September 25, 2025 • 41 mins
In this solo episode of the Private Equity Value Creation Podcast, Shiv Narayanan breaks down the challenges facing portfolio companies in today’s market—and shares a clear roadmap for investors, CEOs, and revenue leaders to drive growth.
From slowing sales pipelines to rising competitive pressures and the impact of AI, many companies are underperforming compared to previous years. Shiv outlines actionable strategies to:
Cut wasted marketing spend and improve efficiency
Reignite stalled deals and boost close rates
Maximize existing customer value through upsells and account expansion
Leverage intent data and contextual outreach for short-term wins
Build long-term enterprise value with authentic thought leadership
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to the Private Equity Value Creation Podcast where we
interview leading investors, operators, bankers, and advisors
to help you answer one question.How do we increase the
enterprise value of our companies?
My name is Shiva Narayanan and each episode I will dive deep
with a guest to help you become a better value creator and
(00:22):
capital. Allocator.
So with that said, let's jump right in and let's get started
with today's episode. All right, everybody, welcome to
the podcast. It's going to be a different
type of an episode today. I'm going to be doing it solo.
And the reason for that is that we've been seeing a lot of
central themes emerge across a lot of our private Equity
Partners, our clients, CEOs thatwe speak to and even revenue
(00:45):
leaders. And it sounds a lot different
than let's say even six months ago or or going back a year or
18 months sounds much, much different.
And we have a bit of a unique perspective here at Hadassah
because we're like this outside party to these companies and
we're so close to the private equity ecosystem.
That's one of the reasons why werun this podcast.
(01:06):
And I spend most of my day talking to our customers,
talking to our partners, talkingto our clients.
And so I get to hear day-to-day how the market is evolving and
how everybody's perceiving things in terms of deal flow,
whether pipeline is closing or private equity investors raising
enough funds. Are they, have they been able to
exit their investments? Are they getting the right kind
(01:28):
of valuation for their companies?
And over time, you start to build a pretty good picture.
I mean, I've been doing this forabout 6 years now running this
business. And every year I can see how the
macroeconomic environment translates into the private
equity world and how investors are perceiving companies and
making investments and, and, andgrowing their respective
(01:50):
businesses. So want to do the episode today
because one of the big themes that I'm seeing is that
companies in general are not hitting their sales targets.
And this might sound like your business.
It might sound like 5 out of theseven portfolio companies that
you're investing into. It's not to say that every
(02:11):
company is struggling, but it's more that I would say a larger
percentage than usual are eitherhave seen their growth slow down
or are seeing even like even like an even year compared to
previous years. And that's very different than
let's say back in 2022 or 2021 and even 2023, where companies
(02:34):
have been consistently growing, consistently expanding their
margins or expanding their EBITDA and, and able to grow a
lot faster. And at the same time, we are
seeing something else happen on the investor side because as as
companies have struggled to growor reach the targets that have
been set by investors, it's become harder for investors to
(02:58):
exit the investments that they have already deployed capital
into. And actually, if you listen to
some of our other episodes, a lot of investors touch on this
topic. And we've even had guests that
have talked about how a lot of funds are focused on secondaries
as a way to find liquidity for their LP's.
So you kind of have this perfectstorm or a situation where the
(03:21):
company's not growing as fast asit wants to and then the
investor needs liquidity to be able to send it back to their LP
Razor next fund. And yet there's this tension
because the to find more growth for the company is proving to be
difficult and that this is a bitof a timely issue for the
investor. And so it becomes even more
(03:42):
important in this time to find ways to grow.
And from the investors perspective, like I've seen the
focus shift, I'd say four or five years ago when we were in
the early days of this business,we were getting pulled into
deals where tons of platforms were coming together.
Capital was being deployed everywhere because debt was easy
(04:02):
to find. And a lot of companies are being
merged together or being invested into and a lot of value
creation planning and and work was being done.
But mostly M&A was the big focusbecause capital was so easy to
find. Then in the last couple of
years, the focus shifted inward to existing portfolio companies
and optimizing performance and helping those companies grow.
And that's in the last the last year or so, the focus has been
(04:25):
on getting more liquidity back to the LP's and becoming more
efficient. And that trend can easily spiral
out of control if PE firms are not able to grow their portfolio
companies are not able to exit their investments at some point
and are not able to provide liquidity to their LP's.
I think there's a chance that ifthis trend continues, you're
(04:45):
going to start to see some PE firms even go under because they
are too leveraged or the debt covenants are too high, or the
companies are not going fast enough and they're not returning
enough capital to their LP's or at the very least they're gonna
struggle to raise their next fund.
And we've seen this with some PEfirms that we know where they
raise fund one, fund 2, fund 3, and now it's been a while before
(05:06):
they have raised fund 4. And I'm not talking about the
top of the top of the top PE firms because those firms will
always have LP's interested in investing.
But there's this long tail of middle market firms that we work
with and that are actually investing in a lot of companies
that don't have the same resources or the same track
record to be able to raise subsequent funds without having
(05:28):
proven out the existing funds ability to to return to return
capital. And then on top of this, you
have EI as like this additional pressure that has changed the
landscape on the one. On the one hand, it's
introducing existential risk because you kind of have to look
at every investment through the EI lens to figure out will this
(05:51):
company actually still be aroundin one year or two years, five
years time? Or will AI platforms kind of
displace this, this current SaaSplatform that we have that is
potentially growing or is potentially a good business?
And then on the flip side, you also have this AI thread on the
go to market side and in just onthe product side where there's
(06:14):
all these other competitors emerging because AI has made it
much easier to code a competitorto launch a competitor, to
launch campaigns on the marketing side or do sales
outreach much faster. So it's more competitive than
ever on the go to market side. And then yet you have this
existential risk where you kind of have to keep messing in
product and you have to have some sort of a EI component to
(06:38):
be relevant or at least be able to say to the market like, hey,
we are AI enabled or we are AI driven in terms of what our
platform is because a lot of competitors are using that
language as well. So you have this perfect storm.
And then on top of this, you also have in the macroeconomic
conditions that political uncertainty, interest rates were
just cut by I think 25 basis points, but it's unclear as to
(07:00):
how long the interest rates willbe as high as they are.
And, and then you also have justgeopolitical issues that are
putting a lot of deals at risk when certain deals are not
closing. So even on the on the deal side
with the private equity funds, we're seeing PE investors invest
in fewer deals and the deals that they are investing in are
usually the blue chip assets andthere's a ton of competition and
(07:23):
valuation for those are quite high.
But we've seen a lot of deals fall apart during diligence this
year with the private Equity Partners that we're working with
because certain metrics are not matter The deals, the companies
are just not high quality enoughfor them to be willing to take
the risk associated with all these other existential threats
surrounding a particular market or vertical that they're kind of
(07:45):
investing in. Regardless of whether or not
they believe in their investmentthesis, they're looking for
really great, great assets. So you kind of have this perfect
storm where it's really important to build companies
that have strong foundations that are able to to see this
uncertainty through and are are going to kind of stand the test
(08:05):
of time and have the ability to grow in the uncertainty.
And that would help PE firms 1 deploy their capital.
And there's a ton of dry powder sitting on the sidelines.
And it's going to help the companies themselves either find
a P partner to exit 2 or if they're already owned by private
equity, to find a subsequent transaction so that capital can
(08:27):
be returned to LP. 'S.
So that's how all of this connects together.
And the way I see our role in this ecosystem is that we're
almost like a value creation partner to all of these firms
and even founders that are looking to exit the PE.
And we are trying to help them figure out what are the best
things that they can invest intoin order to meet a lot of these
(08:50):
objectives, whether it's building more pipelines so that
they can have a predictable revenue, Imagine what so that
the company can grow faster and maybe more likely to exit.
Whether it's figuring out how toleverage AI to, to scale faster
or produce more content or become more efficient, whether
it's to become more competitive in a marketplace that is now
surrounded by all kinds of ubiquitous competitors that
(09:12):
offer similar features or similar benefits.
And so I see us as the the player in this space that is
kind of like this value add partner that's going to help
everybody navigate some of this uncertainty, especially with the
functional expertise that we have in the domain of in the
domain of marketing. And so with all of that context
set, that kind of is what leads me to kind of focus on what I
(09:35):
want to talk about today, which is OK, let's say you do have a
company where growth has slowed down or at least it's not
growing as fast as you would like.
