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Episode 18, Part 2 - Revenue-First Thinking & Breaking into America, with Alex Olley
15th July 2025 • The Growth Workshop Podcast • Southwestern Family of Podcasts
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In part 2 of our talk with Reachdesk founder Alex Olley, we discuss Reachdesk’s bold go-to-market strategy, which aligns every function, marketing, sales, and customer success, around one shared goal: revenue. It details how compensation, planning, and cross-functional collaboration eliminate any friction and drive focus. The episode also reveals how a London startup broke into the US market by going all-in with a differentiated value proposition and a 5x return on investment (ROI) guarantee.

Transcripts

Matt Best:

Thank you for joining us on the Growth Workshop

Matt Best:

Podcast for part two of our discussion with Alex Olley. We

Matt Best:

talked ahead of the recording of this podcast about you attribute

Matt Best:

some of your success in the US to your own methodology when it

Matt Best:

comes to kind of selling. Talk to us a little bit about that.

Alex Olley:

Yeah, I was exposed to sort of the world of Account

Alex Olley:

Based Marketing before, and I feel like, as it were, that we

Alex Olley:

don't really use as much anymore. It used to be 2021, it

Alex Olley:

was a buzzword. ABM, say, There's everything...

Jonny Adams:

What is Account Based Marketing? Before we jump

Jonny Adams:

in, you're gonna share that in a moment. We can just for the

Jonny Adams:

listeners...

Alex Olley:

Account Based Marketing is essentially this

Alex Olley:

flip funnel approach, rather than sort of an inbound method.

Alex Olley:

You're you're selecting your accounts, your it's essentially

Alex Olley:

good B to B, selecting your accounts. You're orchestrating

Alex Olley:

campaigns around those in a really narrow fashion, rather

Alex Olley:

than trying to boil the ocean. It's kind of just flipping the

Alex Olley:

inbound model and turning on its head. It just doesn't fit in

Alex Olley:

loads of organizations. If you're running a model within an

Alex Olley:

org where you're trying to generate qualified leads, ABM is

Alex Olley:

always in conflict, and so it just, it's kind of tried to eke

Alex Olley:

its way in, and it gets forced out really quickly. My method is

Alex Olley:

sort of like clean slate, right, start from scratch, and it was

Alex Olley:

born out of my frustration of how I saw things. I saw that MQL

Alex Olley:

conflict with ABM, but it was basically I used to hate the

Alex Olley:

fact that our marketing team would celebrate that there would

Alex Olley:

be 150% target, and sales were at 50% so one team's going,

Alex Olley:

we're doing really, really well here, and the others going, we

Alex Olley:

just tanked like that. That was one of the worst courses. And

Alex Olley:

you I think that's just really bad for an organization to be in

Alex Olley:

that position.

Jonny Adams:

Can I clarify what you're talking about? Because

Jonny Adams:

they've hit target? Are you saying that there were separate

Jonny Adams:

metrics for the two different departments? Metrics to the

Jonny Adams:

market? Because we buzz about marketing sales alignment. One

Jonny Adams:

of our core propositions is aligning marketing and sales

Jonny Adams:

functions for the greater good. Sounds like they were

Jonny Adams:

misaligned. Possibly they're really misaligned. And just for

Jonny Adams:

the listeners, the what I'm hearing is the misalignment was

Jonny Adams:

the fact that the KPIs in the marketing team were what MQL and

Jonny Adams:

the sales team was, entertainment, revenue,

Jonny Adams:

interesting. So that sort of the proxy is misaligned on KPIs.

Alex Olley:

Exactly. What I do, everyone is focused on the same

Alex Olley:

goal, which is revenue marketing as well. So that's the starting

Alex Olley:

point in this all bound method. It's not inbound, it's not

Alex Olley:

outbound, it's not ABM, it's that everyone in my go to market

Alex Olley:

team is focused on us hitting the revenue goal from the

Alex Olley:

graphic designer in the marketing team to the demand

Alex Olley:

gen, to the BDR to the AU, we all care about by hitting our

Alex Olley:

number in this quarter. Guess who celebrated with me?

Alex Olley:

Marketing celebrating, BDR, celebrating. It's not sales.

Alex Olley:

Just going, Oh, we're awesome. Everyone's going, we all did

Alex Olley:

this together, and they all believe it. And so you start by

Alex Olley:

saying your target as a team is this number, and if we don't get

Alex Olley:

there, we have failed, right? So that's the starting point there.

