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.
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.