So instead of let's say 35 or 40%, maybe scoring at 15 to 20%
or it's it's decreased from 25% to 15%.
And so business is OK in general, but not growing at the
(09:56):
level that you'd wanted to. And pipeline is not closing,
revenue targets are being missed.
And there's this pressure being put on this company to scale
faster. But it's really hard to figure
out what to do. Should you focus on generative
search? Should you do ABM?
Should you leverage intent data?There's all of this noise in the
marketplace about what you should be doing, and it's
(10:19):
unclear on which ones are actually going to help these
companies succeed. And I really want to simplify
the whole process down for you on today's episode.
So let's start with the start with the basics.
One of the things that happens in when, especially when I meet
go to market teams or when I meet revenue leaders or even
CEO's, is that companies are drowning in opportunity.
(10:41):
There are hundreds of ideas, hundreds of initiatives that can
be funded and everybody in the room thinks something or the
other should be invested into. And it's really hard to figure
out whether you should do Project X or project Y.
And meanwhile, time is of the essence.
And every week that passes or every month that passes where
(11:02):
we're not addressing this underlying problem of growing
faster, targets are getting missed and the pressure is
building right and so. Excuse me?
That's what we wanna fix. So what we wanna get to is.
I would say strategic clarity, clarity on exactly what is going
to move the needle and what are the areas we need to focus on to
(11:24):
create as much enterprise value as possible in as short of a
time as possible. We often get this question from
investors and CEOs like I want to grow faster or I want to
create more enterprise value, but I want to do it yesterday
and I wanna do it quickly. What are the quick wins?
How can we do this faster? I want to do it in two weeks.
I don't wanna do it in two months.
I want to do in four weeks. I don't wanna do in four months.
(11:45):
And so there are a lot of thingsthat can be done like that, but
it requires A structured approach.
And I'd say there's an order of operations to all of this.
So I'll start with some principles. 1 is just that you
want to focus on a limited number of areas.
You're not gonna figure out ABM plus generative search, plus
product marketing, plus launch anew website, plus do a brand
(12:07):
redesign. And I could list 70 other
projects all in one. It's highly unlikely.
I mean, if you're like an $800 million company, probably it's
doable if you have an exceptional CMO.
But even then, I would say that it's going to be really hard to
do. Because that person is also
going to have integrations to manage as events to do their
sales enablement work. There's just business as usual
activity that keeps everyone busy.
(12:27):
So in talking about creating enterprise value as quickly as
possible, you really want to have a laser focus on one to
three areas Max. And I would say out of
everything, you want to start with the revenue that is most
likely to close in the shortest period of time.
So as an example, if you have this idea of, for example,
(12:49):
launching your own podcasts likethis one as a way to meet your
own customers, it's a great ideaand a lot of verticals and
markets and it can be a great form of account based marketing.
I can tell you that we've drivenmillions of dollars in revenue
from just having this podcast. However, in order to invest into
this, you need to have the patience to see it through for
(13:09):
18 to 24 months before you startto see that type of a return.
So even though it's a good idea,it's not a great idea.
To get you the kind of return based on the pressures that we
have just discussed. And so I would kind of put that
idea and say it's kind of a niceto have or something that we do
much later on and not something that we do right now.
(13:29):
And then the third thing I wouldjust say as a guiding principle
is to drive as much cost efficiencies as possible.
And the reason I say this is that there are companies out
there that might be growing or their growth has slowed down and
that's changed their margin profile significantly.
A company that was growing 30% year over year but had expanded
(13:51):
its cost base can easily go fromEBITDA positive to EBITDA
negative overnight. And in that type of a situation
that Paul Graham has a saying, it's like, are you default alive
or default dead? And default dead, meaning you're
burning cash every month and at some point you're gonna run out
of cash. In a pee backed environment,
obviously that's less likely. But the point still stands is
that you want to be as default alive as possible, and finding
(14:14):
cost efficiencies can help you do that while you try to look
for the quickest wins to drive. More growth and pipeline.
So with those 3 principles, I would say here's kind of how I
would go about this for basically any business.
And you can apply this to anyonein your portfolio companies
today. And that's what I'm trying to
make this as actionable as possible.
So we are going to get tactical right now, and it's going to
(14:35):
help you. So just stick with me as we kind
of go through this list. And I'm going to give you
specific types of campaigns and programs and initiatives that
the company should be focusing on to address this pipeline and
revenue problem in the short term.
And then we can expand into the longer term initiatives that are
kind of out there. So starting with efficiency, so
#1 is start or excuse me #1 is stop the inefficiency inside the
(15:00):
business. Every additional dollar that you
find in inefficient spend is an additional dollar of EBITDA that
should go to the bottom line. And I can tell you that when we
come in and do our analysis inside companies, we are finding
anywhere from 30 to 50 and sometimes even 70% of marketing
spend being wasted in avenues that do not generate a return
(15:25):
that is valuable enough for the business.
Yet they're spending hundreds ofthousands and in some cases
millions of dollars into campaigns that don't work.
And so how we do this, as I'd say the specific areas to look
into, especially on the marketing side, would be to do a
deep audit of the paid media spend.
I would say companies are definitely wasting 30 to 50% of
their spend here. And the issue is that they don't
(15:46):
have the right data tracking to be able to figure out which 30
to 50%. But if they actually tracked
everything to close one in revenue, they're going to find a
ton of efficiency #2 look at, look to reduce channel span by
this 8020 rule, which is that inside every channel, I would
say 20% of the initiatives are actually driving 80% of the
(16:08):
revenue. And if you just kind of look at
it like that inside every channel, whether it's events,
whether it's outbound, whether it's ABM, whatever you're kind
of investing into online, offline, what have you, you're
going to find a ton of inefficiency.
If a channel you're spending forexample $500,000, I would argue
150 to 200,000 Max is driving most of the value.
So if you can bring that 500,000to 150 and save the 350 through
(16:33):
to EBITDA, you're already significantly farther ahead than
trying to use that 350 in an inefficient way to drive way
more pipeline than you need to justify that 315 spend.
That 315 spend should be generating over $1,000,000 in
pipeline and revenue for the business and if it's not then
you are much better off letting it go down to EBITDA.
Then third I would say is segment out the work that is
(16:57):
essential from from nice to haves.
And I see, I think connected to this is this idea that I would
say the 8020 rule for programs also applies to activities and
it also applies to teams. So if you look at your marketing
or your go to market organization, including sales
and the marketing side, I would say 20 to 30% of the staff is
(17:22):
likely driving 80 to 90% of the value.
Those are the true A players. They are the keepers.
They're the people you have to build around.
You should not be losing them atany cost.
And yet the other 70%, the return on the value of or the
work that they're doing is kind of like a question mark.
And there's a ton of spend goinginto these roles.
Some of these roles are in senior leadership, some of them
(17:43):
are middle management. I've seen cases where companies
have multiple executives that are making over 300 or $500,000
and they are not essential to what the company needs to do to
grow pipeline. Just an example, we helped one
company cut over $20 million in marketing spend and their
revenue did not change at all. And we have over 2 years worth
(18:03):
of data on that. So just to give you that
context, and this is obviously amuch larger business, but we've
seen at a smaller scale too where we've cut half a million,
a million, 2,000,000 is spent and it hasn't made any
difference. So being able to right size your
team and your activities and to look at what is actually
(18:24):
essential work. The core work that we have to do
to move this business forward inleaner times so that we can
preserve as much cash as possible, be default alive and
get that down to the EBITDA margin as much as possible is
the right way to kind of think about it, especially at this
moment is maximizing existing customer value.
(18:44):
So pricing is one of those levers that is often looked at
and I was definitely look at pricing and obviously PE firms
are very good at this and there's people on, on the
operating teams that are always doing this kind of analysis.
I'd say pricing is one of those tricky things, especially at
this moment because what you cando with increasing prices is you
might find expansion revenue, but especially at this moment,
(19:04):
you might trigger way more churnthan usual.
So you have to model for increased churn at this time
before you just try to leverage pricing as like your expansion
revenue or almost like a get outof jail three card.
And this time the other thing I would say is leveraging pricing
as an advantage where you're experimenting with different
(19:26):
models so that you're driving more upsell or cross sell or
expanding the existing base or even helping you close net new
deals. Because maybe flexible pricing
terms, as an example, you don't need to lock them in for five
years or three years. Maybe a six month contract will
get the customer in the door andthen you can focus on retention
after the fact. So I think pricing can be a huge
(19:47):
one, but the big, the bigger point here is that you want to
focus on your existing customer base because they're already
transacting with you. And especially at this time, I
would say a lot more effort needs to be put into the
existing base because they're buying from you and expanding
that relationship will be a lot easier.
