September 9, 2025 • 45 mins
Host Dan Balcauski speaks with Chris Ronzio, the founder and CEO of Trainual. Chris discusses Trainual's rapid growth, his insightful philosophy on chaos in business, and the crucial role of process documentation in scaling a company. He shares compelling stories, including Trainual's marketing collaboration with Montel Jordan and investments from influencers like Damon John. The conversation covers the evolution of Trainual's pricing strategy, the balancing act of process documentation, and the importance of aligning business operations with growth opportunities while maintaining flexibility. Chris also discusses the importance of personal discipline and fitness to his professional success, influenced by his varied career from video production to SaaS entrepreneurship.
01:16 Chris Ronzio's Background and Trainual's Origin
05:42 Organize Chaos: The Philosophy
07:14 Scaling and Documenting Processes
18:59 Challenges and Lessons in SaaS Growth
23:35 Identifying Retention and Churn Issues
24:05 Scaling Strategies for SaaS Businesses
25:00 Adjusting Pricing and Customer Segmentation
27:31 Marketing and Customer Acquisition Channels
33:30 Influencer Partnerships in B2B Marketing
39:09 Personal Insights and Rapid Fire Questions
Guest Links
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chris Ronzio (00:00):
It's like a small business anthem.
(00:01):
And so we produce the song, weproduce the music video, and now
I'd say we're the SaaS companywith the most listens on
Spotify.
Chaos in a business is a reallygood thing.
Anybody that's listening, if youfeel like your life is chaotic
and your business is chaotic,think of the alternative.
chaos is great.
It means that the raw materialis mixing things up.
(00:22):
There's exciting opportunity,and then you just have to figure
out, all right, what do we do?
And in what order to.
Create leverage and to createprofit and to reinvest that into
the business.
So what I learned is that theprice has such a big impact in
who it attracts.
It's like how bait attracts theright fish.
Your price is bait that you'reputting out into the world to
(00:44):
tell the world who you're for.
Dan Balcauski (01:06):
Welcome to SaaS Scaling Secrets, the podcast
that brings you the insidestories to the leaders of the
best scale up.
B2B SaaS companies.
I'm your host, Dan Balcauski,founder of Product Tranquility.
Today I'm excited to speak withChris Ronzio.
I.
Chris is the founder and CEO ofTrainual, leading SaaS platform,
transforming how smallbusinesses onboard, train, and
scale teams.
Chris has LED Trainual's rapidgrowth since founding it in
2018.
(01:27):
He hosts the Organized ChaosPodcast as a two time
entrepreneur of the Year Awardfinalist, and is the author of
The Business Playbook, how toDocument and Delegate What You
Do so Your Company Can Growbeyond You.
Let's dive in.
Welcome Chris to SaaS ScalingSecrets.
Chris Ronzio (01:42):
Hey Dan, how's it going?
Dan Balcauski (01:43):
How's going?
I am very excited for ourconversation today.
It's going very well.
I'm excited to have theopportunity to talk to you about
something that I havesurprisingly been geeking out
about a lot, which isdocumentation that goes beyond
and maybe I need to talk to mytherapist about why I'm excited
about that.
(02:03):
But we'll leave that to thelistener to see if they could
intuit between the lines, whyit's so interesting to me right
now.
Before we get into that, though.
Your team sent over a couple ofbullet points, and I gotta say
one of them jumped out in yourbackground.
You had the opportunity to doproject with Montel Jordan
Chris Ronzio (02:30):
Yeah.
Dan Balcauski (02:31):
of the, this is how we do it, fame.
Chris Ronzio (02:33):
Yes, sir.
Yeah.
Dan Balcauski (02:36):
the heck that is?
Chris Ronzio (02:37):
Sure.
Yeah.
So seven years ago or so when westarted, the company Trainual is
a, training product, adocumentation product.
And so for businesses todescribe, this is how we do it
inside their companies.
We used to play Monte's song at.
Every, all hands meeting at allof our just hype customer
events.
(02:57):
And so we always had this dreamthat we would work with him.
And so one day we reached out toMontel first on Cameo, if you've
heard of that service.
And we got on a Zoom call withhim and just kind of his fans
told him our story.
And toward the end of the Zoomcall, we pitched him, Hey,
Montel here's what our businessdoes.
We gotta find a way to worktogether.
Zoom cuts us off or can, orcameo cuts us off and so there's
(03:18):
no soliciting, like they don'twant you to pitch.
10 minutes later we get amessage from Montel on Twitter
and he's Hey, I love yourcompany.
I love the idea.
Let's figure out how to worktogether.
And so over the next couplemonths we brainstormed with
Montel and we came up with a.
Remix to his song called This isHow You Do It, and it's all
about delegation.
(03:39):
It's like a small businessanthem.
And so we produce the song, weproduce the music video, and now
I'd say we're the SaaS companywith the most listens on
Spotify.
If you search for Trainual
Dan Balcauski (03:51):
that is so fun and cheesy.
I love it.
And it feels like cameo ismissing out on some additional
revenue that they could havemaybe helped to bridge that gap.
But, we'll leave if they had, ifthey need some pricing help I'm
happy
Chris Ronzio (04:04):
Send'em my way.
I, they may have something likethat.
Now, this was like super earlydays of cameo.
Dan Balcauski (04:10):
Oh man.
Too good.
Too good.
So, I gave a little bit of introat the beginning.
I guess how do you end upcreating Trainual?
Like kind of give us the earlydays of your run up to your time
in SaaS and now, leadingTrainual for the last seven
years.
Chris Ronzio (04:27):
Looking back, it's always kind of easier to draw
the dotted line, but at the timeI had no idea I'd end up in
SaaS.
So my first company was a videoproduction company.
We did live youth sportingevents, so like cheerleading and
figure skating and all stardance.
It was like the best job as ahigh school kid.
But we did these events, we soldthese videos.
(04:48):
We sold DVDs and Blu-ray discsand live streaming, and as I
grew the company across the USwe started doing events in all
50 states.
And so we would hire crews.
Across the United States andwe'd have to remotely train them
on how to show up at an event,how to set up, how to sell the
videos, how to ship'em back toour fulfillment centers, how to
(05:10):
get them, labeled correctly andhow to just represent the brand.
And so it was all remote.
Training.
I didn't realize that at thetime, but that was really
something I learned inside mybusiness.
So when I sold that company, Istarted helping other
businesses, consulting on theirtraining on their systems, their
processes, their onboarding,their operations manuals.
(05:30):
And I saw so many companies havea way that they work, a way that
they do what they do and it'snot captured in one place.
And they needed help with that.
And that was really the idea fortra.
Dan Balcauski (05:41):
Got it.
And so.
Look one thing really stuck outto me was your previous company
for Tray New, as well as yourcurrent podcast, are both called
Organized Chaos.
Chris Ronzio (05:52):
Yeah.
Dan Balcauski (05:52):
love that name.
Where did that come from?
Chris Ronzio (05:55):
So after I did my first couple consulting
projects, I had sold my firstbusiness.
I was helping a few friends andI asked them, what is it that I
do for you?
What value am I providing foryou?
And a couple of themindependently say, you come in
here and you organize all of thechaos and things are better when
you leave.
And so I thought Organizedchaos, that's the best name.
(06:16):
And I found the domain wasavailable, organize.
Chaos.
Not with a D but I told peoplelike, that's what I do.
It's not organized until I getthere.
So organized chaos became thename of the company and on the
back of my business card it saidI organize chaos and get things
done so you have more time to dowhat you love.
I.
That was like the ethos of mybusiness is that everybody gets
(06:37):
into business not to run theadministrative processes of the
pieces of business.
It's they get into it so thatthey create something of value
so that they build a team, acommunity, they can put food on
the table for employees.
They can make an impact forcustomers.
They maybe have some noble causeor some impact that they're
trying to make, and they reallyjust want the business to be the
(06:59):
vehicle.
Frees them up to make the mostimpact, and creating a business
creates a lot of chaos.
And so I thought if I can comein and organize that and make
your operations run seamlessly,then I'm helping you do a better
job for your customers.
And I just love doing it.
Dan Balcauski (07:14):
Running and Scaling a SaaS company can
certainly mean that you aredealing with plenty of chaos and
constantly bombarded with amillion things to do.
I'm curious how that concept oforganized chaos has kind of
influenced you as you have nowgrown and scaled Trainual.
Like, how has that helped you?
With managing priorities andmaking your decisions as a
(07:36):
leader.
Chris Ronzio (07:37):
Absolutely.
Chaos in a business is a reallygood thing.
Anybody that's listening, if youfeel like your life is chaotic
and your business is chaotic,think of the alternative.
If you, if the phones weren'tringing, if the emails weren't
coming in, you'd have noopportunity in your business.
And so chaos is great.
It means that the raw materialis mixing things up.
There's exciting opportunity,and then you just have to figure
(07:58):
out, all right, what do we do?
And in what order to.
Create leverage and to createprofit and to reinvest that into
the business.
And so what I used to do inorganized chaos with consulting
is I would help businessesunderstand all of the things
that were going on that werecreating the chaos.
And so it could be the issueswith your employees, the
(08:18):
customer complaints, the ideasthat you don't have time to get
around to, and then we'd takeall that chaos.
And we decide what is the mostimportant thing I can do right
now that has the biggest impactfor my business.
And so in many ways, that's whatour product is enabling people
to do.
Because when you put yoursystems into Trainual, when you
document a process, when youdelegate it and hand it off to
(08:42):
someone else, it's like you'reputting one brick into the
foundation of your business.
Something is gonna runconsistently because you've
offloaded it and you'vedocumented the best way to do
it, and then you get to focusyour time and attention on all
the things that are a mess onall the chaos until it is ready
for you to document anddelegate.
I have this thing this process Itrademarked called Do it,
(09:04):
document it, delegate it.
And it's basically the idea thatin a company, first you have to
do things and learn how to dothem consistently.
At the beginning, everything'sinconsistent.
It's an experiment.
You're trying to figure it out,but then one day you wake up and
you realize, oh, this thing, Iknow how to do it.
And I do it the same way everytime I do it.
(09:26):
And it's at that moment that youcan then finally document it.
You can write down theinstructions or the recipe and
you can hand it off to someoneelse.
You can delegate it to thatperson so that they start to do
this thing in your business.
And I think scaling a businessis just really that repeatable
pattern of experimenting andinnovating to create something
consistent and then writing downthe recipe and handing it off to
(09:48):
someone else.
That's how businesses grow.
