Life is an interesting journey!
After years in a well-established analytics firm, circumstances dictated a different path. After working with a company that had abundant resources, to working with a startup with limited funding, you learn a lot. The things that you took for granted at an established company became part of the job at a startup.
Titles mean little because at a startup, you do what is necessary to move the firm forward. You immediately adapt and learn new concepts to expand your network and accelerate your understanding of the problems that your new firm can solve.
Allocating Limited Capital Funds
Whether you are well funded or running the business on a shoestring budget, capital is so important to preserve.
The biggest drain on cash at a startup tends to be compensation for employees followed by product development, marketing, and sales. Over the course of time, due to the abundant amount of information available via the internet, marketing has been elevated in importance over the sales function. Startups struggle with the balance between these two important activities. Founders tend to run both of them often without prior experience in either.
Sales as a Service Break-Even Point
The cost of developing a small sales organization is roughly $750K. That is money that could be better spent on the development of the product or marketing. A typical break-even point for the cost of sales is 32% achievement of the sales quota. Often times that “32%” quota achievement doesn’t happen within the first year. Of course, this depends on where you are in the lifecycle of the company, but I have found this to be generally true.
So after going on this journey, I’m helping to create a new sale paradigm to reduce risk and conserve cash for companies that have innovative technologies but need experienced sales help without the high cost. Unlike other companies in the Sales as a Service space, we only get paid based on sales results.
Interested in learning more, please contact us!
David Small – Vice President and Partner
TopLine Revenue Solutions