And there are many ways to do this regardless of what type of
(20:10):
business you are. So, for example, if you are a,
a, a SaaS business, then obviously then we have to talk
about seed expansion or upselling, cross selling other
products and solutions. But let's say you're not a SaaS
product, you are more of a services business and the
clients that you're working. With our cutting headcount, well
(20:31):
that becomes an opportunity for you to offer managed services
solutions or fractional solutions or ways to kind of
provide on-demand talent to themas a way to supplement the the
talent that they've lost or the productivity that they've lost
without having the same cost base or, or fixed costs
associated with with the headcount.
(20:52):
So figuring out ways to be creative with the existing
customer base and sitting down with the specific organization
and going what is everything we can do to increase our total
customer value from each of our respective accounts.
I think should be one of those top three initiatives that we
discussed because more than anything that will move the
(21:13):
needle in the short run because you already have those
relationships and you can get the call and the likelihood of
closing those deals, the close rate should be above 70% because
you have the relationship 5th I would say.
Again, lost track of the numbersI was on.
The 5th I would say is focusing on close rates on on
opportunities. So one of the things that's
(21:36):
happening is OK, if somebody's getting to qualified status, if
they are already, they put theirhand up and they said, hey, I'm
interested in buying from you orat least let's do a demo.
You do the demo, you've had a great conversation.
Obviously it's a great fit. You discuss pricing, everything
seems to be working well and forsome reason the deals fall
apart, right? So at this stage if you're
(21:59):
getting us X amount of deals, but one of the things that we're
hearing from PE partners and ourclients is that close rates have
declined quite significantly. So if they used to be let's say
40%, companies are now seeing 25% closed rates and that's the
difference between closing 40 deals or 25 deals in it.
If you do it at a $10,000 a pop,that is a significant amount of
(22:20):
difference in terms of new AR orexpansion R that you kind of
capturing. So what you want to do is
anybody that walks in the door that this becomes a qualified
sales opportunity. You want to over invest into
helping that deal across the finish line where previously you
(22:41):
would run them through your standard process.
You want to provide a lot more resources, a lot more support,
lot more references, lot more assets.
You want to provide a lot more value earlier in the deal cycle
so that you increase their confidence and you have more buy
in to get that deal over the finish line.
(23:02):
It's not just about sales enablement, it's about providing
a lot more value pre clothes so that you increase the likelihood
of the clothes at the point of sale.
So I'd say this is something that often gets overlooked
because after a certain amount of time, a company's closing
process is how they've always done things and they don't
(23:25):
always think about that being a problem.
And it's not that it's a problem, it's just that
customers are in a different situation.
So the amount of effort requiredis significantly different than
let's say used to be two years ago or five years ago.
And so you almost have to kind of do a refresh for the closing
process from opt to close and think about what are the 10
(23:47):
different things you can do during that specific window
because they're already in your pipeline.
There's a certain amount entering your pipeline every
single week. So what is everything extra you
can do to get that deal over thefinish line and just do that
with your whole team. There should be weekly syncs,
what marketing, what sales, sales enablement people, anyone
customer success to make sure that that prospect gets over the
(24:10):
finish line or at least you're doing everything in your power
to get them over the finish line.
And the larger the deal sizes, the larger the effort should be.
So if you're doing $100,000 or even $15,000 deals, I'd say get
everybody in the room and prioritize all the deals and
then just go one after the otherand give them as much value pre
close. And that will increase your
close rates back to at least some level of normalcy that you
(24:34):
were you were previously seen. Connected to this it's #6 #7 is
the the idea of reengaging dealsthat have entered into closed
lost. One thing to understand about
closed loss deals is that close losses never just closed lost
forever. There's many reasons why deals
enter closed loss range and and you have to try to figure out
(24:58):
what you have to look at the data and figure out why did this
deal enter close lost. And you have to re engage them
as a way to see if you can reignite the opportunity status
of this deal. And I'll give you some examples.
If a competitor, if a deal went to close loss due to a
competitor, the way to check in is to say, hey, company XI know
(25:19):
last time we spoke six months ago, you had chosen to go with
HubSpot instead of our CRM. Wanted to see how the migration
process was working out for you.Are you having any hiccups?
Is it delivering the results that you want?
Is there something else that youwish you had or is it worth it
for us to reopen this conversation?
Odds are somebody that went witha competitor is not as likely to
(25:40):
come back. But every so often, let's say 5
percent, 10% of the time you're going to find a customer that is
quite unhappy with the choice that they've made.
And now you have a deal that's more warm than a lot of deals
that are in your existing pipeline because they've already
made this investment. So they've already crossed the
threshold into, I'm going to invest into this.
(26:02):
They're just not happy with the results.
So they have, they have a vestedinterest in making it work.
And so that's an example of a deal that can close sooner.
And this is a very like tacticalcampaign because it's hand to
hand combat. It's having a full list of
potential deals that you can kind of work on and going
through them one by one similar to the opportunities that we
(26:22):
just talked. About.
OK. Next is close loss to no
decision. In this case, it could be
somebody that didn't end up buying from you because they
decided that right now they justdon't have the time or it's not
a priority. In these cases, it's worth it to
reach out and say, hey, I know when we spoke six months ago
(26:42):
this wasn't a priority for you. Is is it a better time to pick
up this conversation and maybe we can show you some additional
things that we can do in this time to help you kind of figure
this out? I would say this one is a much
bigger opportunity than the competitor one because this
person has not yet picked the solution and likely the problem
(27:03):
and the pain points still exists.
So going through the closed lossand finding all the no decisions
and having this conversation is super important.
The, the third one would be on pricing.
And if you lost the deal due to pricing, we just talked about
pricing as a lever going back toall of these customers with
either more favorable terms, more favorable structure, maybe
(27:26):
updates to pricing, maybe ways to look at the ROI of an
engagement and reengaging, reengaging with them can open up
a bunch of opportunities. So for example, hey, last time
we spoke, we had talked about a project over, I don't know, 6 to
12 months that would cost X amount of dollars.
Just wanted to let you know we also now offer retainer pricing
(27:46):
and that would lower your risk and it's on in in a piece meal
fashion. So you can cancel at anytime and
that reverses their risk. And now that same deal
potentially reopens because thisperson is able to get the
approval for the budget to see how this goes for a couple of
months before you need to commitany further.
And I would say there's probablyone or two or maybe 10 depending
(28:07):
on your volume, a bunch of dealssitting in in that column.
So I'd say going through these close loss feels you're going to
find, I would say, let's say in a given month you close 100
deals. You might find just through a
reengagement campaign that goes through competitive closed lots
of competitor close loss to no decision, close loss of pricing,
(28:29):
close loss of timing, close lossto other priorities.
You might find 5 to 10% left. So instead of 100 deals, you
might close 110 deals in a givenmonth.
And those 10 deals can be the difference between making your
month and quarter and and not making your month and quarter.
So while it's super tactical, itis very much in the moment and
it's a quick win that you can capture in the in the short run.
(28:52):
OK, next I'll say that I'd say so far what we've covered is
what you can do tactically to like it's almost like what you
can do today or this week or next week to build pipeline in
the immediate term. I'd say the next set of ideas
are things that you can do todayor next week, but require a
little bit more time to see the results, but not as much time as
(29:15):
a as a longer term initiative. So the first of these ideas I'd
say is to maximize your existingchannels, similar to how we cut
spending areas that work that don't work, excuse me, or are
just too expensive. There are channels that are
doing quite well for you that are driving pipeline and revenue
at A at a really good rate, but you just haven't spent enough in
(29:39):
those channels or scaled those channels to their maximum.
So what you want to do is figureout which channels are driving
the most amount of revenue in pipeline and most efficiently
for you and figure out based on effort or investment required in
order to scale those channels. Stack rank and prioritize and
invest in the top two or three channels where you are getting
(29:59):
the highest return on your investment and scale those
areas. And what you're going to find
here is that a lot of channels that are not a lot of the
channels that are delivering a lot of the revenue, excuse me,
that are driving most of the pipeline for you are not maxed
out. And we see this all the time
(30:20):
where again, there's 20-30, sometimes even over 100%
opportunity left on the table inside channels like paid media,
like account based marketing, like events, like like
different, different, different SEO, different avenues that can
actually move the needle for a particular business.