Dan Balcauski (09:51):
I, a lot of founders.
companies because, they feellike, I, I couldn't move inside
a larger organization.
It was too process driven, toobureaucratic.
And so, a lot of, founders thatI've spoken to kind of feel like
hey, like we, don't want to dothose big company things.
(10:14):
This sounds very big
Chris Ronzio (10:15):
Yeah.
Dan Balcauski (10:16):
That sounds too, formal, too time consuming.
I guess, do you ru, I imagineyou run into that, maybe even
for yourself, is there validitythere?
How do you think about gettingpast that resistance?
Chris Ronzio (10:30):
It really depends for the entrepreneur on the type
of company they want to build.
If someone wants to justexperiment and.
Innovate all the time.
They're basically a one personartisan.
In a one person shop, you can doa different job every time.
You can take a different type ofclient, every time it stays
interesting for you and maybeyou maximize your productivity
(10:51):
or your bill rate or your incomeor whatever it is by serving a
higher and higher.
Clientele that's willing to paya little bit more, but you stay
a one person shop.
But at some point there may bethings that you do that are
regular and repeatable.
And so even if you're just a oneperson shop, maybe you have to
send out invoices at the end ofevery project.
(11:13):
I.
Maybe you have to take some sortof information at the beginning
in an intake process, andthere's these repeatable things
that you start to say, oh if Ihad a virtual assistant or if I
had a right hand man or woman orsomebody to do that piece, it
would create this extra leveragefor me.
To use for that high billablehour kind of time that I'm
doing.
And so people understand andappreciate offloading those
(11:36):
administrative tasks.
Now, if you wanna build abusiness that has 10 people,
instead of two people, you'regonna figure out other
repetitive things that you do.
Like maybe I.
There's things that you do tocreate leads for the business.
Maybe you're doing marketingcontent and by hiring somebody
on the marketing side, you cansay, Hey, every week I used to
(11:56):
write this letter.
I used to record these podcasts.
I guess I could offload that andhave somebody that's even better
at that thing.
I.
Or maybe I'm doing sales callsevery day and I could hire a
sales rep or someone to takethose calls for me.
So businesses grow from twopeople to 10 people to a hundred
people based on formalizingthose different roles, to spread
(12:17):
out who does what in a businessand kind of raise the tide of
what your revenue and yourprofit could be.
But this is different for everyentrepreneur.
Some people just want to be aone or two person shop and they
wanna stay as far away fromprocess as possible.
And other people wanna build acompany with 25 people, or a
company that can produce acertain revenue size.
Dan Balcauski (12:39):
I guess, have you ever run into situations where,
you've ever, I guess, felt sortof bogged down by, documentation
or like the rigidness of thesesort of processes?
I guess, how would you recommendsort of folks kinda keep things
light while still having itwritten down?
I can imagine this is a bit ofa, it could be a bit of a
balance.
Yeah,
Chris Ronzio (12:59):
Yeah, for sure.
So one of our core values is nored tape, which may sound crazy
as a process documentationcompany, right?
But no red tape is meant toremind people that if they're
ever going through a processthat feels bureaucratic or it
feels cumbersome, or it feelsprocess is superseding logic,
(13:19):
then it's up to them to raisetheir hand and tell someone and
help tear down that process.
Because sometimes we putprocesses in place to solve
problems.
Imagine if a something happenedin your business where, somebody
said something or did something.
There's this example in my bookthat I always tell.
Where in our first office peoplewould bring in glass soda
(13:40):
bottles from Mexico.
If you've ever seen those,
Dan Balcauski (13:42):
Mm-hmm.
Chris Ronzio (13:43):
you know the pur cane sugar, they're like,
they're great.
They're very popular here inArizona.
So they would have these glassbottles and a couple times we'd
swing open the refrigerator doorand those glass bottles would
roll out and break onto thefloor.
And so we put a policy in placethat was no glass bottles in the
refrigerator.
And a year later people arelike, why don't we allow the
(14:05):
good soda here?
Like, why is that not allowed?
And because it didn't, theydidn't connect the dots and we
realized we could solve thatproblem and remove the
bureaucracy by having a thing,a, a bottle.
Catching mechanism inside therefrigerator and we were solving
the wrong problem.
We put process and policy inplace to solve the problem.
And so I think the reminder herefor people is processes get put
(14:28):
in place for a reason, but youneed to be as willing to strip
them away and remove them asyour business grows if they're
not doing the intended,providing the intended value
anymore.
Dan Balcauski (14:40):
Th that makes sense.
So you've gotta sort of makesure you tend the garden,
Chris Ronzio (14:44):
Yes, exactly.
Dan Balcauski (14:45):
it overgrow with vines and all those vines are
now tying you down and thatanalogy breaks down somewhere in
there.
But, so I guess, what do you, Iguess, is there, are there
rituals or dare I say, processesyou have for managing your
processes?
Chris Ronzio (15:00):
Processes to manage processes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So of course our softwareenables this a little bit.
The people that own certainprocesses get auto reminded when
things are stale to reviewthings, verify them, make sure
they're still accurate withinthe business.
And so if you've got a softwaretool like ours, you may have
that mechanism built in.
But what I would recommend isjust for.
(15:21):
Any manager, any owner of anyarea of the business to set a
recurring task for themselvesevery 30 days or 90 days to just
scan through.
Is this still the way that we doall of these things?
Do all of these policies andprocesses make sense?
And as long as you've got thatstandard interval as just a
check, maybe it's on a timebasis or maybe it's when you
(15:42):
hire every new person, you do aquick scan through the training
manual you're about to sendthem.
And it's a really simple way tokeep things.
From getting overgrown.
Dan Balcauski (15:52):
So I, I'm curious, obviously I'm assuming
that you guys sort of dog foodTrainual inside,
Chris Ronzio (15:57):
Totally.
Yeah.
Dan Balcauski (15:58):
Right.
So I guess when it comes towriting things down training, I.
Is a big part about scaling acompany.
what's your philosophy?
Do you have a specific approach?
So somebody sitting there likeat a blank sheet of paper is
there, how do you think aboutit?
Sort of fitting into sort of thestandard day-to-day I imagine,
right?
Okay, this is the third time ina month that the Coke bottle has
(16:19):
shattered on the floor.
Maybe that's the trigger, but Iguess, how do you think about
what is the trigger to, and thenlike, how do you go about sort
of figuring out what to put inthose in that document?
Chris Ronzio (16:29):
Yeah, so first it's continuous improvement.
If the business has this cultureof wanting to improve and
wanting to get better, and it'ssomething that you talk about
all the time with your employeesand your managers and it's
something that you celebrate andyou're all hands meetings and
you talk about how we got betterin this certain area that,
that's encouraging people to.
Build processes or to writeprocesses whenever they have a
(16:51):
good idea.
I, another thing that happens inbusiness is just when there's
inconsistencies.
Imagine if you've got threepeople and they do something a
little bit different, and you'vegot a difference in performance
between those three people.
When we first started hiringsales reps, we had three reps
that were doing demos with ourcustomers, and we'd look back
after a month and say why didone of those reps close?
(17:14):
30% of the deals and the otherrep closed 18% of the deals and
the other one closed 14%.
There's gotta be something thatthey're doing differently.
And so then you analyze how iseveryone doing demos?
What are those three differentprocesses?
Let's now take thecommonalities, or let's take the
best practices and make them ourstandard practices.
(17:37):
And so you take the.
Best practices of your bestperformers, and you document
them and then you train yourother people on those best
practices and now that becomesthe company way.
And so it's a little bit ofnoticing the inconsistencies or
the problems, and it's a littlebit of desiring the continuous
improvement that makes thishappen in your business.
Dan Balcauski (17:59):
So finding hey there's a variation in
performance, and then looking atthe distinction of what are the
best people doing?
So what does it kind of,starting with the outcome,
working backwards, into whatthey're already doing today to
document.
Chris Ronzio (18:13):
Exactly, and it's also important for people to
realize like processes alreadyexist in your business.
If you are doing things, ifyou're in business, you're
already, do you have processes,right?
Like people can look at a blanksheet and become paralyzed and
say, oh, I don't think in termsof operations, and I don't know
how to write an SOP.
It's you're already doing thesethings.
(18:34):
So it's really more aboutcapturing your processes than it
is about.
Creating your processes.
And so it's as simple as justrecord your screen while you're
doing something and then use,the AI tools or our tools or
whatever, and break down whatyou did after you did it so that
another person can watch it andrecreate your results.
(18:56):
So just capture the processes,don't create them.
Dan Balcauski (18:59):
This is called SaaS Scaling Secrets, and so
every, CEO faces challengesalong the way.
Is there a challenge thatTrainual has faced during its
growth that was particularlydifficult to overcome?
Maybe a crucible moment that haskind of made you what you are
today?
Chris Ronzio (19:14):
Which area of the business do you wanna go into?
I mean, there's been so manyproduct and engineering
challenges and design challengesand hiring challenges and
through covid and like, where doyou wanna focus?
I.
Dan Balcauski (19:26):
It really up to you, but I you potentially
around areas are if there's beensome evolutions in your your
marketing, your go to marketpositioning, your sort of, your
leadership capabilities andsystems any of those areas are
ripe or if you wanna picksomething else, it's deal's
choice.
Chris Ronzio (19:45):
Sure.
So my, for a while I had thisthought that, when people start
documenting their processes,it's sort of like a.
Crawl, walk, run approach, whereat the beginning you're trying
to just figure things out andorganize your company, and then
you start to get good at it andyou bring other people in to
help you, and now you're justfiring on all cylinders and your
(20:05):
whole business is documented.
And so we had that.
Theory and we shifted ourpricing to create this really
small price, like$49 a month foryour whole business to get a
handful of people in there andbuild out your processes.
And what we didn't anticipatewas that we would attract a.
Much smaller company is thatwe're not a fit for our product,
(20:28):
but we're intrigued by the$49price point.
So what I learned is that theprice has such a big impact in
who it attracts.
It's like how bait attracts theright fish.
Your price is bait that you'reputting out into the world to
tell the world who you're for.
And for a while we priced waytoo low, and the companies that
(20:49):
were attracted to us were notmature enough.
They didn't have formalizedprocesses, they didn't have
enough employees to really needa training solution, and so we
learned a lot through that.
Dan Balcauski (21:00):
Welcome to Dance Couch.
You've stumbled on a topicthat's near and dear to my
heart.
Let's talk about this.
So what, I guess, okay, so youattract some immature customers.