Alex Olley:

We don't talk about MQL, so we don't talk about leads or

Alex Olley:

database volume or anything like that. We do have to look at like

Alex Olley:

pipeline pacing and back that into the revenue number, but

Alex Olley:

ultimately, we don't really care if we if now everyone's really

Alex Olley:

happy, right? What I then did is I thought to really stay true to

Alex Olley:

that everyone therefore has to have a comp plan. They're all

Alex Olley:

gonna have skin in the game. So recently hired a demand gen

Alex Olley:

manager. I said, right, by the way, this is your salary, and

Alex Olley:

you can earn this much on top if we if we hit our sales number,

Alex Olley:

and if you go above that, it's uncapped. And he kind of looked

Alex Olley:

at me and say, this isn't a joke. Is this a joke? It's not a

Alex Olley:

joke, because I need you to buy into this, because I think that

Alex Olley:

if you do, if you don't, and I said, hit these mqr numbers,

Alex Olley:

he'd probably go and hit them, whereas now he's thinking, these

Alex Olley:

are all the things I can do to help sales hit their number. And

Alex Olley:

those are the conversations I see. I see marketing team, or go

Alex Olley:

into the office marketing sitting with sales, and they ask

Alex Olley:

that question, what can we do to help you close more deals?

Alex Olley:

Right? Obvious answer, yes. Get from sellers, I want, I want

Alex Olley:

more meetings, right? But we don't really have this

Alex Olley:

conversation. It's like, well, actually, we've got this massive

Alex Olley:

account, and we need your help to accelerate them doing these

Alex Olley:

things. So you get really creative with it. So everyone

Alex Olley:

has a comp plan, and I'm not trying to pay them less than

Alex Olley:

their market value. I'm trying to pay them way above. And you

Alex Olley:

see very different behaviors from doing that, and because

Alex Olley:

when you've done that, you've got everyone on aligned to

Alex Olley:

revenue. Everyone is incentivized to do it, so

Alex Olley:

they've got skin in the games. They're always trying to beat

Alex Olley:

the number. You can then start to do the things that remove the

Alex Olley:

friction for the buyer. You can start ungating all your content,

Alex Olley:

because you're not trying to capture a lead. For the sake of

Alex Olley:

saying, I generated a lead, you're saying, well actually, I

Alex Olley:

mean, I don't know about you guys, but I can't remember last

Alex Olley:

time I entered my email or phone number into a form, I don't

Alex Olley:

think people want that anymore. And the more we do that, the

Alex Olley:

more we frustrate our buyers. And so by having this, this,

Alex Olley:

this, this mindset towards revenue and not having to gamify

Alex Olley:

the system, you free up your team to do the things that your

Alex Olley:

buyers actually want in 2025 right? Which is removing the

Alex Olley:

friction, which is not just, you know, once the meetings happen,

Alex Olley:

see you later, that's it. We've thrown it over to you. It's

Alex Olley:

integrated campaigns, where people are working together on

Alex Olley:

like, Is this really the right ICP marketing is going up. We've

Alex Olley:

looked. All the close one deals. And actually we think we should

Alex Olley:

be targeting these guys instead. They could have said we could

Alex Olley:

generate loads of leads, but actually they're saying, no, we

Alex Olley:

want to target these guys in a really precise fashion, because

Alex Olley:

we know the win rates, sales, cycle lengths and ACVs are

Alex Olley:

optimum there. So we're going to really focus on here. We're

Alex Olley:

going to cut out a lot of this. This is marketing saying this,

Alex Olley:

by the way, right? And therefore we're going to be running these

Alex Olley:

campaigns because sales, we want to help you win more, and that

Alex Olley:

and that is that is a world that I think most people want to live

Alex Olley:

in. It's just really hard to get to you, because the way that

Alex Olley:

organizations are built, yeah, get in the way.

Matt Best:

It's fascinating. And I think that clients, I love the

Matt Best:

bit around actually, we end up doing what the client wants,

Matt Best:

rather than just being laser focused. There is a reality

Matt Best:

though, Alex, I guess. And some people listening to this might

Matt Best:

be going, Yeah, but we do need to have certain amounts of

Matt Best:

control over what people are doing, and there's this balance

Matt Best:

of, you know, autonomy and agility within the team to be

Matt Best:

able to make those decisions. Do you find, have you seen through

Matt Best:

this approach, any issue with any sort of too far on the right

Matt Best:

or the left side of the kind of the road that we're going down,

Matt Best:

that means we're sort of in the verge that's a terrible analogy,

Matt Best:

but hopefully it makes sense in terms of, how do we keep

Matt Best:

everybody how do we keep everybody focused and not

Matt Best:

getting distracted? Clearly, they're focused on that end

Matt Best:

goal, but they still have to go on a journey to get there.