And there's a lot of value beingleft on the table because
nobody's figured out what is theefficient frontier for this
(30:43):
channel. So doing that work, looking at
the data, tracking everything inthe close one, looking at it the
channel level at a campaign level and then figuring out how
do we scale this faster can drive a bunch more pipeline.
And it still in the short run, because it might take you the
next three or four weeks to implement, but you going to
start to see results as early asnext month.
And I would say in engagements with our clients, this is one of
(31:03):
the first things that we do because because companies are
not looking at the data or don'thave the right data
infrastructure to be able to measure all of this and figure
out what to prioritize next. I would say focus on people who
are in market today as the priority for what you are doing
from a campaign perspective on the go to market side.
So there's a hot button topic inmarketing today on what's called
(31:27):
intent data, which signals whether or not people are in
market to buy. And using that as the the guide
to figure out whether or not this deal has the urgency or the
timing to actually close this quarter.
And doing your outreach based onthat versus just doing outreach
based on target account lists and the ICP that you're kind of
going after. I would say you want to do this
(31:50):
work, but you want to do it in the areas where you can get to
people who are in market as quickly as possible.
So if anyone is already in market for a solution, like
let's say they're looking for construction software, well, you
want to make sure that the 7-8 places where a person in market
(32:10):
would look for a solution, you are already showing up.
That could be on the digital marketing side, It could be paid
ads, it could be organic search today, it could be generative
search and how they're looking for solutions on platforms like
ChatGPT. You want to make sure no matter
where they're looking, you are already in front of them.
Connected to this is also the idea of the intent data and the
(32:32):
triggers associated with what a good buyer might be looking for.
I'll give you an example from ushere at Hassas.
One of the big triggers for us is when a private equity firm
actually deploys capital into a company.
When they do that, that is when they're building their value
creation plan and often inside their value creation plan go to
market as a priority. So we have intense signals that
(32:53):
tell us, hey, come P farm X stock company, why?
Let's reach out to our contact at PE firm X and see if we would
be a good fit to help them buildout their value creation plan.
We've closed a lot of deals by doing outreach in this way and
it's very targeted and focused because those people are already
in market. I don't need to talk to every PE
firm. I need to talk to the ones that
(33:14):
are buying companies today or have already closed the deal
because we know that they're actually working on this.
They're building the the value creation plan and they're having
investment committee meetings, they're having board meetings,
are having conversations at thatparticular time because that is
a critical moment inside PE firm.
So whatever that is for your market, staying on top of that
intent data is critical. 3rd, I would say now more than ever, it
(33:39):
is important or us essential to have customized and contextual
outreach on every deal. In the past, I've always talked
about, hey, like the lower your ACV, it's very hard to do
customized outreach. And that's still true.
Like if your CV is like $1000 a year per customer, then yes,
it's hard to do customization. But in general, most B
(34:01):
companies, if you're selling 10,fifteen, $25,000 deals you and
more obviously 100,000 plus evenmore.
So you need to have as much context and customization inside
your outreach. This is not just ABM.
I would say it's permission to place stakes to make any form of
outbound or outreach work. And it's not just as simple as
(34:24):
finding a trigger like, oh, notice you know, person X at
this other company as a mutual connection.
Let's jump on a call. No, it needs to be deeply
contextual to the problems that they are having and how that
connects to what you solve. And you need to give value up
front and that will increase your outreach.
If you're not doing that, you'regoing to see your outreach
efficiency go down significantly.
(34:46):
So I would say investing into that.
And the reason this is, I would say still short term is this can
be done today. You don't need an extensive
playbook in order to do contextual outreach.
You need a bit of a culture shift on the outbound side or
the ABM side to be able to say who are our target accounts and
(35:07):
what are the things we can send to them in order to get in front
of them or catch their attentionto help them see what is the
value we can provide. And then on a day-to-day basis,
sales reps and account managers or CS reps should be doing this
outreach with that type of context.
It should not be just going for volume.
It's about the context and the deep insight or or research you
(35:28):
can bring to the outreach that will likely increase the
response rates and the number ofdeals that you get from that.
4th, I would say is investing into account management more.
And what I mean by this is account management.
We often there's like this hunter and farmer model inside
companies. But I would say the farmer model
(35:50):
is almost left to wraps to kind of farm the existing customers
and the accounts. But I think account management,
especially in a time like this needs to become a core strategy
inside companies where every keycontact and every key account
needs to have some type of relationship building effort put
behind it. And then inside larger accounts,
(36:13):
there has to be an effort being put into knowing multiple
contacts, not just two or three.Like ideally you need to know
like 5-10, maybe even 20 people depending on the size that the
account inside each of those keyaccounts.
I'd say this is one of the biggest risks inside companies
is there's maybe one or two contacts inside a key account
(36:34):
and then that person leaves and the account is dead.
Conversely, if you know 20 people inside that account, the
odds of upselling and cross selling are significantly
higher. So I would say this idea of
internal referrals, quote UN quote inside these accounts and
then farming for additional deals with those contacts while
(36:54):
building relationships can find a bunch of quick wins in the
short term. And at the same time, leveraging
those contacts for introductionsand referrals to other accounts
that are in your key account list or that we might already
have no contacts, but one contact from this account might
be able to introduce us to another contact from a different
account. That cross polarization will
(37:15):
open up a bunch of more opportunities as well.
And I'd say most of the companies that we've met do not
have a systematic approach of investing into account
management, even though it can be such a, such a deep and
powerful lever. And then the last thing I would
just say is I would say this is more of a longer term effort,
(37:36):
but I think it's worth mentioning, especially in an age
of AI is to build out more authentic authority based
content. And the reason for this is the
more generative search becomes important, the more you can
leverage AI to produce content. There is this sea of
commoditized content out there and none of it can really be
(37:59):
referenced. None of it really stands out.
And your content is likely getting lost in that sea of
content. The more you invest into thought
leadership content that builds your authority and your
reference ability, The generative search platforms are
going to use you as their sourcematerial to give their
(38:21):
recommendations when people ask some questions.
And you're going to have an authentic voice in the
marketplace that extends well beyond the the, the, the
commoditized sea of content that's out there.
So everybody, everybody's able, let's say if everyone's
producing AI generated blog posts or AI generated LinkedIn
content or AI generated slides for their webinars and things
(38:44):
like that. If you're the one that's that
has a human face with deep research and expertise being
brought to a podcast or your webinars, you're speaking and
things like that. Over time, all of these
platforms are going to referenceyou and you're going to stand
out to your to your market as well.
And that's going to add this Halo effect to all the other
things that we talked about on the account management side or,
(39:05):
or farming existing accounts andgrowing that doing your
contextual targeted outreach or reengaging your, your deals or
increasing your close rates fromfrom opportunity to close.
All of these areas benefit from this particular lever.
And that's something that we talk about often as well.
And that's one of the reasons I do this podcast is it's all kind
of connected. And you don't really see the
(39:26):
benefit of the authority work in, in real time, but it does
show up every single place that you go and when, especially when
you're meeting with customers and, and, and your prospects.
So I'm gonna, I'm gonna stop there because I think that's a
lot of those are a lot of different avenues for you to
think about. There's, there's more that I
could definitely dive into. But I think if you kind of look
(39:47):
at that list, we went through about 10 to 15 items that you
could start actioning today for your portfolio companies.
I think there's a lot to kind ofgo into.
I would encourage you to share this episode with your other
managing partners or your CEO's or the revenue leaders and have
a tactical conversation. Like this where it's literally
(40:08):
meaning you have a Google Doc or, or whatever open and you're
kind of going through each of those bullet points and listing
out what are the four to five things that you can do to
increase pipeline in the short term.
And hopefully that helps you hityour targets for 2025 or at
least catch up a little bit and then helps you set the stage to
do better in 2026 and beyond. So with that said, I appreciate
(40:29):
you listening to today's episode.
I hope you enjoyed it. Leave a comment below or just
ping us and let us know what youthink and I'll see you all next
time. Thanks for listening to today's
episode. Before you take off, just a few
requests from our side #1 if youhaven't done so already, please
subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or Spotify or YouTube or
(40:51):
wherever you go to listen to your podcast #2 If you are in
the market for due diligence services, strategy consulting,
or fractional CMO services, please get in touch with us at
www.hassas.com. And 3rd, please buy a copy of my
new book, Exit Ready Marketing. It covers a ton of concepts that
(41:11):
we take our customers through private equity investors, B
company CEOs, operating partnersand marketers.
