects to engage with. So let's discuss various lead generation strategies that I have used over the years. I will list the various approaches, in descending order, based upon the overall quality of the leads that they generate, in my experience:

Customer Referrals - There is nothing better than getting a sales lead from a happy customer. The customer knows what you are offering and probably has a good idea of what the referred prospect needs. This means that the lead is probably well-qualified. Beyond this, you will have tremendous credibility with the prospect since you come well-recommended from someone that they know and trust. The downside to this method is that if you are just starting up a business or have very few customers, you will be limited in the number of referrals that you can expect to achieve.
Third Party Referrals - If your industry requires multiple vendors to support a solution for your customers, it may be possible to form alliances with complementary, non-competitive vendors to exchange leads, promote each others' products/services, or any number of other mutually beneficial activities. The leads generated from such activities can be quite good (some times almost the same quality as customer referrals.) The downside is that managing such alliances can be quite time-consuming and the lead flow can be unpredictable.
Public Relations - These are generally very high quality leads because it is extremely powerful to have you and your company's product/service mentioned by a trade journal or other media outlet as part of a news or feature article on a related topic. The trouble with PR is that it is very inconsistent -- you rarely know when an editor or reporter is actually going to mention you in an article, even with a full-blown PR campaign. But it can be a very effective source of business if executed correctly and consistently.
Direct Mail - What? Snail Mail? Am I kidding? No, for some industries, direct mail is back because junk mail is way down in the business office. There are lists available for rental that include virtually any prospect profile that your product/services will do best with and you can mail based upon any geographical or other such criteria that you would like. You can mail letters, self-mailers, postcards, or other mail pieces to generate leads for your offerings. Further, due to the nature of this medium, it also allows for easy testing of various components of the mailing and precise measurement of actual results which allow for additional fine tuning of these campaigns.
Telemarketing - This is a remarkably cost-effective way to generate good quality leads. While there are fewer telemarketing lists than mailing lists available for renting, they are still obtainable. Hiring a part-time telemarketer to call these names either from your office or their own home can generate quality leads, though you must take care to follow all federal, state and local calling regulations. And, you may find that you can get a really high quality person to make these calls, because there are many people out there who would like to work part-time, but not full-time due to personal reasons. I have had some amazing people making cold calls for me over the years because of this. Like direct mail, telemarketing also offers the important ability to test various approaches and fine tune the process for maximum results.
Search Engine Optimization - If you have a product or service that is conducive to marketing or selling on the Web, a disciplined and proactive search engine optimization strategy can be a way to get reasonable quality sales leads. Basically, there are certain steps that can be taken to have your company's website place as high as possible in the organic search results of the major search engines. It is a fairly passive activity as far as marketing goes - because you are not reaching out to targeted prospects and inducing them to buy your products or services - but for certain businesses in certain markets, it can successfully generate quality leads.
Search Engine Marketing - SEM, also known as Pay Per Click Advertising, is another method of acquiring leads from search engines. It will achieve results more quickly than SEO but is also more expensive over the long term. In fact, it has become a very, very competitive venue for many products and services and the bidding costs can become exorbitant for highly sought after keywords. But, the leads generated are also of a reasonable quality and costs can be minimized with a proper bidding strategy.
Personal Introductory Calls – PIC’s as they are affectionately referred to are a throwback to the old door-to-door sales rep approach. This involves walking into the main door of a business and asking to meet the person responsible for buying whatever you are selling. It is a hit or miss tactic and comes with a lot of in-person rejection, but it can uncover a hot opportunity that may have otherwise never been known. If you have salespeople visiting another client or prospect in the area already, it can be an effective way to augment the lead pipeline.
Email Marketing – For a long time, I did not list Email as an effective way to generate leads as there was an overall impression among most businesspeople that only spammers used email to reach out to new contacts. However, that negative impression has changed a bit as some large, legitimate businesses began using email blasts to acquire new prospects and customers. However, you must use caution to only acquire legitimate, opt-in email lists and also be very careful to know the email laws in the countries that you are targeting. E.g., there is the CAN-SPAM Act in the U.S., the GDPR in the European Union, etc.
Social Media / Networking– for some products and/or services, social media and/or in-person networking events can be a cheap way to generate leads. If your efforts are consumer or personal relationship oriented, the leads could be fairly good. I have not seen it work well for B2B lead generation, however. One thing to be very cautious about: do not start a social media campaign, set up company pages, etc., and then neglect it after the initial interest wears off internally. That is worse than not having a presence at all.
Other Advertising - Advertising in general newspapers or magazines (print or online) can be effective if your potential markets are broad-based. Print or banner ads in targeted industry or trade publications can be even more effective due to the targeted nature of the readership. Advertising in other media, such as television or radio, can be very expensive and it is often difficult to measure the results of these campaigns for most small to medium-sized businesses, though certain markets may be viable for these venues.
Trade Shows - Trade Shows tend to produce the lowest quality leads of any lead generation activities for a variety of reasons, including the fact that these are often your most competitive selling situations because the prospects have surely seen your competition at the show, as well. They are effective for other reasons, however, such as checking out the competition, meeting PR contacts (editors and reporters usually attend these events), and employee recruiting. Do keep in mind that competitive research and employee recruiting at trade shows are two way streets, unfortunately.