Alex Olley:

Yeah, honestly, no. Like I can do. First foremost,

Alex Olley:

there's never been an argument in my business where we're going

Alex Olley:

that was a sales lead or that was a marketing lead, right?

Alex Olley:

Just, just think about how big of a problem that is, just how

Alex Olley:

wasteful that conversation is. So because you eliminate things,

Alex Olley:

I think you spend your time doing the things that matter.

Alex Olley:

But you know, a lot of this ultimately, is down to planning.

Alex Olley:

Now I still do look at sales velocity by channel, which I

Alex Olley:

think is the most important metric. And you can I do look at

Alex Olley:

Pipeline created by channel, but ultimately as because it's about

Alex Olley:

revenue. I look at the sources. I still look at inbound, I look

Alex Olley:

at events, I look at outbound, AES generating their own

Alex Olley:

pipeline. I do still look at the are we creating enough

Alex Olley:

opportunities? What's the win rate, the ACV and the sales

Alex Olley:

cycle length, you know, the standard sales velocity

Alex Olley:

calculation. I break it down as one and then by channel, and I

Alex Olley:

do look at the which ones are generating the most revenue

Alex Olley:

right now, if you've got a problem and it's down, first

Alex Olley:

conversation is, well, can we fix it? Now? I do see a lot of

Alex Olley:

excuses out there saying that outbound is dead and doesn't

Alex Olley:

work anymore. I think it's just because it's really hard and it

Alex Olley:

doesn't get the attention it deserves. We had an outbound

Alex Olley:

problem in outbound problem a year ago, and I've spotted it

Alex Olley:

because we're generating, not necessarily fewer opportunities.

Alex Olley:

They're just not closing at high enough rate. We're not

Alex Olley:

generating enough revenue off the back of it. Let's inspect

Alex Olley:

that now. Let's double down, and this way you start digging. I

Alex Olley:

have this concept of snorkeling like snorkeling is just like

Alex Olley:

going on the surface and you start diving down and going

Alex Olley:

right. What is the actual problem? Is it because we're

Alex Olley:

targeting the wrong accounts? Is it because we don't get enough

Alex Olley:

volume? But ultimately, I try and link it back to revenue, and

Alex Olley:

so I look how many opportunities we're creating from that

Alex Olley:

outbound source. What is the win rate? The ACV is actually okay.

Alex Olley:

We're not closing enough of them. Sales cycle length is

Alex Olley:

really long. All right. Now let's try and find the ones that

Alex Olley:

actually do fit where we want to go, and let's reverse engineer

Alex Olley:

those. Okay, back to your question. That's when the

Alex Olley:

planning comes in. And I'm relentless on focus on a small

Alex Olley:

number of things, rather than letting things just go off the

Alex Olley:

rails into the verge as you say, yeah, you then just got to have,

Alex Olley:

like, really systematic ways of making sure that these

Alex Olley:

initiatives are being managed properly. That's where leaders

Alex Olley:

come in. That's their job, right? They've got to be able

Alex Olley:

to, just like, put the guardrails up and get this is

Alex Olley:

what we're doing. Yeah, fine. We're gonna do some experiments

Alex Olley:

on one side, but this is what we need to fix. This is what's

Alex Olley:

gonna be optimum result for the business in terms of revenue.

Alex Olley:

Now, let's agree these are the three things we're gonna do.

Alex Olley:

Let's get them done. And we're just really regimental with our

Alex Olley:

approach to how we get stuff done. Where it goes wrong is

Alex Olley:

when you go, we've got this idea. And it was like, whose job

Alex Olley:

is that? Is that mine? Like, should I be doing it? Where is

Alex Olley:

it being tracked? Like, what do we need to do? It doesn't get

Alex Olley:

written down anywhere. There's no like, weekly thing. And the

Alex Olley:

way I've kept it in check, I suppose, is we have my favorite

Alex Olley:

meeting of the week, which is the go to market ops meeting,

Alex Olley:

right? And in that meeting you have customer success, account

Alex Olley:

management, rev ops, sales and marketing, everyone that touches

Alex Olley:

the customer right, they're all there. And we're all talking

Alex Olley:

about the same thing. How can we improve retention? How can

Alex Olley:

improve net retention? How can we improve pipeline, pacing,

Alex Olley:

sales? And we're all working together. And that's where the

Alex Olley:

initiatives, literally, there's a thing. It's like top

Alex Olley:

initiatives. And we go, let's go through these. How are we doing

Alex Olley:

on these? For example, we're talking them. We're not talking

Alex Olley:

about them as a sales team or marketing team customer success,

Alex Olley:

that everyone has a voice there, and that's that. That's the, I

Alex Olley:

think, the perfect state when you're getting the feedback from

Alex Olley:

the voice of the customer, as well as what you want to achieve

Alex Olley:

going forward, from like a, what you would perhaps describe as a

Alex Olley:

go to market standpoint, bring all that together and manage it

Alex Olley:

properly. You're operating in a different world.