And there's a ton of great valuein there that expands on my
previous book, Post Acquisition Marketing as well.
So with that said, I hope you enjoyed today's content and
we'll see you on the next episode.
Welcome to the Private Equity Value Creation Podcast where we
interview leading investors, operators, bankers, and advisors
to help you answer one question.How do we increase the
enterprise value of our companies?
My name is Shiva Narayanan and each episode I will dive deep
with a guest to help you become a better value creator and
(00:22):
capital. Allocator.
So with that said, let's jump right in and let's get started
with today's episode. All right, everybody, welcome to
the podcast. It's going to be a different
type of an episode today. I'm going to be doing it solo.
And the reason for that is that we've been seeing a lot of
central themes emerge across a lot of our private Equity
Partners, our clients, CEOs thatwe speak to and even revenue
(00:45):
leaders. And it sounds a lot different
than let's say even six months ago or or going back a year or
18 months sounds much, much different.
And we have a bit of a unique perspective here at Hadassah
because we're like this outside party to these companies and
we're so close to the private equity ecosystem.
That's one of the reasons why werun this podcast.
(01:06):
And I spend most of my day talking to our customers,
talking to our partners, talkingto our clients.
And so I get to hear day-to-day how the market is evolving and
how everybody's perceiving things in terms of deal flow,
whether pipeline is closing or private equity investors raising
enough funds. Are they, have they been able to
exit their investments? Are they getting the right kind
(01:28):
of valuation for their companies?
And over time, you start to build a pretty good picture.
I mean, I've been doing this forabout 6 years now running this
business. And every year I can see how the
macroeconomic environment translates into the private
equity world and how investors are perceiving companies and
making investments and, and, andgrowing their respective
(01:50):
businesses. So want to do the episode today
because one of the big themes that I'm seeing is that
companies in general are not hitting their sales targets.
And this might sound like your business.
It might sound like 5 out of theseven portfolio companies that
you're investing into. It's not to say that every
(02:11):
company is struggling, but it's more that I would say a larger
percentage than usual are eitherhave seen their growth slow down
or are seeing even like even like an even year compared to
previous years. And that's very different than
let's say back in 2022 or 2021 and even 2023, where companies
(02:34):
have been consistently growing, consistently expanding their
margins or expanding their EBITDA and, and able to grow a
lot faster. And at the same time, we are
seeing something else happen on the investor side because as as
companies have struggled to growor reach the targets that have
been set by investors, it's become harder for investors to
(02:58):
exit the investments that they have already deployed capital
into. And actually, if you listen to
some of our other episodes, a lot of investors touch on this
topic. And we've even had guests that
have talked about how a lot of funds are focused on secondaries
as a way to find liquidity for their LP's.
So you kind of have this perfectstorm or a situation where the
(03:21):
company's not growing as fast asit wants to and then the
investor needs liquidity to be able to send it back to their LP
Razor next fund. And yet there's this tension
because the to find more growth for the company is proving to be
difficult and that this is a bitof a timely issue for the
investor. And so it becomes even more
(03:42):
important in this time to find ways to grow.
And from the investors perspective, like I've seen the
focus shift, I'd say four or five years ago when we were in
the early days of this business,we were getting pulled into
deals where tons of platforms were coming together.
Capital was being deployed everywhere because debt was easy
(04:02):
to find. And a lot of companies are being
merged together or being invested into and a lot of value
creation planning and and work was being done.
But mostly M&A was the big focusbecause capital was so easy to
find. Then in the last couple of
years, the focus shifted inward to existing portfolio companies
and optimizing performance and helping those companies grow.
And that's in the last the last year or so, the focus has been
(04:25):
on getting more liquidity back to the LP's and becoming more
efficient. And that trend can easily spiral
out of control if PE firms are not able to grow their portfolio
companies are not able to exit their investments at some point
and are not able to provide liquidity to their LP's.
I think there's a chance that ifthis trend continues, you're
(04:45):
going to start to see some PE firms even go under because they
are too leveraged or the debt covenants are too high, or the
companies are not going fast enough and they're not returning
enough capital to their LP's or at the very least they're gonna
struggle to raise their next fund.
And we've seen this with some PEfirms that we know where they
raise fund one, fund 2, fund 3, and now it's been a while before
(05:06):
they have raised fund 4. And I'm not talking about the
top of the top of the top PE firms because those firms will
always have LP's interested in investing.
But there's this long tail of middle market firms that we work
with and that are actually investing in a lot of companies
that don't have the same resources or the same track
record to be able to raise subsequent funds without having
(05:28):
proven out the existing funds ability to to return to return
capital. And then on top of this, you
have EI as like this additional pressure that has changed the
landscape on the one. On the one hand, it's
introducing existential risk because you kind of have to look
at every investment through the EI lens to figure out will this
(05:51):
company actually still be aroundin one year or two years, five
years time? Or will AI platforms kind of
displace this, this current SaaSplatform that we have that is
potentially growing or is potentially a good business?
And then on the flip side, you also have this AI thread on the
go to market side and in just onthe product side where there's
(06:14):
all these other competitors emerging because AI has made it
much easier to code a competitorto launch a competitor, to
launch campaigns on the marketing side or do sales
outreach much faster. So it's more competitive than
ever on the go to market side. And then yet you have this
existential risk where you kind of have to keep messing in
product and you have to have some sort of a EI component to
(06:38):
be relevant or at least be able to say to the market like, hey,
we are AI enabled or we are AI driven in terms of what our
platform is because a lot of competitors are using that
language as well. So you have this perfect storm.
And then on top of this, you also have in the macroeconomic
conditions that political uncertainty, interest rates were
just cut by I think 25 basis points, but it's unclear as to
(07:00):
how long the interest rates willbe as high as they are.
And, and then you also have justgeopolitical issues that are
putting a lot of deals at risk when certain deals are not
closing. So even on the on the deal side
with the private equity funds, we're seeing PE investors invest
in fewer deals and the deals that they are investing in are
usually the blue chip assets andthere's a ton of competition and
(07:23):
valuation for those are quite high.
But we've seen a lot of deals fall apart during diligence this
year with the private Equity Partners that we're working with
because certain metrics are not matter The deals, the companies
are just not high quality enoughfor them to be willing to take
the risk associated with all these other existential threats
surrounding a particular market or vertical that they're kind of
(07:45):
investing in. Regardless of whether or not
they believe in their investmentthesis, they're looking for
really great, great assets. So you kind of have this perfect
storm where it's really important to build companies
that have strong foundations that are able to to see this
uncertainty through and are are going to kind of stand the test
(08:05):
of time and have the ability to grow in the uncertainty.
And that would help PE firms 1 deploy their capital.
And there's a ton of dry powder sitting on the sidelines.
And it's going to help the companies themselves either find
a P partner to exit 2 or if they're already owned by private
equity, to find a subsequent transaction so that capital can
(08:27):
be returned to LP. 'S.
So that's how all of this connects together.
And the way I see our role in this ecosystem is that we're
almost like a value creation partner to all of these firms
and even founders that are looking to exit the PE.
And we are trying to help them figure out what are the best
things that they can invest intoin order to meet a lot of these
(08:50):
objectives, whether it's building more pipelines so that
they can have a predictable revenue, Imagine what so that
the company can grow faster and maybe more likely to exit.
Whether it's figuring out how toleverage AI to, to scale faster
or produce more content or become more efficient, whether
it's to become more competitive in a marketplace that is now
surrounded by all kinds of ubiquitous competitors that
(09:12):
offer similar features or similar benefits.
And so I see us as the the player in this space that is
kind of like this value add partner that's going to help
everybody navigate some of this uncertainty, especially with the
functional expertise that we have in the domain of in the
domain of marketing. And so with all of that context
set, that kind of is what leads me to kind of focus on what I
(09:35):
want to talk about today, which is OK, let's say you do have a
company where growth has slowed down or at least it's not
growing as fast as you would like.
So instead of let's say 35 or 40%, maybe scoring at 15 to 20%
or it's it's decreased from 25% to 15%.
And so business is OK in general, but not growing at the
(09:56):
level that you'd wanted to. And pipeline is not closing,
revenue targets are being missed.
And there's this pressure being put on this company to scale
faster. But it's really hard to figure
out what to do. Should you focus on generative
search? Should you do ABM?