So what, what, why was that aproblem?
Chris Ronzio (21:12):
So when the immature customers, I guess
we'll call'em, or the smallercustomers come in.
It is a very aspirational need.
They see our product.
Maybe they've read a book andthey think, I really want a
dialed in operations manual.
What I believe they're doing isthey're procrastinating,
figuring out how to do marketingand sales by spending all their
time dialing in theiroperations.
(21:34):
And maybe that's a, a.
P pain point or something, ormaybe I'm pushing buttons for
anybody in the audience there.
But I truly believe thatoperations are not a big problem
until you're so overrun withmarketing and sales and demand
that you then have to figureyour operations out.
The way to build a business isto create a product that people
want so much that they'reknocking down your door and you
(21:57):
can't possibly fulfill all thedemand and then.
You go ahead and build theoperations to efficiently
fulfill the demand.
But a lot of people start byjust, playing around with the
product and playing with theoperations and toiling around
and then they can never sell it.
And that's the problem when theygo out of business.
And so Trainual is for abusiness that has figured out
(22:18):
the sales and marketing andneeds to scale their operations,
and we are attracting the wrongtype of customer.
Dan Balcauski (22:24):
So I, so you're saying when you start a
business, the most importantthing is not what your business
cards look like or your logodesign.
Chris Ronzio (22:33):
Right.
Dan Balcauski (22:33):
that stuff is,
Chris Ronzio (22:34):
that stuff's fun.
Yeah, that's the hobby.
I think, we we have Damon Johnfrom Shark Tank is one of our
investors and partners and hewill often him and the other
sharks talk about entrepreneurs.
It's like people that want to bean entrepreneur so bad.
And when you're likemasquerading as an entrepreneur,
you spend all of your timeplaying with logos and domains
(22:57):
and business cards and t-shirts,and like all of the stuff that
indicates that you own abusiness is where you spend all
of your time instead of actuallydriving demand for your product.
Dan Balcauski (23:08):
I love it.
So, man it, Jordan and DamonJohn.
Man we could have a whole subcomponent of this episode just
talking about like yourinfluencer network.
I'll put a pin in that.
Come back to so, so you know howyou said you, okay, so I
imagine, right these smallercustomers, maybe customers that
were not quite, super flush withso many growth opportunities
(23:30):
that maybe they were spendingtime thinking they had an
operations problem and reallythey needed to spend time on
sales and marketing.
So you're attracting them,realizing, and then maybe, it
sounds like there was probably aretention or churn issue that,
that was being caused.
Which just knowing a business,my, my sense is that.
Maybe impacted your your CAC andLTV numbers or other unit
economics in ways that were not,super effective.
(23:51):
I guess how did you get intothat situation and I guess like
you realized then you have thisproblem and what do you do after
that?
I guess, because you had somethesis of hey, we create this
low end offer.
What was the theory before you,you ended up seeing this reality
from the marketplace?
Chris Ronzio (24:05):
So it depends on the stage of the business.
And I know this is called SaaSScaling Secrets, and so I think
at the beginning, the secret toscaling the SaaS is to actually
scale it regardless of who thecustomer is.
It's can you attract customers?
Can you sell more of this?
And so in our first year we gotto a thousand businesses.
I.
On our platform, and we provethat there is this demand in the
(24:27):
market for what we do.
Now, a ton of those businesseswere churning out, but we got
smarter as we went.
And with volume comes knowledge.
So as you have more people gothrough your funnel, you decide
who is the right type ofcustomer for this business and
what do they value in theproduct, and which ones stick
around and which ones don't.
And you learn from the peoplequitting when they give their
(24:49):
cancellation reasons.
And so in some ways, in thefirst stage of business.
The scale is more important, Ithink, than the perfect customer
because you need volume tolearn.
Now in the next phase, you wannastart to build around who that
ideal customer is.
And so from our scaling earlyphase, we thought that the way
(25:10):
to approach this customer isthe, crawl, walk, run.
And we wanted to give them aneasy in to the tool so that they
could find some early success.
And then expanding the product.
And through the pricing lessonsthere that we talked about, we
saw we were attracting the wrongtype of customer.
And so for us it was reallyabout just.
Lifting the initial number ofseats that someone gets to 25
(25:32):
seats and setting a price that'sconsummate with that type of
business so that we'reattracting companies that are at
least a little bit more mature,that don't think they're
overpaying for 25 seats becausethey have 20 or 25 people.
And that sort of fixed thebottom of the funnel there.
Dan Balcauski (25:51):
So there was there was a theory that hey,
there's a I guess you evencalling it mid-size businesses
at 25 employees.
That's not quite, it's stillpretty in the s and b category,
but you were trying to solve aadoption friction.
issue by introducing this lowend tier.
But what that ended up bringingin was companies that were much
(26:12):
DA much different segmentaspirational as you, you used
before or mature not quite readyto, fully get the value.
And then those folks, just theyhad other business problems and
then you ended up with thesechurn issues.
And then the idea then is okay,seeing that to fix it, we
instead.
Realize that, okay if we areable to put in a viable minimum,
(26:33):
we're able to create adifferentiation that helps us,
helps create an on ramp forpeople who are in the right
segment.
And it sounds like there's a lotof learning of who your customer
profile was.
In real time as you're sort ofgoing through this as well,
right?
Is it like startups tend to notto be static things where you
have a sort of perfect plan.
I'm sure you were sort oflearning who this customer was
(26:54):
to the best of your ability.
Is that, did I capture that?
Generally,
Chris Ronzio (26:58):
I wish I could have played this for myself in a
time capsule like five yearsago.
This would've been immenselyvaluable.
So you, that was a good summaryright there.
Dan Balcauski (27:07):
Yeah.
This is why we do this.
It is because we want people togo and make all different
mistakes, don't make the samemistakes we
Chris Ronzio (27:14):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dan Balcauski (27:15):
And this problem of trying to figure out and
iterate.
I mean, it's difficult, right?
Like you.
At the beginning, you do onlyhave a hypothesis of who you
think the customers are, and youneed to, you do need to go
through some of this learningprocess.
But I love how, that kind of,that full arc happens.
And so I guess, just to fill injust the final piece of that so
it sounds like, you were able toput in some limit Split the
(27:40):
difference between those twogroups because it sounded like
there was adoption friction.
So can you just kind of paintthat a little bit starker for
me?
So,'cause'cause you went all theway down to 49, you were trying
to solve this friction adoptionproblem.
Was there like a halfway pointbetween what you guys were
offering in that 49 point thatended up being the crucial
decision.
Chris Ronzio (27:59):
We could continue to iterate on this and have a
multi-hour podcast about ourpricing strategies.
Oh, I mean, over the last fouryears we've been iterating.
Every couple of months.
And so, where we are today is afive times higher price point
for an initial starting point.
And again there's features thatare included in that price
(28:20):
point.
There's implementation that'snow included in that price
point.
And so there's a lot ofdifferent ways to find the right
customer and make sure you givethem the support that's required
to get them launched and to getthem sticky in the product.
But it takes.
A lot of testing and so I'm notsuggesting that somebody fast
forward to where we are today,because I think going through
that set of iterations foreveryone's business is very
(28:43):
useful.
Just be willing to test a lot.
Dan Balcauski (28:46):
Yeah.
And I applaud you for thatbecause, it's, there's, it's
definitely not a set it forgetit.
And a lot of people take theidea that.
I don't know.
It's, we don't know what to do,so we'll just not, we'll just
kind of focus more on acquiringother customers instead of,
trying to figure out whatmonetization should look like in
the as along the way, right.
As you're sort of iterating onyour acquisition funnel and your
(29:08):
retention.
Plays, et cetera.
Like it's one of the othergrowth levers that merits
attention.
So, round of applause from thisend of the microphone on making
sure that it's something thatyou're actively experimenting
and working on.
So, going back to what, we weretalking about before.
So you were saying thatobviously you've iterated on
different sort of customers asyou've learned more.
(29:31):
I imagine that's a verydifficult thing for a product
like Trainual because it's thekind of product that nearly
every business could use.
But Chris hasn't paid me to saythat.
But that's, that that soundslike a good thing.
But like I was having, I wasdoing another episode with
another guy who was they were inlike the contract lifecycle
(29:53):
management space and the samething.
It's like every company hascontracts.
Like how have you thoughtthrough that in terms of, okay,
how do we focus, like everybusiness could potentially use
process documentation ortraining.
This seems like a great problem.
Versus oh, there's only maybe, Idunno, a thousand businesses in
the world that could use this.
It's like every business coulduse this.
(30:14):
This is
Chris Ronzio (30:14):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dan Balcauski (30:15):
you go out into the world trying to acquire
customers and you like, it just,yeah, that's just a pain as
well.
How have you approached thatfrom a strategic decision making
level?
Chris Ronzio (30:25):
It is a blessing and a curse, Dan.
A blessing and a curse.
We as a horizontal business,you're right, like a lot of
companies can use what we do,and we have examples of every
different industry, wherethere's electricians and.
Contractors and construction andmedical services and dental
offices and car washes andmarketing firms and professional
(30:46):
service agencies and law firmsand all of these different
people that get value out of ourproduct.
And so the first thing is youlook for signals of.
Where are we getting the mostreferral volume or where do we
have maybe some partners orconsultants that are finding a
lot of success standing us up intheir industry?
And so we saw things like,childcare and law firms and
(31:11):
dentists where there's requiredstate compliance that they have
to.
Go through training.
Your employees need to betrained so it is ingrained as a
part of your business.
And then there's also, in someof these businesses, an element
of turnover where this is a jobthat people, take and bounce
from one company to the next, ormaybe there's different
(31:31):
locations.
And so we look for these commonuse cases and patterns between
businesses to find industriesthat Trainual does the best in.
Then we start to spend dollarsin those industries by
sponsoring their trade shows andcustomer or conferences by doing
integrations with other softwareproviders in those industries by
(31:52):
putting a portion of our spendinto the biggest podcast in
that.
Industry.
But it's something that we'regoing through right now.
It's like only at this stage ofthe business, seven years in,
are we starting to reallyverticalize and build templates
for different industries andturnkey kind of solutions for
the landscaping business orwhatever else it is.
Dan Balcauski (32:12):
So very looking at very specific industries and
sort of where's there's pull, Iheard the deeper below that is
like the industry use caseswhere there was a training
compliance component was sort ofdriving urgency that maybe
wasn't there in other types ofbusinesses.