Jonny Adams:

It's really interesting what you're sharing,

Jonny Adams:

because we are so aligned in the way that you are delivering in

Jonny Adams:

your business. But we do it as a day to day job to educate the

Jonny Adams:

world on. That alignment of those customer facing teams, and

Jonny Adams:

what do you think inhibits businesses? Because you said

Jonny Adams:

something about the way the business is structured, but I'd

Jonny Adams:

like to unpack that. What is it that inhibits them to do that

Jonny Adams:

marketing, sales alignment, motion internally.

Alex Olley:

Yeah, look, if you're a massive company, it's

Alex Olley:

really hard. This is like, I think the first, the first

Alex Olley:

reaction, if someone who was in a billion dollar company were

Alex Olley:

listening to this, like, there's so much legacy there, this is

Alex Olley:

going to take years to to change something, there's that sort of

Alex Olley:

lack of desire. Perhaps, I think it's about incentives. Like, my

Alex Olley:

favorite, one of my favorite sayings is, show me the

Alex Olley:

incentive. I'll show you the outcome. If you put people in a

Alex Olley:

position where they are personally incentivized and

Alex Olley:

collectively as a team, change will happen. And comp plan I've

Alex Olley:

spent, I think I've spent a third of my time thinking about

Alex Olley:

compensation. I never used to do that, but I think compensation

Alex Olley:

drives the right behaviors. And I have to admit to you as well,

Alex Olley:

I think I, over the years, I had to, I had to remove people that

Alex Olley:

didn't buy into that, people that were too used to that. You

Alex Olley:

need people that buy into that vision and that way of thinking.

Alex Olley:

Because if you put something that's incentivizing someone

Alex Olley:

that doesn't feel good and they don't feel great about it,

Alex Olley:

they're going to be doing stuff behind closed doors that

Alex Olley:

essentially the antithesis of what you want. So you've got to

Alex Olley:

have the right people on board that buy into it. You have to

Alex Olley:

incentivize them. I think that's the number one thing that gets

Alex Olley:

in the way, is that comp plans and compensation incentives are

Alex Olley:

built in a way that can be gamified. I use that word

Alex Olley:

intentionally, by the way, I'm still shocked by how many

Alex Olley:

companies one don't incentivize people. I talked to you about

Alex Olley:

incentivizing marketing. I think everyone should do that, by the

Alex Olley:

way. So either they don't incentivize them, and when they

Alex Olley:

do, it's based on vanity metrics that can be gamified a lot of

Alex Olley:

the time. Other than sales, sales is pretty easy, but I

Alex Olley:

just, I think, I'm not sure where, where this stems from,

Alex Olley:

but I think people just need to think about that a bit more.

Jonny Adams:

Yeah, it's really helpful to get your your point

Jonny Adams:

of view, because that's the day to day. We work with

Jonny Adams:

organizations that, you know, half a million, a billion,

Jonny Adams:

possibly, and we're trying to bang that drum. But you know, if

Jonny Adams:

you're a C suite individual that's been working there for 15

Jonny Adams:

years, in a in a financial service organization, Jonny, I

Jonny Adams:

get what you're talking about, but just not interested in that

Jonny Adams:

alignment at the moment. But the value that you can get out of

Jonny Adams:

aligning those functions is it's incredible, right?

Alex Olley:

It's huge, yeah, and again, big lesson for me. It's

Alex Olley:

one of those Fergus conversations where I remember

Alex Olley:

saying, like, I think we're gonna be doing this. And I

Alex Olley:

remember saying to me, like, What'd your customers think? Oh,

Alex Olley:

it's a good question. I felt really stupid. All of a sudden,

Alex Olley:

there's all, how often do you have the voice of the customer

Alex Olley:

essentially informing what you, what you what you're going to do

Alex Olley:

as a as a company, but it's really important as a go to

Alex Olley:

market unit, and that those are the moment, the moments where

Alex Olley:

things did change like they changed massively, because

Alex Olley:

essentially, we're all here and building businesses for the

Alex Olley:

benefit the customer, and without that voice in the room,

Matt Best:

And we so often get into that with our with our

Matt Best:

what's the point?

Matt Best:

clients, right? Jonny, and we're thinking about created various

Matt Best:

different processes, customer journeys, all of that kind of

Matt Best:

good stuff, but it's still looking at it from the internal

Matt Best:

lens and never validating that with the client. But has anyone

Matt Best:

tested this? Like, how do we know that that's the truth?