Should you leverage intent data?There's all of this noise in the
marketplace about what you should be doing, and it's
(10:19):
unclear on which ones are actually going to help these
companies succeed. And I really want to simplify
the whole process down for you on today's episode.
So let's start with the start with the basics.
One of the things that happens in when, especially when I meet
go to market teams or when I meet revenue leaders or even
CEO's, is that companies are drowning in opportunity.
(10:41):
There are hundreds of ideas, hundreds of initiatives that can
be funded and everybody in the room thinks something or the
other should be invested into. And it's really hard to figure
out whether you should do Project X or project Y.
And meanwhile, time is of the essence.
And every week that passes or every month that passes where
(11:02):
we're not addressing this underlying problem of growing
faster, targets are getting missed and the pressure is
building right and so. Excuse me?
That's what we wanna fix. So what we wanna get to is.
I would say strategic clarity, clarity on exactly what is going
to move the needle and what are the areas we need to focus on to
(11:24):
create as much enterprise value as possible in as short of a
time as possible. We often get this question from
investors and CEOs like I want to grow faster or I want to
create more enterprise value, but I want to do it yesterday
and I wanna do it quickly. What are the quick wins?
How can we do this faster? I want to do it in two weeks.
I don't wanna do it in two months.
I want to do in four weeks. I don't wanna do in four months.
(11:45):
And so there are a lot of thingsthat can be done like that, but
it requires A structured approach.
And I'd say there's an order of operations to all of this.
So I'll start with some principles. 1 is just that you
want to focus on a limited number of areas.
You're not gonna figure out ABM plus generative search, plus
product marketing, plus launch anew website, plus do a brand
(12:07):
redesign. And I could list 70 other
projects all in one. It's highly unlikely.
I mean, if you're like an $800 million company, probably it's
doable if you have an exceptional CMO.
But even then, I would say that it's going to be really hard to
do. Because that person is also
going to have integrations to manage as events to do their
sales enablement work. There's just business as usual
activity that keeps everyone busy.
(12:27):
So in talking about creating enterprise value as quickly as
possible, you really want to have a laser focus on one to
three areas Max. And I would say out of
everything, you want to start with the revenue that is most
likely to close in the shortest period of time.
So as an example, if you have this idea of, for example,
(12:49):
launching your own podcasts likethis one as a way to meet your
own customers, it's a great ideaand a lot of verticals and
markets and it can be a great form of account based marketing.
I can tell you that we've drivenmillions of dollars in revenue
from just having this podcast. However, in order to invest into
this, you need to have the patience to see it through for
(13:09):
18 to 24 months before you startto see that type of a return.
So even though it's a good idea,it's not a great idea.
To get you the kind of return based on the pressures that we
have just discussed. And so I would kind of put that
idea and say it's kind of a niceto have or something that we do
much later on and not something that we do right now.
(13:29):
And then the third thing I wouldjust say as a guiding principle
is to drive as much cost efficiencies as possible.
And the reason I say this is that there are companies out
there that might be growing or their growth has slowed down and
that's changed their margin profile significantly.
A company that was growing 30% year over year but had expanded
(13:51):
its cost base can easily go fromEBITDA positive to EBITDA
negative overnight. And in that type of a situation
that Paul Graham has a saying, it's like, are you default alive
or default dead? And default dead, meaning you're
burning cash every month and at some point you're gonna run out
of cash. In a pee backed environment,
obviously that's less likely. But the point still stands is
that you want to be as default alive as possible, and finding
(14:14):
cost efficiencies can help you do that while you try to look
for the quickest wins to drive. More growth and pipeline.
So with those 3 principles, I would say here's kind of how I
would go about this for basically any business.
And you can apply this to anyonein your portfolio companies
today. And that's what I'm trying to
make this as actionable as possible.
So we are going to get tactical right now, and it's going to
(14:35):
help you. So just stick with me as we kind
of go through this list. And I'm going to give you
specific types of campaigns and programs and initiatives that
the company should be focusing on to address this pipeline and
revenue problem in the short term.
And then we can expand into the longer term initiatives that are
kind of out there. So starting with efficiency, so
#1 is start or excuse me #1 is stop the inefficiency inside the
(15:00):
business. Every additional dollar that you
find in inefficient spend is an additional dollar of EBITDA that
should go to the bottom line. And I can tell you that when we
come in and do our analysis inside companies, we are finding
anywhere from 30 to 50 and sometimes even 70% of marketing
spend being wasted in avenues that do not generate a return
(15:25):
that is valuable enough for the business.
Yet they're spending hundreds ofthousands and in some cases
millions of dollars into campaigns that don't work.
And so how we do this, as I'd say the specific areas to look
into, especially on the marketing side, would be to do a
deep audit of the paid media spend.
I would say companies are definitely wasting 30 to 50% of
their spend here. And the issue is that they don't
(15:46):
have the right data tracking to be able to figure out which 30
to 50%. But if they actually tracked
everything to close one in revenue, they're going to find a
ton of efficiency #2 look at, look to reduce channel span by
this 8020 rule, which is that inside every channel, I would
say 20% of the initiatives are actually driving 80% of the
(16:08):
revenue. And if you just kind of look at
it like that inside every channel, whether it's events,
whether it's outbound, whether it's ABM, whatever you're kind
of investing into online, offline, what have you, you're
going to find a ton of inefficiency.
If a channel you're spending forexample $500,000, I would argue
150 to 200,000 Max is driving most of the value.
So if you can bring that 500,000to 150 and save the 350 through
(16:33):
to EBITDA, you're already significantly farther ahead than
trying to use that 350 in an inefficient way to drive way
more pipeline than you need to justify that 315 spend.
That 315 spend should be generating over $1,000,000 in
pipeline and revenue for the business and if it's not then
you are much better off letting it go down to EBITDA.
Then third I would say is segment out the work that is
(16:57):
essential from from nice to haves.
And I see, I think connected to this is this idea that I would
say the 8020 rule for programs also applies to activities and
it also applies to teams. So if you look at your marketing
or your go to market organization, including sales
and the marketing side, I would say 20 to 30% of the staff is
(17:22):
likely driving 80 to 90% of the value.
Those are the true A players. They are the keepers.
They're the people you have to build around.
You should not be losing them atany cost.
And yet the other 70%, the return on the value of or the
work that they're doing is kind of like a question mark.
And there's a ton of spend goinginto these roles.
Some of these roles are in senior leadership, some of them
(17:43):
are middle management. I've seen cases where companies
have multiple executives that are making over 300 or $500,000
and they are not essential to what the company needs to do to
grow pipeline. Just an example, we helped one
company cut over $20 million in marketing spend and their
revenue did not change at all. And we have over 2 years worth
(18:03):
of data on that. So just to give you that
context, and this is obviously amuch larger business, but we've
seen at a smaller scale too where we've cut half a million,
a million, 2,000,000 is spent and it hasn't made any
difference. So being able to right size your
team and your activities and to look at what is actually
(18:24):
essential work. The core work that we have to do
to move this business forward inleaner times so that we can
preserve as much cash as possible, be default alive and
get that down to the EBITDA margin as much as possible is
the right way to kind of think about it, especially at this
moment is maximizing existing customer value.
(18:44):
So pricing is one of those levers that is often looked at
and I was definitely look at pricing and obviously PE firms
are very good at this and there's people on, on the
operating teams that are always doing this kind of analysis.
I'd say pricing is one of those tricky things, especially at
this moment because what you cando with increasing prices is you
might find expansion revenue, but especially at this moment,
(19:04):
you might trigger way more churnthan usual.
So you have to model for increased churn at this time
before you just try to leverage pricing as like your expansion
revenue or almost like a get outof jail three card.
And this time the other thing I would say is leveraging pricing
as an advantage where you're experimenting with different
(19:26):
models so that you're driving more upsell or cross sell or
expanding the existing base or even helping you close net new
deals. Because maybe flexible pricing
terms, as an example, you don't need to lock them in for five
years or three years. Maybe a six month contract will
get the customer in the door andthen you can focus on retention
after the fact. So I think pricing can be a huge
(19:47):
one, but the big, the bigger point here is that you want to
focus on your existing customer base because they're already
transacting with you. And especially at this time, I
would say a lot more effort needs to be put into the
existing base because they're buying from you and expanding
that relationship will be a lot easier.
