I have been opportune to work with and learn from several leading organizations across the tech industry. I have worked with teams that achieved great success and experienced situations that led to extraordinary learning, and still learning. In more challenging economic times reflections on areas below can help businesses course correct.

In today's newsletter, I  have dabbled in some very big topics I believe you will find useful. These foundations are critical for businesses that are scaling up or those that just need to survive. I would also recommend this sales playbook from Intercom who lavishly shared some very detailed, practical steps for business leaders in sales. Building a solid foundation on the core tenets shared below helped me achieve double-digit revenue growth year-over-year in previous roles. The strategy and focus of an organization might change based on its needs and stage but the foundations and guiding principles fundamentally remain the same in all seasons.

The 3 areas I will cover today are:

1. Revenue Optimisation
2. Leadership Development
3. Vision, Values & Culture

Before I jump into these 3 key areas, It is important to note that in scaling an organization, while revenue and market growth are leading indicators of success, it is also key for leaders to spend time fine-tuning the process & strategy that will sustain the organization’s required revenue goals, employee productivity, customer acquisition, and retention objectives. This will help deliver consistent revenue output over time and economic seasons.

Revenue Optimisation

Sales & Marketing GTM Strategy: Building scalable, repeatable & profitable strategies, and sales processes that ensure effective customer acquisition, revenue goals, and customer retention objectives are all aligned. I’ve broken this down further below:

• Smart Hiring - Some organizations hire to scale revenue, and some scale revenue to hire. What I do know is hiring the right talent for the right organization at the right stage is one of the most important roles in any organization for strategy execution. This should be backed up with data. TAM (total addressable market, SAM (serviceable available market), and SOM (serviceable obtainable market) should be considered in smart hiring while also leveraging external trends and the competitive landscape. Getting this wrong can make or break everything from revenue to culture, also it means one can avoid "over hiring". It's not enough to hire top talent and throw them in the sea to sink or swim. It's paramount that they are set up for success and that the right system is in place to up-level the team. Often the best sales reps are eager to learn, are adaptable, agile, and comfortable with ambiguity. I recently took an online course on "Establishing a Culture and Scaling". It emphasised the importance of hiring people who love to learn and can thrive in a steep learning curve, those that can gain fluency in new things quickly, and connect the dots, and people who are compassionate and can see through the eyes of others and not just themselves.
• Diversity, Inclusion, Equity & Belonging - "Growth and comfort never coexist" as Lisa Nicolls says. Organizations have to push themselves to thrive in the uncomfortable. Diversity is a fact, inclusion is a choice and belonging is a feeling. If an organization has achieved a diverse pool but does not have an inclusive culture, the diverse people end up assimilating into the dominant culture. Organizations end up losing out as no one can fully be productive when they are not being their authentic selves. When people are accepted for who they are, they perform at their best.

Organizations that can ensure all employees are educated in this area and their leaders are held accountable for their commitment to these topics reap the benefits. Getting this right is a continuous journey, not a once-off act. Seeking feedback from those we have nothing in common with, those who don't look like, think, or talk like us can help expand our awareness, and increase productivity. If those that are different from us do not feel our effort in the area of diversity, inclusion, equity, and belonging then there is more work to do. There is a correlation between the diversity of an organization, its clients, and the extent of its success.

• Sales Operations - The most effective sales or revenue operation leaders I have worked with always sought to understand sales and its challenges. They had a sales mindset. They'd proactively embed themselves into the customer and sales life-cycle to effectively put the right measures in place to accelerate growth. I also find that when sales ops can simplify processes and get sales input into pilot studies, objective polls, A-B testing, etc, it helps to accelerate productivity and increases sales yield or deal size per rep.

A sales ops team who is willing and open enough to change their hypothesis as new information emerges beyond hard data is on to something great. It is critical to ensure that the tools in place help the sales team to work better and faster, not add more workload that takes away from their ability to focus on core selling.