Matt Best:

Yeah. How are we checking that that's still working? How do we

Matt Best:

know that's still the same, like you talk just even earlier, just

Matt Best:

around the way things have changed in terms of the number

Matt Best:

of people who are just going to pick up a cold call that's in a

Matt Best:

relatively short amount of time. So it's always changing. So sort

Matt Best:

of cut. Yeah, we did customer journey mapping 20 years ago.

Matt Best:

This is why our sales process looks like this. Well, maybe you

Matt Best:

should have a look again.

Alex Olley:

Yeah, exactly. And actually, I think we digress,

Alex Olley:

because your original question was that, how did that

Alex Olley:

methodology help us in the US? Right? I've tried going into, I

Alex Olley:

think, I think every business I've been part of, we've either

Alex Olley:

tried to go into the US or another major territory. And

Alex Olley:

that's that sort of way of thinking. That methodology, just

Alex Olley:

like it did, break down barriers, it did mean that we

Alex Olley:

could easily translate things, and it helped us speed up big

Alex Olley:

time, because we weren't trying to put barriers in our own ways,

Alex Olley:

let alone the customer. But that's one of the hardest things

Alex Olley:

we had to do, was get into the US, because I failed so many

Alex Olley:

times. When you go into new territories, the territory plan

Alex Olley:

and ownership is like the number one thing that gets in people's

Alex Olley:

ways. Like you've got an AE in London who's been working

Alex Olley:

snowflake in the US, and next you know, you've got an AE in

Alex Olley:

the US and says, Well, snowflake. And we're like, Well,

Alex Olley:

hang on a second. We actually don't have territory maps. We

Alex Olley:

have dynamic ways of pumping enough opportunities and signals

Alex Olley:

to reps so that they can then work them. Because I believe

Alex Olley:

that we shouldn't wait for a company to be ready to buy. We

Alex Olley:

should be getting there beforehand. Like, it's usually a

Alex Olley:

month or two beforehand, right? And so we don't have this sort

Alex Olley:

of territory static map that we use anymore. And again, because

Alex Olley:

as a team, we're trying to get to the revenue number it was, I

Alex Olley:

didn't really matter so much anymore. We kind of just, like,

Alex Olley:

removed the conversation quite quickly. It helped us big time

Alex Olley:

with how we think about, like. Outbound as a motion previously,

Alex Olley:

I'd have conversations with finance in previous businesses

Alex Olley:

saying, Well, this STI isn't hitting their number. They're

Alex Olley:

just not hitting their number. We need to put them on

Alex Olley:

performance plan. I was like, this str is actually creating a

Alex Olley:

ton of revenue because their win rate is 35% and even though

Alex Olley:

they've only hit 50% of their ops number, they're 120% to

Alex Olley:

revenue pacing, and that's what I care about. And about. And

Alex Olley:

it's those things that I think are dangerous, that we often

Alex Olley:

lose sight of what's actually contributing to revenue, because

Alex Olley:

we're looking at these metrics that actually perhaps are

Alex Olley:

leading indicators more than like, the final metrics that

Alex Olley:

really matter for individuals. And instead, it translates into

Alex Olley:

this guy now feels really good because he's making an impact to

Alex Olley:

the team, and he's incentivized to do that too.

Jonny Adams:

I've been to a number of conferences just on

Jonny Adams:

this, you know, making it into the US, and our organization,

Jonny Adams:

parent company, is in the US. We're one of 20 organizations

Jonny Adams:

that amongst that, that business concept. We're one of the only

Jonny Adams:

ones outside of the US. So we know the US market really well.

Jonny Adams:

We've got a really strong alumni within our business, individuals

Jonny Adams:

that have spun out of our parent company to work in the likes of

Jonny Adams:

Tableau and other organizations in the marketplace. But people

Jonny Adams:

do say, Well, how do I make it into the US? Like you've talked

Jonny Adams:

about your framework, but what's that sort of thing that you you

Jonny Adams:

know, other than the methodology that you got? But what was that

Jonny Adams:

one thing that you think needed to get into the US?

Alex Olley:

I think that for us, there are actually two things.