And there are many ways to do this regardless of what type of
(20:10):
business you are. So, for example, if you are a,
a, a SaaS business, then obviously then we have to talk
about seed expansion or upselling, cross selling other
products and solutions. But let's say you're not a SaaS
product, you are more of a services business and the
clients that you're working. With our cutting headcount, well
(20:31):
that becomes an opportunity for you to offer managed services
solutions or fractional solutions or ways to kind of
provide on-demand talent to themas a way to supplement the the
talent that they've lost or the productivity that they've lost
without having the same cost base or, or fixed costs
associated with with the headcount.
(20:52):
So figuring out ways to be creative with the existing
customer base and sitting down with the specific organization
and going what is everything we can do to increase our total
customer value from each of our respective accounts.
I think should be one of those top three initiatives that we
discussed because more than anything that will move the
(21:13):
needle in the short run because you already have those
relationships and you can get the call and the likelihood of
closing those deals, the close rate should be above 70% because
you have the relationship 5th I would say.
Again, lost track of the numbersI was on.
The 5th I would say is focusing on close rates on on
opportunities. So one of the things that's
(21:36):
happening is OK, if somebody's getting to qualified status, if
they are already, they put theirhand up and they said, hey, I'm
interested in buying from you orat least let's do a demo.
You do the demo, you've had a great conversation.
Obviously it's a great fit. You discuss pricing, everything
seems to be working well and forsome reason the deals fall
apart, right? So at this stage if you're
(21:59):
getting us X amount of deals, but one of the things that we're
hearing from PE partners and ourclients is that close rates have
declined quite significantly. So if they used to be let's say
40%, companies are now seeing 25% closed rates and that's the
difference between closing 40 deals or 25 deals in it.
If you do it at a $10,000 a pop,that is a significant amount of
(22:20):
difference in terms of new AR orexpansion R that you kind of
capturing. So what you want to do is
anybody that walks in the door that this becomes a qualified
sales opportunity. You want to over invest into
helping that deal across the finish line where previously you
(22:41):
would run them through your standard process.
You want to provide a lot more resources, a lot more support,
lot more references, lot more assets.
You want to provide a lot more value earlier in the deal cycle
so that you increase their confidence and you have more buy
in to get that deal over the finish line.
(23:02):
It's not just about sales enablement, it's about providing
a lot more value pre clothes so that you increase the likelihood
of the clothes at the point of sale.
So I'd say this is something that often gets overlooked
because after a certain amount of time, a company's closing
process is how they've always done things and they don't
(23:25):
always think about that being a problem.
And it's not that it's a problem, it's just that
customers are in a different situation.
So the amount of effort requiredis significantly different than
let's say used to be two years ago or five years ago.
And so you almost have to kind of do a refresh for the closing
process from opt to close and think about what are the 10
(23:47):
different things you can do during that specific window
because they're already in your pipeline.
There's a certain amount entering your pipeline every
single week. So what is everything extra you
can do to get that deal over thefinish line and just do that
with your whole team. There should be weekly syncs,
what marketing, what sales, sales enablement people, anyone
customer success to make sure that that prospect gets over the
(24:10):
finish line or at least you're doing everything in your power
to get them over the finish line.
And the larger the deal sizes, the larger the effort should be.
So if you're doing $100,000 or even $15,000 deals, I'd say get
everybody in the room and prioritize all the deals and
then just go one after the otherand give them as much value pre
close. And that will increase your
close rates back to at least some level of normalcy that you
(24:34):
were you were previously seen. Connected to this it's #6 #7 is
the the idea of reengaging dealsthat have entered into closed
lost. One thing to understand about
closed loss deals is that close losses never just closed lost
forever. There's many reasons why deals
enter closed loss range and and you have to try to figure out
(24:58):
what you have to look at the data and figure out why did this
deal enter close lost. And you have to re engage them
as a way to see if you can reignite the opportunity status
of this deal. And I'll give you some examples.
If a competitor, if a deal went to close loss due to a
competitor, the way to check in is to say, hey, company XI know
(25:19):
last time we spoke six months ago, you had chosen to go with
HubSpot instead of our CRM. Wanted to see how the migration
process was working out for you.Are you having any hiccups?
Is it delivering the results that you want?
Is there something else that youwish you had or is it worth it
for us to reopen this conversation?
Odds are somebody that went witha competitor is not as likely to
(25:40):
come back. But every so often, let's say 5
percent, 10% of the time you're going to find a customer that is
quite unhappy with the choice that they've made.
And now you have a deal that's more warm than a lot of deals
that are in your existing pipeline because they've already
made this investment. So they've already crossed the
threshold into, I'm going to invest into this.
(26:02):
They're just not happy with the results.
So they have, they have a vestedinterest in making it work.
And so that's an example of a deal that can close sooner.
And this is a very like tacticalcampaign because it's hand to
hand combat. It's having a full list of
potential deals that you can kind of work on and going
through them one by one similar to the opportunities that we
(26:22):
just talked. About.
OK. Next is close loss to no
decision. In this case, it could be
somebody that didn't end up buying from you because they
decided that right now they justdon't have the time or it's not
a priority. In these cases, it's worth it to
reach out and say, hey, I know when we spoke six months ago
(26:42):
this wasn't a priority for you. Is is it a better time to pick
up this conversation and maybe we can show you some additional
things that we can do in this time to help you kind of figure
this out? I would say this one is a much
bigger opportunity than the competitor one because this
person has not yet picked the solution and likely the problem
(27:03):
and the pain points still exists.
So going through the closed lossand finding all the no decisions
and having this conversation is super important.
The, the third one would be on pricing.
And if you lost the deal due to pricing, we just talked about
pricing as a lever going back toall of these customers with
either more favorable terms, more favorable structure, maybe
(27:26):
updates to pricing, maybe ways to look at the ROI of an
engagement and reengaging, reengaging with them can open up
a bunch of opportunities. So for example, hey, last time
we spoke, we had talked about a project over, I don't know, 6 to
12 months that would cost X amount of dollars.
Just wanted to let you know we also now offer retainer pricing
(27:46):
and that would lower your risk and it's on in in a piece meal
fashion. So you can cancel at anytime and
that reverses their risk. And now that same deal
potentially reopens because thisperson is able to get the
approval for the budget to see how this goes for a couple of
months before you need to commitany further.
And I would say there's probablyone or two or maybe 10 depending
(28:07):
on your volume, a bunch of dealssitting in in that column.
So I'd say going through these close loss feels you're going to
find, I would say, let's say in a given month you close 100
deals. You might find just through a
reengagement campaign that goes through competitive closed lots
of competitor close loss to no decision, close loss of pricing,
(28:29):
close loss of timing, close lossto other priorities.
You might find 5 to 10% left. So instead of 100 deals, you
might close 110 deals in a givenmonth.
And those 10 deals can be the difference between making your
month and quarter and and not making your month and quarter.
So while it's super tactical, itis very much in the moment and
it's a quick win that you can capture in the in the short run.
(28:52):
OK, next I'll say that I'd say so far what we've covered is
what you can do tactically to like it's almost like what you
can do today or this week or next week to build pipeline in
the immediate term. I'd say the next set of ideas
are things that you can do todayor next week, but require a
little bit more time to see the results, but not as much time as
(29:15):
a as a longer term initiative. So the first of these ideas I'd
say is to maximize your existingchannels, similar to how we cut
spending areas that work that don't work, excuse me, or are
just too expensive. There are channels that are
doing quite well for you that are driving pipeline and revenue
at A at a really good rate, but you just haven't spent enough in
(29:39):
those channels or scaled those channels to their maximum.
So what you want to do is figureout which channels are driving
the most amount of revenue in pipeline and most efficiently
for you and figure out based on effort or investment required in
order to scale those channels. Stack rank and prioritize and
invest in the top two or three channels where you are getting
(29:59):
the highest return on your investment and scale those
areas. And what you're going to find
here is that a lot of channels that are not a lot of the
channels that are delivering a lot of the revenue, excuse me,
that are driving most of the pipeline for you are not maxed
out. And we see this all the time
(30:20):
where again, there's 20-30, sometimes even over 100%
opportunity left on the table inside channels like paid media,
like account based marketing, like events, like like
different, different, different SEO, different avenues that can
actually move the needle for a particular business.
And there's a lot of value beingleft on the table because
nobody's figured out what is theefficient frontier for this
(30:43):
channel. So doing that work, looking at
the data, tracking everything inthe close one, looking at it the
channel level at a campaign level and then figuring out how
do we scale this faster can drive a bunch more pipeline.