• Forecasting - Sales forecasting is much more than numbers. It is a process that helps align everyone to what is important for the business. It's not just about what is expected to happen, but also what contingencies are in place for the inevitable errors which happen. This is paramount for sales growth. I have experienced different forecasting cadences, from daily, weekly, monthly to quarterly. All are relevant depending on the nature or state of the business and its size. The learning here is not to assume that new hires know what to expect when it comes to your organization's style and cadence of forecasting without prior expectation setting. This should be embedded into onboarding, with clear context and guidelines. Accuracy can be more challenging for new startups that do not have historical data and trends that can help indicate future outcomes. Contingency plans are even more paramount in this case.
• Quota setting - This is often a balancing act. I have worked with organizations that set quotas that assume 50% of reps will hit the goal and others who expect 70% of reps to do so. An effective sales quota philosophy is balanced between being ambitious and achievable. This model should be transparent and explainable. If a sales rep or even sales operations cannot articulate simply how reps get paid, or how their quota is set, then there is more simplification needed for operational efficiency.
• Sales Execution - Stephen Hawking said, " It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change." In sales, only the agile survive. The one who can find, adopt new strategies, and follow the evolving needs of the client, industry, business, and peers.

Sales is a team sport. Organizations that understand recruitment, marketing, customer success, sales enablement, sales operations, and product development are all a part of TEAM SALES, excel. Often we see misalignment between sales, sales enablement, marketing, customer success, or business development. In my view, if the organization is not hitting its revenue goals then nobody is winning. Imagine if marketing, sales development, customer success, and sales all have aligned KPIs that are focused on revenue & client success. Could this increase accountability and more collaborative behavior, where the customer is at the center of all business lines? In this article, Ryan Barretto shares more insight - "customer success is the new sales" which further cements this thought for sales & customer success.

Leadership Development

The quality and diversity of an organization's leadership are critical to its success. As John Maxwell said, "Everything falls and rises with leadership." I observed that organizations that focus on hiring diverse business leaders with strong coaching styles and people-centric leadership skills tend to be more impactful.

A "sales leader" and a "business leader" is very different. The latter tends to not just focus on sales but understands the importance of ensuring all other functions of the business are also performing and aligned. Business leaders hold themselves accountable for more than their sales part of the cube. They are invested in the success of the business as a whole.

I believe that the higher up one goes, the more self-development is needed. Gallup's research has found that “most managers believe they are doing their jobs well and don’t see the need for change.” This emphasis on learning is already a priority for some well-known executives. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella emphasizes to his team, “We want to be not a ‘know-it-all’ but ‘learn-it-all’ organization.” Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos underlined the importance of high standards and teachable skills in his last annual letter to shareholders. AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson says he wants his staff to spend five to 10 hours a week learning. A great leader needs practice like any sport. This can be in areas such as building empathy, design thinking, coaching, connecting, change management, being a more inclusive leader, ruthless prioritization, competitive analysis, market trends, vertical analysis, or product knowledge. Ultimately it's about building an awareness of business, competition, team, self, and the ability to inspire others and synthesize information to achieve the vision and goal. We owe it to ourselves, our teams, and our businesses to get at least 1% better every day.

Some ideas I've used when self-appraising:

• How am I performing based on the leadership vision and standards I set and expect of myself as a leader?
• What is my new market knowledge this week and how did I apply it?
• How have I created value for my clients, team, and business this week?
• Did my top 3 actions/decisions this week drive impact or create roadblocks?
• Am I being prescriptive and giving autonomy to the right teams at the right time?
• How did I create/promote a culture of learning for the team?
• How have I created an environment of psychological safety where everyone felt okay to voice their concerns and give feedback?
• Am I stifling creativity or enhancing it?
• How’s Abi doing in managing her mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual energy?

This weekly cadence also helps to course correct, build, amplify and recognize opportunities for change promptly. You can read more about the impact of leadership skills development here on the "downstream damage of leadership skill gap".

