๐ฅ My unfiltered IT Agency Owner journey, closing in on 8-figures. ๐ข๐ค Candidly sharing triumphs & tribulations. Anon for obvious reasons ๐ #ITBossLife
Candid stories, practical advice, and real talk about running an IT agency. ๐ ๏ธ From client management to project delivery, I'm here to share what works and what doesn't. Follow along for the unfiltered truth. #TechTwitter#ITBossLife
The first post in my new Agency Sales series about the Business Discovery stageโGive it a read, it is based on my experience! I would love to learn from you too, please share comments. https://t.co/Qgsv6N18CH
#Sales#AgencyGrowth#BusinessDiscovery#Entrepreneurship#ScalingUp
@jjen_abel This post hit home today. As CEO I am also Head of Sales...transitioning from founder led (me) is taking longer than I thought.
I am looking for a new rep. The market is FULL of SaaS reps. They know the generic playbook, but cannot sell. Passion is hard to fake
I started a Substack account, below is my first post. It is more about why...but I started on a few other drafts, like having to recently fire someone. Please give it a read, share your feedback, and consider subscribing.
https://t.co/i9XzzVLL3k
This first rep has a lot of activity, but cannot get a meeting. Moving from Founder Led Sales to a sales team has been way more difficult than I expected.
We learned and we are now evolving our sales strategy. I will post updates here as I stumble my way to success.
I've been quiet, the last few weeks have been tough. We might need to blow-up our sales team and start over. @jjen_abel, any advice? ๐
Enterprise selling is strategic selling and hard. One rep is not picking it up. There has been significant enablement. Bad fit.
White determining that reps future, I uncovered our other rep, who does get it, doesn't do anything. Only sends a handful of emails per week, no activity on LinkedIn, and no deals. Every meeting seems to get rescheduled. This is a total head scratcher.
Yes, we need better tools.
@jjen_abel 100% true.
When the customer agrees. Eye opening.
Added benefit, the customer often realizes their ask/problem is larger than they originally thought. it is your chance to realign expectations and/or increase the deal. I had this exact situation 2 hours ago.
Deal โฌ๏ธ ๐ค
@jordan_ross_8F@jordan_ross_8F is bang on. You can see in my profile, we are trying to get to 8 figures, from high 7 figures.
We are building the highways. Going from 1 - 5 million was much easier than going from 5 - 10 million. Then 10 - 20 will be even easier...highways in place.
@jjen_abel ๐ฏ
Any start-up, selling software, service, etc. It doesn't matter, must watch this video by @jjen_abel!
I am living this right now. Founder-led sales. Brought in "experienced" people 6 months ago, but the results are not even close to the same. Way harder than anticipated.
@realEstateTrent Congrats @realEstateTrent. Your account was one that inspired me to set up IT Agency Guy!
Hopefully, I can impact even 1/4 of the people you have.
Keep it up!!
@skylarromines Occasionally, people on my leadership team will say this. I ask..."Would you fire a family member?"
Try to treat it more like a sports team, where the team grows in size.
Spent last 30 mins planning my week:
Work with team to improve pipeline. Consultative selling is hard, must be strategic.
Contact key partners and customers.
Write a blog post.
Help with resource constraint issues.
+ too many things I should avoid.
Thoughts?
@theownerop Love this tweet.
This is especially true in the agency game, you will have non-billable people, on top of carrying salaries + overhead, it is time to invest in them.
Figure out how to build a sales engine.
It truly is the long game. #delayedgratification#investinthebusiness