And it still in the short run, because it might take you the
next three or four weeks to implement, but you going to
start to see results as early asnext month.
And I would say in engagements with our clients, this is one of
(31:03):
the first things that we do because because companies are
not looking at the data or don'thave the right data
infrastructure to be able to measure all of this and figure
out what to prioritize next. I would say focus on people who
are in market today as the priority for what you are doing
from a campaign perspective on the go to market side.
So there's a hot button topic inmarketing today on what's called
(31:27):
intent data, which signals whether or not people are in
market to buy. And using that as the the guide
to figure out whether or not this deal has the urgency or the
timing to actually close this quarter.
And doing your outreach based onthat versus just doing outreach
based on target account lists and the ICP that you're kind of
going after. I would say you want to do this
(31:50):
work, but you want to do it in the areas where you can get to
people who are in market as quickly as possible.
So if anyone is already in market for a solution, like
let's say they're looking for construction software, well, you
want to make sure that the 7-8 places where a person in market
(32:10):
would look for a solution, you are already showing up.
That could be on the digital marketing side, It could be paid
ads, it could be organic search today, it could be generative
search and how they're looking for solutions on platforms like
ChatGPT. You want to make sure no matter
where they're looking, you are already in front of them.
Connected to this is also the idea of the intent data and the
(32:32):
triggers associated with what a good buyer might be looking for.
I'll give you an example from ushere at Hassas.
One of the big triggers for us is when a private equity firm
actually deploys capital into a company.
When they do that, that is when they're building their value
creation plan and often inside their value creation plan go to
market as a priority. So we have intense signals that
(32:53):
tell us, hey, come P farm X stock company, why?
Let's reach out to our contact at PE firm X and see if we would
be a good fit to help them buildout their value creation plan.
We've closed a lot of deals by doing outreach in this way and
it's very targeted and focused because those people are already
in market. I don't need to talk to every PE
firm. I need to talk to the ones that
(33:14):
are buying companies today or have already closed the deal
because we know that they're actually working on this.
They're building the the value creation plan and they're having
investment committee meetings, they're having board meetings,
are having conversations at thatparticular time because that is
a critical moment inside PE firm.
So whatever that is for your market, staying on top of that
intent data is critical. 3rd, I would say now more than ever, it
(33:39):
is important or us essential to have customized and contextual
outreach on every deal. In the past, I've always talked
about, hey, like the lower your ACV, it's very hard to do
customized outreach. And that's still true.
Like if your CV is like $1000 a year per customer, then yes,
it's hard to do customization. But in general, most B
(34:01):
companies, if you're selling 10,fifteen, $25,000 deals you and
more obviously 100,000 plus evenmore.
So you need to have as much context and customization inside
your outreach. This is not just ABM.
I would say it's permission to place stakes to make any form of
outbound or outreach work. And it's not just as simple as
(34:24):
finding a trigger like, oh, notice you know, person X at
this other company as a mutual connection.
Let's jump on a call. No, it needs to be deeply
contextual to the problems that they are having and how that
connects to what you solve. And you need to give value up
front and that will increase your outreach.
If you're not doing that, you'regoing to see your outreach
efficiency go down significantly.
(34:46):
So I would say investing into that.
And the reason this is, I would say still short term is this can
be done today. You don't need an extensive
playbook in order to do contextual outreach.
You need a bit of a culture shift on the outbound side or
the ABM side to be able to say who are our target accounts and
(35:07):
what are the things we can send to them in order to get in front
of them or catch their attentionto help them see what is the
value we can provide. And then on a day-to-day basis,
sales reps and account managers or CS reps should be doing this
outreach with that type of context.
It should not be just going for volume.
It's about the context and the deep insight or or research you
(35:28):
can bring to the outreach that will likely increase the
response rates and the number ofdeals that you get from that.
4th, I would say is investing into account management more.
And what I mean by this is account management.
We often there's like this hunter and farmer model inside
companies. But I would say the farmer model
(35:50):
is almost left to wraps to kind of farm the existing customers
and the accounts. But I think account management,
especially in a time like this needs to become a core strategy
inside companies where every keycontact and every key account
needs to have some type of relationship building effort put
behind it. And then inside larger accounts,
(36:13):
there has to be an effort being put into knowing multiple
contacts, not just two or three.Like ideally you need to know
like 5-10, maybe even 20 people depending on the size that the
account inside each of those keyaccounts.
I'd say this is one of the biggest risks inside companies
is there's maybe one or two contacts inside a key account
(36:34):
and then that person leaves and the account is dead.
Conversely, if you know 20 people inside that account, the
odds of upselling and cross selling are significantly
higher. So I would say this idea of
internal referrals, quote UN quote inside these accounts and
then farming for additional deals with those contacts while
(36:54):
building relationships can find a bunch of quick wins in the
short term. And at the same time, leveraging
those contacts for introductionsand referrals to other accounts
that are in your key account list or that we might already
have no contacts, but one contact from this account might
be able to introduce us to another contact from a different
account. That cross polarization will
(37:15):
open up a bunch of more opportunities as well.
And I'd say most of the companies that we've met do not
have a systematic approach of investing into account
management, even though it can be such a, such a deep and
powerful lever. And then the last thing I would
just say is I would say this is more of a longer term effort,
(37:36):
but I think it's worth mentioning, especially in an age
of AI is to build out more authentic authority based
content. And the reason for this is the
more generative search becomes important, the more you can
leverage AI to produce content. There is this sea of
commoditized content out there and none of it can really be
(37:59):
referenced. None of it really stands out.
And your content is likely getting lost in that sea of
content. The more you invest into thought
leadership content that builds your authority and your
reference ability, The generative search platforms are
going to use you as their sourcematerial to give their
(38:21):
recommendations when people ask some questions.
And you're going to have an authentic voice in the
marketplace that extends well beyond the the, the, the
commoditized sea of content that's out there.
So everybody, everybody's able, let's say if everyone's
producing AI generated blog posts or AI generated LinkedIn
content or AI generated slides for their webinars and things
(38:44):
like that. If you're the one that's that
has a human face with deep research and expertise being
brought to a podcast or your webinars, you're speaking and
things like that. Over time, all of these
platforms are going to referenceyou and you're going to stand
out to your to your market as well.
And that's going to add this Halo effect to all the other
things that we talked about on the account management side or,
(39:05):
or farming existing accounts andgrowing that doing your
contextual targeted outreach or reengaging your, your deals or
increasing your close rates fromfrom opportunity to close.
All of these areas benefit from this particular lever.
And that's something that we talk about often as well.
And that's one of the reasons I do this podcast is it's all kind
of connected. And you don't really see the
(39:26):
benefit of the authority work in, in real time, but it does
show up every single place that you go and when, especially when
you're meeting with customers and, and, and your prospects.
So I'm gonna, I'm gonna stop there because I think that's a
lot of those are a lot of different avenues for you to
think about. There's, there's more that I
could definitely dive into. But I think if you kind of look
(39:47):
at that list, we went through about 10 to 15 items that you
could start actioning today for your portfolio companies.
I think there's a lot to kind ofgo into.
I would encourage you to share this episode with your other
managing partners or your CEO's or the revenue leaders and have
a tactical conversation. Like this where it's literally
(40:08):
meaning you have a Google Doc or, or whatever open and you're
kind of going through each of those bullet points and listing
out what are the four to five things that you can do to
increase pipeline in the short term.
And hopefully that helps you hityour targets for 2025 or at
least catch up a little bit and then helps you set the stage to
do better in 2026 and beyond. So with that said, I appreciate
(40:29):
you listening to today's episode.
I hope you enjoyed it. Leave a comment below or just
ping us and let us know what youthink and I'll see you all next
time. Thanks for listening to today's
episode. Before you take off, just a few
requests from our side #1 if youhaven't done so already, please
subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or Spotify or YouTube or
(40:51):
wherever you go to listen to your podcast #2 If you are in
the market for due diligence services, strategy consulting,
or fractional CMO services, please get in touch with us at
www.hassas.com. And 3rd, please buy a copy of my
new book, Exit Ready Marketing. It covers a ton of concepts that
(41:11):
we take our customers through private equity investors, B
company CEOs, operating partnersand marketers.
And there's a ton of great valuein there that expands on my
previous book, Post Acquisition Marketing as well.
So with that said, I hope you enjoyed today's content and
we'll see you on the next episode.
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