• Coaching - I once heard of a CEO who runs a thriving tech company worth $800 million with over 1,500 employees. He makes it a point to remember the names of everyone in the company and a bit about their story. He is known for ensuring every engagement with his team and employees is a coaching conversation. Every encounter with him leaves the individual with a new perspective via his ability to coach very quickly and at scale. I truly admire such a trait and aspire to it. Coaching is a key necessity for success for every human. Leaders especially need coaching and help in spotting blind spots, minimizing errors, increasing awareness, and speeding up impact.
• Psychological safety, Feedback & Failure - Organisational cultures where feedback is truly valued, appreciated, and welcomed, tend to foster an environment with greater psychological safety, increased creativity, productivity, innovation, adaptability, and agility. A few years ago, an executive coach of mine asked me if my team was unafraid to fail. I answered, "yes I think so". To my surprise when I explored this with my team at the time, I realized that my reality and how I showed up to them as a leader were not aligned. Some of them didn't feel bold enough to take risks. This was hindering our productivity, innovation, and creativity. To create more psychological safety for my team and help them understand that mistakes aren't fatal, I took an online learning course on 'Creating a safe place for team risk-taking' and applied the actions below:
• Shared more about my failures openly and honestly.
• Focused on joint problem solving & learnings
• Distinguish between a failure of process & outcome and how to address it accordingly
• Publicly and privately rewarded those who shared their mistakes or quickly spotted a problem

This action helped improve our team bond, and adaptability and ultimately increase our performance by over 20% QoQ.

• Recognition, KPIs & UPIs - Recognition is a muscle that can be built into one's leadership style. Recognizing John at the coffee machine for his great commitment, despite his tough family situation, or Magda who finished at 80% on the dashboard but through your coaching and knowledge of her work you know she is super strong and will get there with a few tweaks. I call it recognizing the 'rights' and the 'nearly rights' and the act of celebrating micro wins creates macro wins. Recognition is a proven technique to get the best out of a team. I once had an individual in my team whose actions tended to be individualistic. It was so important for me to drive a 'win together' mindset in the team. Oftentimes, I would actively find minimal efforts from this individual that promoted a win-together mindset and recognized it. Over time he naturally started to share more, give more, and lead more. Traditionally, leaders can find themselves over-indexing on KPIs. While this is massively important, it’s essential that as leaders we also focus on the route causes - UPIs (Universal performance indicators). According to Michael Neil, the low or high achievement of KPIs are a result of low or high UPIs.

UPIs are based on 3 key things:

• Enthusiasm - How passionate are your employees about their job, company, colleagues, clients, solutions, etc?
• Fresh thinking/Insight - How open are they to new ideas, out-of-the-box thinking, learning, etc?
• Goodwill - How happy or warm are they about their team members, clients, giving back and life in general?
• How are leaders in your organization tapping into these universal performance indicators for accelerated results? Read more about UPIs here
• Fun Fun Fun - cannot be overemphasized. Fun is a basic human need that enhances relationships. This is an area I often reach out to my team and friends for help with because my idea of fun is very different. I often nominate a chief of fun (COF) to ensure we are not only working hard but playing hard too. This can be in different formats such as team meetings where different team members lead in their way, bringing their style to the table while developing their leadership skills, day-to-day team banters, offsite with several kinds of activities such as quizzes, cooking, wine tasting, karaoke, dinner, etc. We rotate activities to ensure it is inclusive of everyone's interest at least once a month.

Culture, Vision & Values

Every leader should have personal vision and values, leadership vision and values, and business vision and values. Is there a theme and alignment between your personal, leadership, and business vision and values? This can be a useful compass for consistent direction, behavior, and guiding principles of any organization, especially in difficult times.

I have been opportune to work with great companies that strive to abide by their cultures and values. Some of my favorite values across several companies are, acting like an owner, inspiring excellence, seeking context with intention, being bold, challenging the status quo, moving fast, don't be a jerk, being individually humble, and collectively proud. In the sales world, some tend to see culture and values as 'fluffy'. They see it as having nothing to do with closing deals or hitting targets. I believe it has everything to do with it. It is the 'how'. How we show up to clients, how we show up internally to one another, how we manage performance in a non-bias manner, how we represent the company, how we sell, and much more. I have seen organizations embed this in their promotion and appraisal process to ensure employees are committed and rewarded for leading by the cultures and values. This should be among the behaviors that are celebrated and appreciated very often.

When culture and value go out the door, especially during tough times in sales and revenue achievement, this can break down trust, and loyalty, causing retention issues. Once it's broken, credibility is lost and difficult to rebuild. Leaders who lead by example here will foster a committed workforce rather than a compliant one. Committed employees go above and beyond for a shared outcome which aids the overall success of an organization.

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I can also help you as a startup coach, startup advisor, gtm consultant, monetisation, company culture, revenue growth, leadership coach, leadership workshop and more. Contact abi@leadnotlag.com

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