I guess a, as you've grown, Imean, I think a lot of companies
run into, Hey, this was reallyworking for us from a client
(32:33):
acquisition or marketingchannel.
And then, it.
Hey, this is killing it atfirst, but then sort of stopped
working, Have you guysexperienced that at all as
you've grown?
Chris Ronzio (32:43):
Yeah, so in the early days when we started in 20
18, 20 19, that was like theheyday for Facebook advertising.
And so we were getting reallycheap customers on Facebook,
like incredible CAC and veryfast CAC payback.
We spread out to.
To Instagram and then to YouTubepre-roll ads and Google.
And and now we're focused moreon LinkedIn and software review
(33:08):
sites and over the top kind ofads on streaming platforms.
And I think our mix of marketinghas just gotten more intricate
as we've grown.
We have a larger budget to putacross all those things, but,
channel for channel, Facebookdoes not convert like it used
to.
And so we've had to move awayand diversify what we're doing.
Dan Balcauski (33:27):
I said I would put a pin in it.
I think it might be time tobring it back in.
So you mentioned, so you gotMontel Jordan, you got Dave and
John.
I'm sure there's otherinfluencer partners you've
worked with, like how.
W how, like, why this is, thisseems like unique in the world
of B2B software.
I don't usually talk to manyfounders who have these type of
influencer partners.
How did you land on that?
(33:49):
And did, does that suffer fromthese sort of ebbs and flows of
yeah, it really works well for,these kinds of businesses and
these others these partnershipinfluencers don't work at all.
What lessons have you learnedthere?
Chris Ronzio (33:59):
We've always approached marketing more in a
consumer kind of way than a B2Bsort of way, because at the end
of the day, it's people atbusinesses that are making
decisions.
And so if you can attractsomeone's attention to your
brand using some kind of popculture or using some sort of
celebrity.
They may not have known aboutyou otherwise or found out about
you.
And so we've done ads, like Imentioned, with the sharks.
(34:22):
We've done ads with charactersfrom the office.
Things that like, as you'rescrolling through social media,
it stops you in your tracks, itstops you in the feed and you're
like, oh, I know that person.
I know that thing.
In the very, very early days ofTrainual.
My favorite book, my, the firstbusiness book I ever read was
The E Myth Revisited by Michaele Gerber.
You ever read that?
(34:42):
Yeah.
So, so a lot of people recognizethe book.
It's like a blue and white book.
It's got a big E on it.
And so I used to do these postswith me holding the book up in
the frame, and as you'rescrolling through your social
feed, you'd stop and be like,oh, I know that book, right?
So I'm borrowing the authorityof something that, you know, to
kind of catch your attention sothat now you're interested.
(35:02):
And what's the connectionbetween me?
And that book.
And so Michael e Gerber, hewrote the forward to my book.
He was an advisor of thecompany.
He was involved in the earlydays.
And so being able to stop yourattention on something, to
connect the dots to somethingyou don't know works really well
to get people at the top offunnel.
And so when we work withinfluencers or celebrities or
anything like that, that'sexactly what we're doing, is
(35:25):
we're trying to improve ourconversion rate at the very top
of the funnel, where you'regonna stop, you're gonna watch
for a few extra seconds, you'regonna click through to our
website, and we get more peopleinto the top of the funnel
because of those brands andbecause of that celebrity and
their influence.
They bring a reputation withthem that catches your interest
so that you are willing to clickthrough and check us out.
(35:46):
That's really what it does, isit just increases the top of
funnel because once you get toour product, our website still
has to have a strong call toaction.
It still has to prove to youthat it's valuable.
You have to do a demo or do thetrial and think, yeah, I need
this, I have this problem.
And so all those conversionissues downstream are still on
us as a business, but workingwith.
(36:07):
With those celebrities upstreamcan make the economics that much
better.
For some companies.
Dan Balcauski (36:13):
It's interesting because, I do remember, it's
funny you were talking about Iwas the, your previous answer
you were talking about is theheight of Facebook.
I remember, I think it wasmonday.com had a big, got a lot
of press early on because theywere one of the first B2B SaaS
companies to use like Facebookand Instagram ads.
'cause it was like, oh Facebook,Instagram, that's only for
consumers, right?
But then they were like, peopleget off work and they're on
(36:35):
these social companies.
So, I, you go walk through anairport and there's, Barracuda
Networks or an IBM ads on everywall, right?
I mean, I guess, they, you'vegot executives going on getting
on planes.
I'm sure they're checking theirFacebook or Twitter at some
point as well.
I, I don't see that one talkabout much anymore.
And then two, I don't really seeother B2B SaaS companies kind of
doing these influencer typepartnerships.
(36:56):
So maybe I'm just blind to it.
Maybe it is, does exist, Iguess.
why do you have a sense of for,of why that is?
And I guess if folks wanted tosort of do this, is there
anything they should kind ofunderstand, like best practices
or pitfalls they should watchout for?
Chris Ronzio (37:09):
I think, I don't know exactly why some would do
it and some wouldn't do it otherthan just maybe a.
A cool brand that would attractthe interest of those people.
Like we're not hiring athletesand people that have zero
connection to the world ofbusiness.
We're talking to businessauthors and Shark Tank and a
(37:30):
business TV show in the office.
There is a connection to what wedo.
And so that's why I thinkconsumer products can use any
sort of.
Reality TV influencer or moviestar or athlete or whatever it
is, because the whole world is apotential customer for whatever
they're selling.
(37:50):
With a business a B2B product,you've just gotta get a little
bit smarter on who is theaudience for what I'm selling,
and what are the maybe one clickaway, one derivative away pop
culture adjacencies, becausethose people could make
incredible influencers for yourbrand.
Dan Balcauski (38:07):
Yeah.
The only, I, the only thingthat's even remotely sticking in
my memory around this is, yougot Matthew McConaughey and
Woody Harrelson and theSalesforce commercials where for
some reason McConaughey is stuckin the rain and the other people
aren't.
And you're like, I don't knowwhat this has to do with CRM
software, but I guess, okay.
Chris Ronzio (38:25):
Yeah, I mean, those brands are big enough that
they can kind of, get anyone onboard.
But I do.
I do think though, even in theworld of random verticalized
SaaS software, there is likesomeone in the industry that.
Has the big podcast or that hada big exit in their company and
(38:47):
within that industry, they'rekind of a mini celebrity.
And if you can get that personon board with your company to
have the right economics or theright kind of like stock options
or the right revenue share deal,like there is a way to
incentivize people to wanna workand promote your brand.
Dan Balcauski (39:04):
Chris, I could talk to you all day, but I do
note that we are running up ontime.
So I do wanna kind of startclosing this out with a few
rapid fire, lightning roundquestions.
Are you up for
Chris Ronzio (39:15):
Let's do it.
Dan Balcauski (39:16):
All right.
So look, I am believer that weall have these moments in our
lives that chain our mindset,our perspective, the way we view
the world.
I sometimes refer to it as asuperhero transformation moment.
Your Peter Parker normal highschool student.
You get bit by a radioactivespider.
The next day you wake up yourSpider-Man.
What moment has that been foryou in your life?
Chris Ronzio (39:36):
Gosh, on the personal side, one moment that
really stands out to me is Iremember being in the car with
my dad and he was on a heated.
Call, like a work call.
He's like yelling and screamingand whatever, and he's mad about
something.
And then he goes, hold on onesecond.
And he looks at the phone and myyounger brother was beeping in
and he answers it and he goeshey Jonathan, what's up?
(39:58):
And he like, totally changed hismindset.
And I loved and appreciated howmy dad was able to be like a
present father and there andprioritized his family enough to
put that business call on hold.
And that's always stuck with me.
Dan Balcauski (40:13):
Very nice way to go, dad.
Way to set the example.
It's I love, I particularly lovethat example because it's one of
those things that, it's not whathe said, like it's not a lesson
they imparted, but it's likeyour observation of how they
were in that moment.
And I feel like we have so manyopportunities in life to.
Make that impact.
But just without being paranoidabout it being like you're
always on stage and likeeveryone's looking at you but
(40:34):
you always have the opportunityto change someone's life for the
better by, by
Chris Ronzio (40:37):
Yeah.
Dan Balcauski (40:38):
the best version of
Chris Ronzio (40:39):
Yeah.
Dan Balcauski (40:39):
Love it.
What's something you believemost people disagree with?
Chris Ronzio (40:44):
What do I believe that most people would disagree
with?
I believe that.
I think a lot of people inbusiness disagree with this, and
this is sort of a bridge off.
The last thing I invest a lot inphysical fitness and
competitions.
I run marathons, I dotriathlons.
I do, I spend a lot of time justlike doing trail running.
And I think that's where I haveall my best ideas.
(41:06):
And so I think a lot of peoplewhen they're early in
entrepreneurship, think that thetime that they're spending at
the gym or running or doingwhatever.
Is stealing from the business.
And I actually look at it aslike mini strategic planning
sessions where I am creating themost value for the business at
that time, because that's whenmy brain is connecting all the
ideas and the podcasts I'mlistening to.
(41:28):
So if you're listening to thisand you're out there on the
trails right now, kudos to youbecause I think a lot of people
miss that.
Dan Balcauski (41:35):
Yes highly agree with the importance of physical
activity and getting out fromour screens.
Even if you have to have theearbuds in while you're doing
physical activity,
Chris Ronzio (41:43):
Yeah.
Dan Balcauski (41:44):
think our, we're not we're directly linear
people.
So, what's a contrarian take youhold about AI's role either in
the future of SaaS or inbusiness?
Chris Ronzio (41:55):
Contrarian.
I think that AI summarizingeverything and making everything
so efficient will actually bebad for business innovation.
I think that.
Part of innovation requiresbeing in the long form of things
like, we need to have time toprocess, we need to have time
(42:16):
to, to think about things.
And if everything comes soeasily to you and so automated I
think it actually could give usless space to really think.
And so we'll see how that playsout.
Dan Balcauski (42:27):
Yeah, I've never really understood those.
There's those services that takelike business books and give you
like the one page executivesummary and I've just never
quite understood that.
'cause I was like, first of all,most business books probably
aren't worth more than you knowthat, but I'm sure yours is.
I'm not not throwing
Chris Ronzio (42:43):
The value is in between the words and in between
the pages.
And like I, I've read the samebooks often, and when you read
'em again five years later, youget an entirely different set of
insights and lessons based onwhere you are.
At that time in your life andwhat's going on in the business
at that time, same withlistening to different podcast
episodes that you've heard inthe past.
(43:04):
And so I think summaries areprobably bad long for if that's
all we have in the world.