Alex Olley:

The number one thing about going to any new territory is going

Alex Olley:

all in. I see too many companies that just dip their toe and go,

Alex Olley:

I think we're going to try and go into the US often they wait

Alex Olley:

too long. They wait till they've raised more money. But even when

Alex Olley:

they do, they don't want to make sacrifices. And we made every

Alex Olley:

sacrifice. I'm not gonna say I sacrificed myself, but I went

Alex Olley:

there. I'd actually only been to San Francisco for like, a

Alex Olley:

weekend conference before basically, essentially deciding,

Alex Olley:

I'm going to take this to the US. As I said before, the reason

Alex Olley:

why we went to the US is because the market was massive. That's

Alex Olley:

the number one reason why everyone wants but the market

Alex Olley:

readiness was, was, was the leading indicator. We knew that

Alex Olley:

we'd have fewer headwinds selling this in the US. And so

Alex Olley:

why? Like, this is 2019, so just before COVID, but you needed

Alex Olley:

boots on the ground. You needed face to face interaction. And

Alex Olley:

because people were using gifting and direct mail in their

Alex Olley:

outbound their sales process, customer success, it was just

Alex Olley:

way easier. So I was like, that's just an easier

Alex Olley:

opportunity. Now we launched in the US six months after

Alex Olley:

launching the business, right? So a London startup, four

Alex Olley:

blokes, we're gonna go to the US. And everyone laughed at me.

Alex Olley:

They're like, you will fail. It's gonna go horribly wrong.

Alex Olley:

You don't know what you're doing. You should wait five

Alex Olley:

years try and get it to like, 15, 20 million error raise a big

Alex Olley:

round and then go into the US. And I just ignored everything. I

Alex Olley:

was like, we're gonna go all in. We hired a US CEO. We thought

Alex Olley:

that was really, really important, partly for

Alex Olley:

fundraising, but also we needed someone over there who's going

Alex Olley:

to be, like, a big culture driver. We brought people with

Alex Olley:

us. I've always said, if you're going to do something important,

Alex Olley:

you've got to sacrifice your best people. And sometimes

Alex Olley:

that's like, that doesn't make any sense, but it's one of my

Alex Olley:

biggest learnings, if you're gonna do something really

Alex Olley:

important, put your best people there. And so I take certain

Alex Olley:

people along with me, and they would actually show people how

Alex Olley:

to sell. Like, go back to focus, talking about a lot. I remember

Alex Olley:

him saying to me, your number one job right now is to teach

Alex Olley:

people how to sell, reach desk. That's it. I was like, that's

Alex Olley:

such good advice. I was like, Well, I've got AES. You can sell

Alex Olley:

it way better than me. So let's get them to do part of the

Alex Olley:

teaching too. So you bring your best people, you go all in. We

Alex Olley:

put almost all of our budget in terms of marketing and

Alex Olley:

everything into the US. We didn't leave much behind for for

Alex Olley:

the the EMEA market. And I think going into these new

Alex Olley:

territories, I've done it with other companies and into other

Alex Olley:

regions, when I think done well, you go all in, but you cannot

Alex Olley:

dip your toe the moment you do, you may as well pull out. And if

Alex Olley:

you're not ready to do that, don't bother in the first place.

Alex Olley:

Yeah, that was the lesson. Now it's not all gravy. I mean, we

Alex Olley:

were very lucky in that the first customer we signed when we

Alex Olley:

landed in the US was zoom info. Now that's pretty handy for two

Alex Olley:

reasons. One, it's like we can use that as a reference.

Alex Olley:

Everyone we are selling to B to B, sales and marketing people.

Alex Olley:

They all know that logo. But also what they were doing is,

Alex Olley:

because they're using digital gifting in their process,

Alex Olley:

they're sending that before every discovery call. They're

Alex Olley:

sending like a, I think it was a $7 Starbucks that's all like,

Alex Olley:

look forwards being soon. Here's Starbucks and us, and it was a

Alex Olley:

powered by reach desk at the bottom. Now think about how big

Alex Olley:

that company is, and how many of those are being sent out. A lot,

Alex Olley:

hundreds of that. Hundreds of 1000s. So we'd get loads of

Alex Olley:

companies saying, I've been gifted by zoom info, and they

Alex Olley:

tell me that it's you or I saw it was you guys. What's all this

Alex Olley:

about? So it just that was jammy. So look, we got lucky in

Alex Olley:

some ways, but we did go all in where it really changed. Was one

Alex Olley:

of the best executed things I think I've ever seen in my life.

Alex Olley:

And I don't know if you're familiar with Vern harness,

Alex Olley:

scaling up methodology, and it's essentially like a company wide

Alex Olley:

cohesive strategy that allows you to get everyone on literally

Alex Olley:

one page. And it starts with your values, your purpose, your

Alex Olley:

mission, your vision, your vision. There was this moment

Alex Olley:

where it was, I think we spent two hours every. Day for two

Alex Olley:

months working on this, me and my founders, yeah, and the

Alex Olley:

purpose, mission, vision, values. That was, I think we

Alex Olley:

kind of defined that quite quickly. But there's these parts

Alex Olley:

where you check, it's like a checklist you have to complete.

