Enterprise Sales Unplugged, Baby
#EnterpriseSalesUnplugged — a Paua Ventures Series on how to crack Enterprise Sales as a Start-up. From operators for operators. Actionable front-line stories. No BS. 🤞
Celonis, UiPath, Camunda, Mambu, Signavio, Staffbase, Anydesk; the list goes on and and on and on. All of these European Unicorns & Soonicorns have just been founded in the last 5 to 10 years. What do they have in common?!
➡ Each of them has built an Enterprise Sales machine to sell software into the “fat tail” of accounts; often blue chip companies with complex, lengthy sales cycles and multiple decision makers, resulting in very high customer acquisition costs 😨 . That rather sounds daunting — so then why the heck is it that such companies enjoy extremely high valuation multiples on their revenues in both private and public markets??
➡ Because once you get the “nut cracked” in Enterprise Software (e.g. predictably convert customers), you find yourself in the promised land of ultra high average contract values (ACV), amazing lifetime values & hefty customer lock-in effects 🤩. It’s a very good place to be and at Paua we want to back those founders who are heading just in that direction.
Welcome to #EnterpriseSalesUnplugged: our brand new series on how to crack Enterprise Software Sales. With roughly 15 enterprise software start-ups in our portfolio as of today (Actyx, Coboworx, Codasip, Consentio, Deed, Detectify, Digital Genius, FireStart, GraphCMS, Keelvar, Kiwi, Relimetrics, Silexica, Wandelbots and Wellabe) we have learned a thing or two in this domain. But rest assured: We won’t go down the beaten trail and share more VC-infused board meeting wisdom. There’s loads of articles out there already, so we have simply compiled a library of existing content that we have particularly liked (see end of this post).
#EnterpriseSalesUnplugged is meant to put those people center stage that have cracked the nut themselves. No filter — but war stories from successful Enterprise Software founders and frontline operators: Unplugged 🎸
Before we get started…
Here is a simple framework that puts us on common ground when we talk “Enterprise Sales”. Let me file “Enterprise Sales” in one of four buckets. 📦📦📦📦
- 1. Seeds: Those are initiatives & channels that take a lot of time to cultivate and ramp up. Once they get going, however, they are unbeatable as they tend to drive high conversion and close rates. “Seeds” initiatives include the development of happy customers. Product Led Growth. Blogging, Podcasting or ‘Clubhousing’ 👋. SEO, public relations, social media. And other “longer-time-to impact initiatives”, such as Customer Advisory boards or building a trusted brand.
- 2. Nets: Those are classic marketing programs. You try to ‘cast a wide net’ and see what you get. It includes email marketing, conferences & online events, advertising or affiliate marketing. Generally speaking: The more money you throw at it, the larger a net (..or the more nets) you can cast.💸
- 3. Spears: Essentially, Spears are all about targeted outbound sales. Initiatives that help you efficiently generate and effectively qualify leads across your channels. When hunting for deals, your should throw your spears at the right animals - and hit them first time. 🐘
- 4. Organization & Process: All of the above only multiplies into an Enterprise Sales machine, if executed by a high performing organization. That is, a possibly specialized marketing and sales team with three core functions: Qualifiers (split by in- & outbound channels), Closers (e.g. sellers) & Farmers (e.g. customer success) ⚙
Now: Here you find our library of quality resources that deal with enterprise sales. We have structured it along dimensions that you should make sense of now: Seeds, Nets, Spears & Organizsation + Process :-) Ping us if you think there is something missing & stay tuned for the first Enterprise Sales Unplugged articles that come along soon.
We’d love to hear your feedback on this series. Are you building an Enterprise Software start-up? What are the challenges you face? Reach out to us! We’d love to chat, potentially include you in this series or invest in your company 💲
📞→ felix@pauaventures.com ←📞
Thanks to Christian & Georg for providing Feedback on this!!