Dan Balcauski (43:09):
Yeah I'm trying to do an experiment right now
where I try to get a summary toknow if I want to invest in the
long term version or the longform version of the
Chris Ronzio (43:19):
Okay.
Dan Balcauski (43:20):
To but not but definitely not using a summary
as a, substitute.
Look, when you think about allthe spectacular people you've
had a chance to work with orlearn from, is there anyone that
just pops to mind who's had adisproportionate effect on the
way that you think aboutbuilding or leading companies?
Chris Ronzio (43:34):
Yeah, one of my mentors, clay Mask, he's the
founder and CEO of Infusionsoftand CRM if you know that tool.
And he told me early on that Ishould always be working to be
a.
The CEO my company needs a yearfrom now.
And I thought that was so wiseand I've shared that with so
many people because I think evenin any position in the company,
(43:57):
if you are not equipped to bethat position still in another
year or at another 50% growth ora hundred percent growth of the
company like you, you have to beoutgrowing your company if you
wanna maintain your role and youhave to be doing even better
than that if you wanna move onup.
Dan Balcauski (44:14):
Such powerful advice and advice as well.
Any, anybody inside the company,whether in a leadership position
or in an IC role, right?
If those companies are growingfast, you've kind of, you've
gotta accelerate your own growthas well to be constantly putting
yourself out of a job anddocumenting along the way so the
person behind you knows how todo it.
Chris, if you, if I gave you abillboard, you could put any
advice on there for other B2Bsios trying to scale their
(44:35):
companies, what would it say?
Chris Ronzio (44:38):
Com.
Dan Balcauski (44:40):
Well done, sir.
Played.
Chris Ronzio (44:42):
Free advertising.
Right.
Thank you.
For the billboard.
No.
If if it wasn't an ad for mycompany, what would it be?
Let's see.
I'd probably say something like,hang around success long enough
and you'll catch it.
It's success I think comes basedon who you surround yourself
with, the content you listen to,the friends that you have, the
business groups that you're in,and.
There's no real overnightsuccesses.
(45:04):
I was in peer and mastermindgroups for 12 years before I hit
my first million in revenue.
And that's a lot of time to putin and a lot of people just
wanna wake up one day and besuccessful, but there's so much
value in the process.
Dan Balcauski (45:19):
Oh, love it.
Love it.
Trainual.com.
Everyone train.com.
Chris, this has been great.
If our listeners want to connectwith you, learn more about
Trainual mul, how can they do
that?
Yeah, so Trainual.
Just search Trainual orTrainual.com
Chris Ronzio (45:30):
for me, Chris Zi.
I hang out most on Instagram andLinkedIn, so if you want to
connect with me, shoot me amessage.
Dan Balcauski (45:37):
Cool.
I will put those links in theshow notes for listeners,
everyone that wraps up thisepisode of Sask Scaling Secrets.
Thank you to Chris for sharinghis journey and insights.
For our listeners, you foundChris's insights valuable.
Please leave a review and sharethis episode with your network.
Really helps the podcast grow.
Thank you so much.
It's like a small business anthem.
(00:01):
And so we produce the song, weproduce the music video, and now
I'd say we're the SaaS companywith the most listens on
Spotify.
Chaos in a business is a reallygood thing.
Anybody that's listening, if youfeel like your life is chaotic
and your business is chaotic,think of the alternative.
chaos is great.
It means that the raw materialis mixing things up.
(00:22):
There's exciting opportunity,and then you just have to figure
out, all right, what do we do?
And in what order to.
Create leverage and to createprofit and to reinvest that into
the business.
So what I learned is that theprice has such a big impact in
who it attracts.
It's like how bait attracts theright fish.
Your price is bait that you'reputting out into the world to
(00:44):
tell the world who you're for.
Dan Balcauski (01:06):
Welcome to SaaS Scaling Secrets, the podcast
that brings you the insidestories to the leaders of the
best scale up.
B2B SaaS companies.
I'm your host, Dan Balcauski,founder of Product Tranquility.
Today I'm excited to speak withChris Ronzio.
I.
Chris is the founder and CEO ofTrainual, leading SaaS platform,
transforming how smallbusinesses onboard, train, and
scale teams.
Chris has LED Trainual's rapidgrowth since founding it in
2018.
(01:27):
He hosts the Organized ChaosPodcast as a two time
entrepreneur of the Year Awardfinalist, and is the author of
The Business Playbook, how toDocument and Delegate What You
Do so Your Company Can Growbeyond You.
Let's dive in.
Welcome Chris to SaaS ScalingSecrets.
Chris Ronzio (01:42):
Hey Dan, how's it going?
Dan Balcauski (01:43):
How's going?
I am very excited for ourconversation today.
It's going very well.
I'm excited to have theopportunity to talk to you about
something that I havesurprisingly been geeking out
about a lot, which isdocumentation that goes beyond
and maybe I need to talk to mytherapist about why I'm excited
about that.
(02:03):
But we'll leave that to thelistener to see if they could
intuit between the lines, whyit's so interesting to me right
now.
Before we get into that, though.
Your team sent over a couple ofbullet points, and I gotta say
one of them jumped out in yourbackground.
You had the opportunity to doproject with Montel Jordan
Chris Ronzio (02:30):
Yeah.
Dan Balcauski (02:31):
of the, this is how we do it, fame.
Chris Ronzio (02:33):
Yes, sir.
Yeah.
Dan Balcauski (02:36):
the heck that is?
Chris Ronzio (02:37):
Sure.
Yeah.
So seven years ago or so when westarted, the company Trainual is
a, training product, adocumentation product.
And so for businesses todescribe, this is how we do it
inside their companies.
We used to play Monte's song at.
Every, all hands meeting at allof our just hype customer
events.
(02:57):
And so we always had this dreamthat we would work with him.
And so one day we reached out toMontel first on Cameo, if you've
heard of that service.
And we got on a Zoom call withhim and just kind of his fans
told him our story.
And toward the end of the Zoomcall, we pitched him, Hey,
Montel here's what our businessdoes.
We gotta find a way to worktogether.
Zoom cuts us off or can, orcameo cuts us off and so there's
(03:18):
no soliciting, like they don'twant you to pitch.
10 minutes later we get amessage from Montel on Twitter
and he's Hey, I love yourcompany.
I love the idea.
Let's figure out how to worktogether.
And so over the next couplemonths we brainstormed with
Montel and we came up with a.
Remix to his song called This isHow You Do It, and it's all
about delegation.
(03:39):
It's like a small businessanthem.
And so we produce the song, weproduce the music video, and now
I'd say we're the SaaS companywith the most listens on
Spotify.
If you search for Trainual
Dan Balcauski (03:51):
that is so fun and cheesy.
I love it.
And it feels like cameo ismissing out on some additional
revenue that they could havemaybe helped to bridge that gap.
But, we'll leave if they had, ifthey need some pricing help I'm
happy
Chris Ronzio (04:04):
Send'em my way.
I, they may have something likethat.
Now, this was like super earlydays of cameo.
Dan Balcauski (04:10):
Oh man.
Too good.
Too good.
So, I gave a little bit of introat the beginning.
I guess how do you end upcreating Trainual?
Like kind of give us the earlydays of your run up to your time
in SaaS and now, leadingTrainual for the last seven
years.
Chris Ronzio (04:27):
Looking back, it's always kind of easier to draw
the dotted line, but at the timeI had no idea I'd end up in
SaaS.
So my first company was a videoproduction company.
We did live youth sportingevents, so like cheerleading and
figure skating and all stardance.
It was like the best job as ahigh school kid.
But we did these events, we soldthese videos.
(04:48):
We sold DVDs and Blu-ray discsand live streaming, and as I
grew the company across the USwe started doing events in all
50 states.
And so we would hire crews.
Across the United States andwe'd have to remotely train them
on how to show up at an event,how to set up, how to sell the
videos, how to ship'em back toour fulfillment centers, how to
(05:10):
get them, labeled correctly andhow to just represent the brand.
And so it was all remote.
Training.
I didn't realize that at thetime, but that was really
something I learned inside mybusiness.
So when I sold that company, Istarted helping other
businesses, consulting on theirtraining on their systems, their
processes, their onboarding,their operations manuals.
(05:30):
And I saw so many companies havea way that they work, a way that
they do what they do and it'snot captured in one place.
And they needed help with that.
And that was really the idea fortra.
Dan Balcauski (05:41):
Got it.
And so.
Look one thing really stuck outto me was your previous company
for Tray New, as well as yourcurrent podcast, are both called
Organized Chaos.
Chris Ronzio (05:52):
Yeah.
Dan Balcauski (05:52):
love that name.
Where did that come from?
Chris Ronzio (05:55):
So after I did my first couple consulting
projects, I had sold my firstbusiness.
I was helping a few friends andI asked them, what is it that I
do for you?
What value am I providing foryou?
And a couple of themindependently say, you come in
here and you organize all of thechaos and things are better when
you leave.
And so I thought Organizedchaos, that's the best name.
(06:16):
And I found the domain wasavailable, organize.
Chaos.
Not with a D but I told peoplelike, that's what I do.
It's not organized until I getthere.
So organized chaos became thename of the company and on the
back of my business card it saidI organize chaos and get things
done so you have more time to dowhat you love.
I.
That was like the ethos of mybusiness is that everybody gets
(06:37):
into business not to run theadministrative processes of the
pieces of business.
It's they get into it so thatthey create something of value
so that they build a team, acommunity, they can put food on
the table for employees.
They can make an impact forcustomers.
They maybe have some noble causeor some impact that they're
trying to make, and they reallyjust want the business to be the
(06:59):
vehicle.
Frees them up to make the mostimpact, and creating a business
creates a lot of chaos.
And so I thought if I can comein and organize that and make
your operations run seamlessly,then I'm helping you do a better
job for your customers.
And I just love doing it.
Dan Balcauski (07:14):
Running and Scaling a SaaS company can
certainly mean that you aredealing with plenty of chaos and
constantly bombarded with amillion things to do.
I'm curious how that concept oforganized chaos has kind of
influenced you as you have nowgrown and scaled Trainual.
Like, how has that helped you?
With managing priorities andmaking your decisions as a
(07:36):
leader.
Chris Ronzio (07:37):
Absolutely.
Chaos in a business is a reallygood thing.
Anybody that's listening, if youfeel like your life is chaotic
and your business is chaotic,think of the alternative.
If you, if the phones weren'tringing, if the emails weren't
coming in, you'd have noopportunity in your business.