Alex Olley:

And so you talk a lot about, what are your differentiating

Alex Olley:

activities? And there's a really good question you can ask

Alex Olley:

yourself, is, what are we prepared to be bad at? That's a

Alex Olley:

really powerful question to ask, because when you're thinking

Alex Olley:

about differentiation, you can't be great at everything, and I

Alex Olley:

think that's where a lot of companies fail. A lot of teams

Alex Olley:

fail. So we were asking ourselves a quote, like, we're

Alex Olley:

prepared to be bad at this, this and this, but we are. We're

Alex Olley:

willing to be great at being the international player that takes

Alex Olley:

personalization seriously, and you can measure ROI, those are

Alex Olley:

our three things, and everything is about those three things, and

Alex Olley:

what that does is that folds into what you call your brand

Alex Olley:

promises. These are promises you're going to make to a

Alex Olley:

customer. I'll give an example. Our promise to all of our

Alex Olley:

customers was that you will be able to measure the impact of

Alex Olley:

direct amount of gifting. That's quite a new concept for most

Alex Olley:

people, particularly me. That was the world I was. I couldn't

Alex Olley:

measure it, so I wanted that to be part of our promise. Now

Alex Olley:

every company makes promises to customers, right? And it's

Alex Olley:

created a lot of skepticism. So what you do is, then you back

Alex Olley:

those up with guarantees. So we said you'll be able to measure

Alex Olley:

the impact of direct money gifting on your pipeline

Alex Olley:

creation and essentially closing more deals. We then spent about

Alex Olley:

a year building one specific product to allow to do that,

Alex Olley:

because we're like, that's one of our three things we're going

Alex Olley:

to lean into that we could build all these other things. These

Alex Olley:

other things, these cool things that our competitors doing.

Alex Olley:

Let's make it this one thing, right? Let's make ourselves

Alex Olley:

really good at that, that has that attribution in it. So you

Alex Olley:

can weight your attribution model within our platform, so

Alex Olley:

that when you send a gift, and it creates a meeting to say

Alex Olley:

that's attributes back to gifting. Great. That's really

Alex Olley:

hard to do, by the way, because it's an offline channel. And

Alex Olley:

here was the powerful piece. We then said, for every dollar you

Alex Olley:

spend, you'll get at least $5 back. So that's the guarantee.

Alex Olley:

So people are like, Oh, it's kind of a no brainer. I was

Alex Olley:

like, here's how we really make it a no brainer. If we don't,

Alex Olley:

we'll refund you the difference, and bam, with this London

Alex Olley:

company that no one really knew to going all in on the US with

Alex Olley:

this, like, really focused strategy and these really clear

Alex Olley:

value proposition that made it a bit of a no brainer. And, you

Alex Olley:

know, we talk about, are you a nice to have, or you must have?

Alex Olley:

I'm in the camp where I like it to be, am I a no brainer? And

Alex Olley:

that's the position where, when I say that to people like, Oh,

Alex Olley:

brilliant, because we're not, we're not a must have. So it

Alex Olley:

kind of frees you up a little bit. But it's funny, I met the

Alex Olley:

CEO of our biggest competitor about a year and a half after do

Alex Olley:

that. I think we launched it in q1 2022, I think we needed 200%

Alex Olley:

of our number. We didn't think it would be executed this well,

Alex Olley:

because every pitch we were going in, they were like, what's

Alex Olley:

the difference between you and your competition? Well, it's

Alex Olley:

these three things, and we know you care about these three

Alex Olley:

things. And here's the promise and here's the guarantee on each

Alex Olley:

of them. And people are right, and then they go to the

Alex Olley:

competition saying, reach us is guaranteeing this ROI and what

Alex Olley:

are you guys doing? So our win rate against our bit all of our

Alex Olley:

competition was about 90% we'd win almost every single deal.

Alex Olley:

And inevitably, what you expect to happen is that they're gonna

Alex Olley:

start copying that what we do on 5x ROI guarantee as well. Great,

Alex Olley:

but they haven't built a product that actually allows you to

Alex Olley:

measure it right? And so our win rate went up a little bit more

Alex Olley:

because it's like we've actually we're the only guys that can do

Alex Olley:

this, and we lent into our strengths and what we wanted to

Alex Olley:

be about as a business. And I think if you're going to go into

Alex Olley:

somewhere like the US, don't just go all in, go in with,

Alex Olley:

like, a really focused, differentiated strategy that

Alex Olley:

sets you wells apart and makes you a no brainer. I think that's

Alex Olley:

where you win.