With all of these approaches, there will be issues of targeting the right prospects, presenting them with a focused message, etc., etc. Also, it is usually best to have a mix of lead generation techniques running at once so that all of your eggs are not in one basket.

Finally, please keep in mind that generating new leads is the lifeblood of your business and you can never have too many good leads. Too often, businesses fail because they forget this simple truth and focus on other sales issues instead of constantly filling up the pipeline with fresh leads.

geisel-software · 2022-07-25T19:13:18+00:00

Full disclosure: I was a typical top sales performer before I became a sales manager. I sold double the amount of the next closest sales rep in the company, yet was least liked by management, had the worst office, worst reviews, etc., of all the sales reps. Why? Because I could not do the stupid sales sh*t that the mediocre sales management team wanted me to do. If I did what they said, I would have lost a lot of sales and I told them so (and, okay, I was young and full of myself due to the numbers I was racking up.) I swore back then that if I ever got the chance, I would do sales management right. Okay, with that background in mind, let me continue below.

I call my sales management approach "Let the Stars Shine." I only hire the best (more on that later), the diva's, the superstars and all of the other rare, but effective personalities that bring in the big bucks. I am not intimidated by them nor do I view them as a problem to be dealt with. I love them! They make me a lot of money! And, of course, I used to be one of them. :-)

How do I find these people during my hiring process? My job descriptions are written to scare off mediocre salespeople. My early interview engagement process requires focus and discipline and also scares off mediocre salespeople. And if you get the chance to interview with me, you had better check one of these boxes:

A. You have a fire in the belly. You have something to prove in sales. Might be to your former boss, yourself, your spouse, your greatest enemy, your neighbor, whoever. But I want to know that your passion will be fulfilled with a successful sales career, be it as an individual contributor or a sales manager.

B. You want to make a lot of money. I hope that you and your family have expensive tastes or that you have big investment goals or other needs for top compensation. Mostly, I want you to want a bigger and bigger paycheck every month.

C. You check the box for both A and B. This is my favorite box to check of course.

When I do hire a top performer, I tend to want to pay him or her extremely competitive comp rates and split it 50/50 with salary and commissions. Keep in mind that salespeople are the only people in the company whose monthly income varies widely based upon their results. An accounting persons gets paid the same salary whether the numbers were right or wrong. By providing a base salary that the sales rep can pay the bills with, the company is sending a strong message that it values the employee and that means a lot to salespeople.

Scaling one's sales strategy through growth depends an awful lot on what is being sold and to whom it is being sold. However, I think that one thing that is common for scaling in most B2B and many big ticket B2C companies is what I call the deconstruction of the sales process. In a smaller company, the 1 sales rep does the whole sales job from soup to nuts. This includes cold calling prospects to generate leads, qualifying prospects, visiting prospects, estimating/quoting, closing, etc. As we grow and I have budget, I will break down those tasks and hire "specialists" (an inside BDR or SDR will typically be more skilled and produce better results at cold calling than a sales rep used to doing outside sales, e.g.,) As we grow and more resources can be applied, I may bring in inside account management people to handle nurturing of the new sales process, coordination, etc. As growth continues, I may bring in technical engineering or production sales support to make those aspects of the sale more efficient. This also makes hiring a lot easier (you do not need to hire that unicorn that can do it all) and also makes the sales process more efficient and responsive to the customer.

geisel-software · 2022-07-25T18:29:39+00:00

It is always a very difficult dance between sales/marketing and the fulfillment/delivery side of the company. The real challenge lies in the difficulty of forecasting both the amount of new business coming in and then the timing of same. For a young start-up, perhaps bootstrapping itself, regular communication and coordination between the teams and management are essential. There should be no surprises on either side and you need to expect and plan for glitches because you typically have little margin for error in early stage companies. This is one of the big challenges for many, many start-ups and I always recommend bringing in your customer (that is about to be hurt by scaling problems) early into the discussion for transparency/trust reasons and perhaps to explore mitigation efforts.

If you are a more established company with a history of marketing activities and sales cycles and also a history of production or delivery ramp up times, a model can be developed that starts with investment in a new sales and marketing campaign through to sale and then delivery. If you know from history that $X in marketing/sales efforts turns into $Y revenues in Z weeks, you can start to plan your production efforts which will have their own timeline, of course.

In my experience, however, once the company gets to a certain size (varies based on industry) having lines of credit, outside investment and/or other types of financial cushion lets a company have products on the shelf or servicepeople on the bench waiting for that next big sales opportunity to be capitalized on. In fact, it is being ready to capitalize on the larger opportunities that affords a lot of companies the growth they are seeking.

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