And so chaos is great.
It means that the raw materialis mixing things up.
There's exciting opportunity,and then you just have to figure
(07:58):
out, all right, what do we do?
And in what order to.
Create leverage and to createprofit and to reinvest that into
the business.
And so what I used to do inorganized chaos with consulting
is I would help businessesunderstand all of the things
that were going on that werecreating the chaos.
And so it could be the issueswith your employees, the
(08:18):
customer complaints, the ideasthat you don't have time to get
around to, and then we'd takeall that chaos.
And we decide what is the mostimportant thing I can do right
now that has the biggest impactfor my business.
And so in many ways, that's whatour product is enabling people
to do.
Because when you put yoursystems into Trainual, when you
document a process, when youdelegate it and hand it off to
(08:42):
someone else, it's like you'reputting one brick into the
foundation of your business.
Something is gonna runconsistently because you've
offloaded it and you'vedocumented the best way to do
it, and then you get to focusyour time and attention on all
the things that are a mess onall the chaos until it is ready
for you to document anddelegate.
I have this thing this process Itrademarked called Do it,
(09:04):
document it, delegate it.
And it's basically the idea thatin a company, first you have to
do things and learn how to dothem consistently.
At the beginning, everything'sinconsistent.
It's an experiment.
You're trying to figure it out,but then one day you wake up and
you realize, oh, this thing, Iknow how to do it.
And I do it the same way everytime I do it.
(09:26):
And it's at that moment that youcan then finally document it.
You can write down theinstructions or the recipe and
you can hand it off to someoneelse.
You can delegate it to thatperson so that they start to do
this thing in your business.
And I think scaling a businessis just really that repeatable
pattern of experimenting andinnovating to create something
consistent and then writing downthe recipe and handing it off to
(09:48):
someone else.
That's how businesses grow.
Dan Balcauski (09:51):
I, a lot of founders.
companies because, they feellike, I, I couldn't move inside
a larger organization.
It was too process driven, toobureaucratic.
And so, a lot of, founders thatI've spoken to kind of feel like
hey, like we, don't want to dothose big company things.
(10:14):
This sounds very big
Chris Ronzio (10:15):
Yeah.
Dan Balcauski (10:16):
That sounds too, formal, too time consuming.
I guess, do you ru, I imagineyou run into that, maybe even
for yourself, is there validitythere?
How do you think about gettingpast that resistance?
Chris Ronzio (10:30):
It really depends for the entrepreneur on the type
of company they want to build.
If someone wants to justexperiment and.
Innovate all the time.
They're basically a one personartisan.
In a one person shop, you can doa different job every time.
You can take a different type ofclient, every time it stays
interesting for you and maybeyou maximize your productivity
(10:51):
or your bill rate or your incomeor whatever it is by serving a
higher and higher.
Clientele that's willing to paya little bit more, but you stay
a one person shop.
But at some point there may bethings that you do that are
regular and repeatable.
And so even if you're just a oneperson shop, maybe you have to
send out invoices at the end ofevery project.
(11:13):
I.
Maybe you have to take some sortof information at the beginning
in an intake process, andthere's these repeatable things
that you start to say, oh if Ihad a virtual assistant or if I
had a right hand man or woman orsomebody to do that piece, it
would create this extra leveragefor me.
To use for that high billablehour kind of time that I'm
doing.
And so people understand andappreciate offloading those
(11:36):
administrative tasks.
Now, if you wanna build abusiness that has 10 people,
instead of two people, you'regonna figure out other
repetitive things that you do.
Like maybe I.
There's things that you do tocreate leads for the business.
Maybe you're doing marketingcontent and by hiring somebody
on the marketing side, you cansay, Hey, every week I used to
(11:56):
write this letter.
I used to record these podcasts.
I guess I could offload that andhave somebody that's even better
at that thing.
I.
Or maybe I'm doing sales callsevery day and I could hire a
sales rep or someone to takethose calls for me.
So businesses grow from twopeople to 10 people to a hundred
people based on formalizingthose different roles, to spread
(12:17):
out who does what in a businessand kind of raise the tide of
what your revenue and yourprofit could be.
But this is different for everyentrepreneur.
Some people just want to be aone or two person shop and they
wanna stay as far away fromprocess as possible.
And other people wanna build acompany with 25 people, or a
company that can produce acertain revenue size.
Dan Balcauski (12:39):
I guess, have you ever run into situations where,
you've ever, I guess, felt sortof bogged down by, documentation
or like the rigidness of thesesort of processes?
I guess, how would you recommendsort of folks kinda keep things
light while still having itwritten down?
I can imagine this is a bit ofa, it could be a bit of a
balance.
Yeah,
Chris Ronzio (12:59):
Yeah, for sure.
So one of our core values is nored tape, which may sound crazy
as a process documentationcompany, right?
But no red tape is meant toremind people that if they're
ever going through a processthat feels bureaucratic or it
feels cumbersome, or it feelsprocess is superseding logic,
(13:19):
then it's up to them to raisetheir hand and tell someone and
help tear down that process.
Because sometimes we putprocesses in place to solve
problems.
Imagine if a something happenedin your business where, somebody
said something or did something.
There's this example in my bookthat I always tell.
Where in our first office peoplewould bring in glass soda
(13:40):
bottles from Mexico.
If you've ever seen those,
Dan Balcauski (13:42):
Mm-hmm.
Chris Ronzio (13:43):
you know the pur cane sugar, they're like,
they're great.
They're very popular here inArizona.
So they would have these glassbottles and a couple times we'd
swing open the refrigerator doorand those glass bottles would
roll out and break onto thefloor.
And so we put a policy in placethat was no glass bottles in the
refrigerator.
And a year later people arelike, why don't we allow the
(14:05):
good soda here?
Like, why is that not allowed?
And because it didn't, theydidn't connect the dots and we
realized we could solve thatproblem and remove the
bureaucracy by having a thing,a, a bottle.
Catching mechanism inside therefrigerator and we were solving
the wrong problem.
We put process and policy inplace to solve the problem.
And so I think the reminder herefor people is processes get put
(14:28):
in place for a reason, but youneed to be as willing to strip
them away and remove them asyour business grows if they're
not doing the intended,providing the intended value
anymore.
Dan Balcauski (14:40):
Th that makes sense.
So you've gotta sort of makesure you tend the garden,
Chris Ronzio (14:44):
Yes, exactly.
Dan Balcauski (14:45):
it overgrow with vines and all those vines are
now tying you down and thatanalogy breaks down somewhere in
there.
But, so I guess, what do you, Iguess, is there, are there
rituals or dare I say, processesyou have for managing your
processes?
Chris Ronzio (15:00):
Processes to manage processes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So of course our softwareenables this a little bit.
The people that own certainprocesses get auto reminded when
things are stale to reviewthings, verify them, make sure
they're still accurate withinthe business.
And so if you've got a softwaretool like ours, you may have
that mechanism built in.
But what I would recommend isjust for.
(15:21):
Any manager, any owner of anyarea of the business to set a
recurring task for themselvesevery 30 days or 90 days to just
scan through.
Is this still the way that we doall of these things?
Do all of these policies andprocesses make sense?
And as long as you've got thatstandard interval as just a
check, maybe it's on a timebasis or maybe it's when you
(15:42):
hire every new person, you do aquick scan through the training
manual you're about to sendthem.
And it's a really simple way tokeep things.
From getting overgrown.
Dan Balcauski (15:52):
So I, I'm curious, obviously I'm assuming
that you guys sort of dog foodTrainual inside,
Chris Ronzio (15:57):
Totally.
Yeah.
Dan Balcauski (15:58):
Right.
So I guess when it comes towriting things down training, I.
Is a big part about scaling acompany.
what's your philosophy?
Do you have a specific approach?
So somebody sitting there likeat a blank sheet of paper is
there, how do you think aboutit?
Sort of fitting into sort of thestandard day-to-day I imagine,
right?
Okay, this is the third time ina month that the Coke bottle has
(16:19):
shattered on the floor.
Maybe that's the trigger, but Iguess, how do you think about
what is the trigger to, and thenlike, how do you go about sort
of figuring out what to put inthose in that document?
Chris Ronzio (16:29):
Yeah, so first it's continuous improvement.
If the business has this cultureof wanting to improve and
wanting to get better, and it'ssomething that you talk about
all the time with your employeesand your managers and it's
something that you celebrate andyou're all hands meetings and
you talk about how we got betterin this certain area that,
that's encouraging people to.
Build processes or to writeprocesses whenever they have a
(16:51):
good idea.
I, another thing that happens inbusiness is just when there's
inconsistencies.
Imagine if you've got threepeople and they do something a
little bit different, and you'vegot a difference in performance
between those three people.
When we first started hiringsales reps, we had three reps
that were doing demos with ourcustomers, and we'd look back
after a month and say why didone of those reps close?
(17:14):
30% of the deals and the otherrep closed 18% of the deals and
the other one closed 14%.
There's gotta be something thatthey're doing differently.
And so then you analyze how iseveryone doing demos?
What are those three differentprocesses?
Let's now take thecommonalities, or let's take the
best practices and make them ourstandard practices.
(17:37):
And so you take the.
Best practices of your bestperformers, and you document
them and then you train yourother people on those best
practices and now that becomesthe company way.
And so it's a little bit ofnoticing the inconsistencies or
the problems, and it's a littlebit of desiring the continuous
improvement that makes thishappen in your business.
Dan Balcauski (17:59):
So finding hey there's a variation in
performance, and then looking atthe distinction of what are the
best people doing?
So what does it kind of,starting with the outcome,
working backwards, into whatthey're already doing today to
document.
Chris Ronzio (18:13):
Exactly, and it's also important for people to
realize like processes alreadyexist in your business.
If you are doing things, ifyou're in business, you're
already, do you have processes,right?
Like people can look at a blanksheet and become paralyzed and
say, oh, I don't think in termsof operations, and I don't know
how to write an SOP.
It's you're already doing thesethings.
(18:34):
So it's really more aboutcapturing your processes than it
is about.
Creating your processes.
And so it's as simple as justrecord your screen while you're
doing something and then use,the AI tools or our tools or
whatever, and break down whatyou did after you did it so that
another person can watch it andrecreate your results.
(18:56):
So just capture the processes,don't create them.
Dan Balcauski (18:59):
This is called SaaS Scaling Secrets, and so
every, CEO faces challengesalong the way.
Is there a challenge thatTrainual has faced during its
growth that was particularlydifficult to overcome?