Jonny Adams:

It's a conundrum that you hear a lot in

Jonny Adams:

marketplace, and you know that that lure of the US, but you've

Jonny Adams:

just answered the question, but then just 10x that, with that,

Jonny Adams:

without response. And I can personally just say thank you so

Jonny Adams:

much, Alex for that, for that little snippet, because that is

Jonny Adams:

gold

Matt Best:

Yeah, the going all in is a is a brave thing to do,

Matt Best:

isn't it? Like you've got to you went and spoke to a bunch of

Matt Best:

businesses about that, they'd be like, oh, yeah, but what's the

Matt Best:

risk? Like, what's the risk of that? I'm not suggesting you

Matt Best:

didn't consider the risk. I'm sure you did. And you also would

Matt Best:

have considered, like, What the what your expected ROI is. So

Matt Best:

you make sure that that sort of 5x number isn't, isn't seeing

Matt Best:

you writing checks and credits back to clients all the time.

Matt Best:

But it's a really brave thing to do, but also recognizing that

Matt Best:

you can't just do part of it. I mean, I've spent, I spent a

Matt Best:

number of years in SaaS startups, scale ups where you're

Matt Best:

sort of like, you know, to your point, you're like, Oh, we just

Matt Best:

give that a try. And then we go, we do not even half a job. We do

Matt Best:

a sort of Third, we do it, you know, third at best, probably

Matt Best:

less than 25% of a good job. And then we go, kind go, Oh, that

Matt Best:

was rubbish. Yeah, wow. Can we do expect? What's going to

Matt Best:

happen if you don't go, if you're not really backing

Matt Best:

yourself and kind of going all in, then, yeah, how are you

Matt Best:

going to get the outcome that you want? And I think it's that

Matt Best:

I don't know if you'd use the word bravery. Do you see it as a

Matt Best:

bravery thing? It feels it certainly, hearing that story.

Matt Best:

It's a bit like, you know, going back in time to, Can't you think

Matt Best:

of the Romans? You think of the Vikings. They didn't just send,

Matt Best:

like, two of their mediocre blokes on a ship and expect to

Matt Best:

conquer another country, did they? They lifted the whole

Matt Best:

that, you know, their winning team, their best of the best,

Matt Best:

and they left the rest at home with the hope that they come.

Matt Best:

That, but they knew that they wouldn't succeed unless they put

Matt Best:

it all in this. They put it all in.

Alex Olley:

Yeah, we had this thing called the big, hairy,

Alex Olley:

audacious goal, the bee hang and we all that was actually the

Alex Olley:

starting point was that, where do we actually want to get to?

Alex Olley:

Because if you're not clear on that, and you're not aligned on

Alex Olley:

that, then trust me, you're never gonna because one of you

Alex Olley:

is just gonna get I can't do it. And like one of my I suppose

Alex Olley:

strengths and weaknesses at the same time is that I'm just

Alex Olley:

relentless. I won't I will not give up until we've achieved

Alex Olley:

what we've set out to do. And I expect everyone else around

Alex Olley:

that. But when you give people clarity around this is where

Alex Olley:

we're going, people want purpose. They want to be on the

Alex Olley:

journey. They need to be clear on where you're going. And when

Alex Olley:

you get everyone on the same page about that, the bravery

Alex Olley:

kind of doesn't become a thing anymore, because it's just like,

Alex Olley:

this is where we're going, and here's everything that cascades

Alex Olley:

underneath that. These are all things we're going to do. Yes,

Alex Olley:

it's going to change, but substantially this is what we're

Alex Olley:

doing. It just helps everyone. Helped our product team, helped

Alex Olley:

sales, marketing, our messaging. I don't remember a time where

Alex Olley:

people like, what are we doing? Like, I've been part of four

Alex Olley:

startups before this, and how was that? Was 80% of time it's

Alex Olley:

like, what we doing? Why are we doing it? And that slows you

Alex Olley:

down when you when you've worked on something that hard for so

Alex Olley:

long, that is so wildly differentiated, and you put so

Alex Olley:

much effort into it, you don't really see the change. I

Alex Olley:

remember bringing it to like, my team, and they were like, Whoa.

Alex Olley:

Are we doing this? I can't believe we get to do this. When

Alex Olley:

you see that reaction, you just think, I can run through walls

Alex Olley:

and like, if you get it right. When you see that reaction, it

Alex Olley:

just energizes you to go, oh, wow, we actually are going to do

Alex Olley:

this together.

Matt Best:

Yeah, that's a fantastic place for us to end

Matt Best:

today's conversation. To everyone listening, join us for

Matt Best:

part three as we continue this conversation.

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