Maybe a crucible moment that haskind of made you what you are
today?
Chris Ronzio (19:14):
Which area of the business do you wanna go into?
I mean, there's been so manyproduct and engineering
challenges and design challengesand hiring challenges and
through covid and like, where doyou wanna focus?
I.
Dan Balcauski (19:26):
It really up to you, but I you potentially
around areas are if there's beensome evolutions in your your
marketing, your go to marketpositioning, your sort of, your
leadership capabilities andsystems any of those areas are
ripe or if you wanna picksomething else, it's deal's
choice.
Chris Ronzio (19:45):
Sure.
So my, for a while I had thisthought that, when people start
documenting their processes,it's sort of like a.
Crawl, walk, run approach, whereat the beginning you're trying
to just figure things out andorganize your company, and then
you start to get good at it andyou bring other people in to
help you, and now you're justfiring on all cylinders and your
(20:05):
whole business is documented.
And so we had that.
Theory and we shifted ourpricing to create this really
small price, like$49 a month foryour whole business to get a
handful of people in there andbuild out your processes.
And what we didn't anticipatewas that we would attract a.
Much smaller company is thatwe're not a fit for our product,
(20:28):
but we're intrigued by the$49price point.
So what I learned is that theprice has such a big impact in
who it attracts.
It's like how bait attracts theright fish.
Your price is bait that you'reputting out into the world to
tell the world who you're for.
And for a while we priced waytoo low, and the companies that
(20:49):
were attracted to us were notmature enough.
They didn't have formalizedprocesses, they didn't have
enough employees to really needa training solution, and so we
learned a lot through that.
Dan Balcauski (21:00):
Welcome to Dance Couch.
You've stumbled on a topicthat's near and dear to my
heart.
Let's talk about this.
So what, I guess, okay, so youattract some immature customers.
So what, what, why was that aproblem?
Chris Ronzio (21:12):
So when the immature customers, I guess
we'll call'em, or the smallercustomers come in.
It is a very aspirational need.
They see our product.
Maybe they've read a book andthey think, I really want a
dialed in operations manual.
What I believe they're doing isthey're procrastinating,
figuring out how to do marketingand sales by spending all their
time dialing in theiroperations.
(21:34):
And maybe that's a, a.
P pain point or something, ormaybe I'm pushing buttons for
anybody in the audience there.
But I truly believe thatoperations are not a big problem
until you're so overrun withmarketing and sales and demand
that you then have to figureyour operations out.
The way to build a business isto create a product that people
want so much that they'reknocking down your door and you
(21:57):
can't possibly fulfill all thedemand and then.
You go ahead and build theoperations to efficiently
fulfill the demand.
But a lot of people start byjust, playing around with the
product and playing with theoperations and toiling around
and then they can never sell it.
And that's the problem when theygo out of business.
And so Trainual is for abusiness that has figured out
(22:18):
the sales and marketing andneeds to scale their operations,
and we are attracting the wrongtype of customer.
Dan Balcauski (22:24):
So I, so you're saying when you start a
business, the most importantthing is not what your business
cards look like or your logodesign.
Chris Ronzio (22:33):
Right.
Dan Balcauski (22:33):
that stuff is,
Chris Ronzio (22:34):
that stuff's fun.
Yeah, that's the hobby.
I think, we we have Damon Johnfrom Shark Tank is one of our
investors and partners and hewill often him and the other
sharks talk about entrepreneurs.
It's like people that want to bean entrepreneur so bad.
And when you're likemasquerading as an entrepreneur,
you spend all of your timeplaying with logos and domains
(22:57):
and business cards and t-shirts,and like all of the stuff that
indicates that you own abusiness is where you spend all
of your time instead of actuallydriving demand for your product.
Dan Balcauski (23:08):
I love it.
So, man it, Jordan and DamonJohn.
Man we could have a whole subcomponent of this episode just
talking about like yourinfluencer network.
I'll put a pin in that.
Come back to so, so you know howyou said you, okay, so I
imagine, right these smallercustomers, maybe customers that
were not quite, super flush withso many growth opportunities
(23:30):
that maybe they were spendingtime thinking they had an
operations problem and reallythey needed to spend time on
sales and marketing.
So you're attracting them,realizing, and then maybe, it
sounds like there was probably aretention or churn issue that,
that was being caused.
Which just knowing a business,my, my sense is that.
Maybe impacted your your CAC andLTV numbers or other unit
economics in ways that were not,super effective.
(23:51):
I guess how did you get intothat situation and I guess like
you realized then you have thisproblem and what do you do after
that?
I guess, because you had somethesis of hey, we create this
low end offer.
What was the theory before you,you ended up seeing this reality
from the marketplace?
Chris Ronzio (24:05):
So it depends on the stage of the business.
And I know this is called SaaSScaling Secrets, and so I think
at the beginning, the secret toscaling the SaaS is to actually
scale it regardless of who thecustomer is.
It's can you attract customers?
Can you sell more of this?
And so in our first year we gotto a thousand businesses.
I.
On our platform, and we provethat there is this demand in the
(24:27):
market for what we do.
Now, a ton of those businesseswere churning out, but we got
smarter as we went.
And with volume comes knowledge.
So as you have more people gothrough your funnel, you decide
who is the right type ofcustomer for this business and
what do they value in theproduct, and which ones stick
around and which ones don't.
And you learn from the peoplequitting when they give their
(24:49):
cancellation reasons.
And so in some ways, in thefirst stage of business.
The scale is more important, Ithink, than the perfect customer
because you need volume tolearn.
Now in the next phase, you wannastart to build around who that
ideal customer is.
And so from our scaling earlyphase, we thought that the way
(25:10):
to approach this customer isthe, crawl, walk, run.
And we wanted to give them aneasy in to the tool so that they
could find some early success.
And then expanding the product.
And through the pricing lessonsthere that we talked about, we
saw we were attracting the wrongtype of customer.
And so for us it was reallyabout just.
Lifting the initial number ofseats that someone gets to 25
(25:32):
seats and setting a price that'sconsummate with that type of
business so that we'reattracting companies that are at
least a little bit more mature,that don't think they're
overpaying for 25 seats becausethey have 20 or 25 people.
And that sort of fixed thebottom of the funnel there.
Dan Balcauski (25:51):
So there was there was a theory that hey,
there's a I guess you evencalling it mid-size businesses
at 25 employees.
That's not quite, it's stillpretty in the s and b category,
but you were trying to solve aadoption friction.
issue by introducing this lowend tier.
But what that ended up bringingin was companies that were much
(26:12):
DA much different segmentaspirational as you, you used
before or mature not quite readyto, fully get the value.
And then those folks, just theyhad other business problems and
then you ended up with thesechurn issues.
And then the idea then is okay,seeing that to fix it, we
instead.
Realize that, okay if we areable to put in a viable minimum,
(26:33):
we're able to create adifferentiation that helps us,
helps create an on ramp forpeople who are in the right
segment.
And it sounds like there's a lotof learning of who your customer
profile was.
In real time as you're sort ofgoing through this as well,
right?
Is it like startups tend to notto be static things where you
have a sort of perfect plan.
I'm sure you were sort oflearning who this customer was
(26:54):
to the best of your ability.
Is that, did I capture that?
Generally,
Chris Ronzio (26:58):
I wish I could have played this for myself in a
time capsule like five yearsago.
This would've been immenselyvaluable.
So you, that was a good summaryright there.
Dan Balcauski (27:07):
Yeah.
This is why we do this.
It is because we want people togo and make all different
mistakes, don't make the samemistakes we
Chris Ronzio (27:14):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dan Balcauski (27:15):
And this problem of trying to figure out and
iterate.
I mean, it's difficult, right?
Like you.
At the beginning, you do onlyhave a hypothesis of who you
think the customers are, and youneed to, you do need to go
through some of this learningprocess.
But I love how, that kind of,that full arc happens.
And so I guess, just to fill injust the final piece of that so
it sounds like, you were able toput in some limit Split the
(27:40):
difference between those twogroups because it sounded like
there was adoption friction.
So can you just kind of paintthat a little bit starker for
me?
So,'cause'cause you went all theway down to 49, you were trying
to solve this friction adoptionproblem.
Was there like a halfway pointbetween what you guys were
offering in that 49 point thatended up being the crucial
decision.
Chris Ronzio (27:59):
We could continue to iterate on this and have a
multi-hour podcast about ourpricing strategies.
Oh, I mean, over the last fouryears we've been iterating.
Every couple of months.
And so, where we are today is afive times higher price point
for an initial starting point.
And again there's features thatare included in that price
(28:20):
point.
There's implementation that'snow included in that price
point.
And so there's a lot ofdifferent ways to find the right
customer and make sure you givethem the support that's required
to get them launched and to getthem sticky in the product.
But it takes.
A lot of testing and so I'm notsuggesting that somebody fast
forward to where we are today,because I think going through
that set of iterations foreveryone's business is very
(28:43):
useful.
Just be willing to test a lot.
Dan Balcauski (28:46):
Yeah.
And I applaud you for thatbecause, it's, there's, it's
definitely not a set it forgetit.
And a lot of people take theidea that.
I don't know.
It's, we don't know what to do,so we'll just not, we'll just
kind of focus more on acquiringother customers instead of,
trying to figure out whatmonetization should look like in
the as along the way, right.
As you're sort of iterating onyour acquisition funnel and your
(29:08):
retention.
Plays, et cetera.
Like it's one of the othergrowth levers that merits
attention.
So, round of applause from thisend of the microphone on making
sure that it's something thatyou're actively experimenting
and working on.
So, going back to what, we weretalking about before.
So you were saying thatobviously you've iterated on
different sort of customers asyou've learned more.
(29:31):
I imagine that's a verydifficult thing for a product
like Trainual because it's thekind of product that nearly
every business could use.
But Chris hasn't paid me to saythat.
But that's, that that soundslike a good thing.
But like I was having, I wasdoing another episode with
another guy who was they were inlike the contract lifecycle
(29:53):
management space and the samething.
It's like every company hascontracts.
Like how have you thoughtthrough that in terms of, okay,
how do we focus, like everybusiness could potentially use
process documentation ortraining.
This seems like a great problem.
Versus oh, there's only maybe, Idunno, a thousand businesses in
the world that could use this.
It's like every business coulduse this.
(30:14):
This is
Chris Ronzio (30:14):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dan Balcauski (30:15):
you go out into the world trying to acquire
customers and you like, it just,yeah, that's just a pain as
well.
How have you approached thatfrom a strategic decision making
level?
Chris Ronzio (30:25):
It is a blessing and a curse, Dan.
A blessing and a curse.
We as a horizontal business,you're right, like a lot of
companies can use what we do,and we have examples of every
different industry, wherethere's electricians and.
Contractors and construction andmedical services and dental
offices and car washes andmarketing firms and professional
(30:46):
service agencies and law firmsand all of these different
people that get value out of ourproduct.
And so the first thing is youlook for signals of.
Where are we getting the mostreferral volume or where do we
have maybe some partners orconsultants that are finding a
lot of success standing us up intheir industry?
And so we saw things like,childcare and law firms and
(31:11):
dentists where there's requiredstate compliance that they have
to.
Go through training.
Your employees need to betrained so it is ingrained as a
part of your business.
And then there's also, in someof these businesses, an element
of turnover where this is a jobthat people, take and bounce
from one company to the next, ormaybe there's different
(31:31):
locations.
And so we look for these commonuse cases and patterns between
businesses to find industriesthat Trainual does the best in.
Then we start to spend dollarsin those industries by
sponsoring their trade shows andcustomer or conferences by doing
integrations with other softwareproviders in those industries by
(31:52):
putting a portion of our spendinto the biggest podcast in
that.
Industry.
But it's something that we'regoing through right now.
It's like only at this stage ofthe business, seven years in,
are we starting to reallyverticalize and build templates
for different industries andturnkey kind of solutions for
the landscaping business orwhatever else it is.
Dan Balcauski (32:12):
So very looking at very specific industries and
sort of where's there's pull, Iheard the deeper below that is
like the industry use caseswhere there was a training
compliance component was sort ofdriving urgency that maybe
wasn't there in other types ofbusinesses.
I guess a, as you've grown, Imean, I think a lot of companies
run into, Hey, this was reallyworking for us from a client
(32:33):
acquisition or marketingchannel.
And then, it.
Hey, this is killing it atfirst, but then sort of stopped
working, Have you guysexperienced that at all as
you've grown?
Chris Ronzio (32:43):
Yeah, so in the early days when we started in 20
18, 20 19, that was like theheyday for Facebook advertising.
And so we were getting reallycheap customers on Facebook,
like incredible CAC and veryfast CAC payback.
We spread out to.
To Instagram and then to YouTubepre-roll ads and Google.
And and now we're focused moreon LinkedIn and software review
(33:08):
sites and over the top kind ofads on streaming platforms.
And I think our mix of marketinghas just gotten more intricate
as we've grown.
We have a larger budget to putacross all those things, but,
channel for channel, Facebookdoes not convert like it used
to.
And so we've had to move awayand diversify what we're doing.
Dan Balcauski (33:27):
I said I would put a pin in it.
I think it might be time tobring it back in.
So you mentioned, so you gotMontel Jordan, you got Dave and
John.
I'm sure there's otherinfluencer partners you've
worked with, like how.
W how, like, why this is, thisseems like unique in the world
of B2B software.
I don't usually talk to manyfounders who have these type of
influencer partners.
How did you land on that?
(33:49):
And did, does that suffer fromthese sort of ebbs and flows of
yeah, it really works well for,these kinds of businesses and
these others these partnershipinfluencers don't work at all.
What lessons have you learnedthere?
Chris Ronzio (33:59):
We've always approached marketing more in a
consumer kind of way than a B2Bsort of way, because at the end
of the day, it's people atbusinesses that are making
decisions.
And so if you can attractsomeone's attention to your
brand using some kind of popculture or using some sort of
celebrity.
They may not have known aboutyou otherwise or found out about
you.
And so we've done ads, like Imentioned, with the sharks.
(34:22):
We've done ads with charactersfrom the office.
Things that like, as you'rescrolling through social media,
it stops you in your tracks, itstops you in the feed and you're
like, oh, I know that person.
I know that thing.
In the very, very early days ofTrainual.
My favorite book, my, the firstbusiness book I ever read was
The E Myth Revisited by Michaele Gerber.
You ever read that?
(34:42):
Yeah.
So, so a lot of people recognizethe book.
It's like a blue and white book.
It's got a big E on it.
And so I used to do these postswith me holding the book up in
the frame, and as you'rescrolling through your social
feed, you'd stop and be like,oh, I know that book, right?
So I'm borrowing the authorityof something that, you know, to
kind of catch your attention sothat now you're interested.
(35:02):
And what's the connectionbetween me?
And that book.
And so Michael e Gerber, hewrote the forward to my book.
He was an advisor of thecompany.
He was involved in the earlydays.
And so being able to stop yourattention on something, to
connect the dots to somethingyou don't know works really well
to get people at the top offunnel.
And so when we work withinfluencers or celebrities or
anything like that, that'sexactly what we're doing, is
(35:25):
we're trying to improve ourconversion rate at the very top
of the funnel, where you'regonna stop, you're gonna watch
for a few extra seconds, you'regonna click through to our
website, and we get more peopleinto the top of the funnel
because of those brands andbecause of that celebrity and
their influence.
They bring a reputation withthem that catches your interest
so that you are willing to clickthrough and check us out.
(35:46):
That's really what it does, isit just increases the top of
funnel because once you get toour product, our website still
has to have a strong call toaction.
It still has to prove to youthat it's valuable.
You have to do a demo or do thetrial and think, yeah, I need
this, I have this problem.
And so all those conversionissues downstream are still on
us as a business, but workingwith.
(36:07):
With those celebrities upstreamcan make the economics that much
better.
For some companies.
Dan Balcauski (36:13):
It's interesting because, I do remember, it's
funny you were talking about Iwas the, your previous answer
you were talking about is theheight of Facebook.
I remember, I think it wasmonday.com had a big, got a lot
of press early on because theywere one of the first B2B SaaS
companies to use like Facebookand Instagram ads.
'cause it was like, oh Facebook,Instagram, that's only for
consumers, right?
But then they were like, peopleget off work and they're on
(36:35):
these social companies.
So, I, you go walk through anairport and there's, Barracuda
Networks or an IBM ads on everywall, right?
I mean, I guess, they, you'vegot executives going on getting
on planes.
I'm sure they're checking theirFacebook or Twitter at some
point as well.
I, I don't see that one talkabout much anymore.
And then two, I don't really seeother B2B SaaS companies kind of
doing these influencer typepartnerships.
(36:56):
So maybe I'm just blind to it.
Maybe it is, does exist, Iguess.
why do you have a sense of for,of why that is?
And I guess if folks wanted tosort of do this, is there
anything they should kind ofunderstand, like best practices
or pitfalls they should watchout for?
Chris Ronzio (37:09):
I think, I don't know exactly why some would do
it and some wouldn't do it otherthan just maybe a.
A cool brand that would attractthe interest of those people.
Like we're not hiring athletesand people that have zero
connection to the world ofbusiness.
We're talking to businessauthors and Shark Tank and a
(37:30):
business TV show in the office.
There is a connection to what wedo.
And so that's why I thinkconsumer products can use any
sort of.
Reality TV influencer or moviestar or athlete or whatever it
is, because the whole world is apotential customer for whatever
they're selling.
(37:50):
With a business a B2B product,you've just gotta get a little
bit smarter on who is theaudience for what I'm selling,
and what are the maybe one clickaway, one derivative away pop
culture adjacencies, becausethose people could make
incredible influencers for yourbrand.
Dan Balcauski (38:07):
Yeah.
The only, I, the only thingthat's even remotely sticking in
my memory around this is, yougot Matthew McConaughey and
Woody Harrelson and theSalesforce commercials where for
some reason McConaughey is stuckin the rain and the other people
aren't.
And you're like, I don't knowwhat this has to do with CRM
software, but I guess, okay.
Chris Ronzio (38:25):
Yeah, I mean, those brands are big enough that
they can kind of, get anyone onboard.
But I do.
I do think though, even in theworld of random verticalized
SaaS software, there is likesomeone in the industry that.
Has the big podcast or that hada big exit in their company and
(38:47):
within that industry, they'rekind of a mini celebrity.
And if you can get that personon board with your company to
have the right economics or theright kind of like stock options
or the right revenue share deal,like there is a way to
incentivize people to wanna workand promote your brand.
Dan Balcauski (39:04):
Chris, I could talk to you all day, but I do
note that we are running up ontime.
So I do wanna kind of startclosing this out with a few
rapid fire, lightning roundquestions.
Are you up for
Chris Ronzio (39:15):
Let's do it.
Dan Balcauski (39:16):
All right.
So look, I am believer that weall have these moments in our
lives that chain our mindset,our perspective, the way we view
the world.
I sometimes refer to it as asuperhero transformation moment.
Your Peter Parker normal highschool student.
You get bit by a radioactivespider.
The next day you wake up yourSpider-Man.
What moment has that been foryou in your life?
Chris Ronzio (39:36):
Gosh, on the personal side, one moment that
really stands out to me is Iremember being in the car with
my dad and he was on a heated.
Call, like a work call.
He's like yelling and screamingand whatever, and he's mad about
something.
And then he goes, hold on onesecond.
And he looks at the phone and myyounger brother was beeping in
and he answers it and he goeshey Jonathan, what's up?
(39:58):
And he like, totally changed hismindset.
And I loved and appreciated howmy dad was able to be like a
present father and there andprioritized his family enough to
put that business call on hold.
And that's always stuck with me.
Dan Balcauski (40:13):
Very nice way to go, dad.
Way to set the example.
It's I love, I particularly lovethat example because it's one of
those things that, it's not whathe said, like it's not a lesson
they imparted, but it's likeyour observation of how they
were in that moment.
And I feel like we have so manyopportunities in life to.
Make that impact.
But just without being paranoidabout it being like you're
always on stage and likeeveryone's looking at you but
(40:34):
you always have the opportunityto change someone's life for the
better by, by
Chris Ronzio (40:37):
Yeah.
Dan Balcauski (40:38):
the best version of
Chris Ronzio (40:39):
Yeah.
Dan Balcauski (40:39):
Love it.
What's something you believemost people disagree with?
Chris Ronzio (40:44):
What do I believe that most people would disagree
with?
I believe that.
I think a lot of people inbusiness disagree with this, and
this is sort of a bridge off.
The last thing I invest a lot inphysical fitness and
competitions.
I run marathons, I dotriathlons.
I do, I spend a lot of time justlike doing trail running.
And I think that's where I haveall my best ideas.
(41:06):
And so I think a lot of peoplewhen they're early in
entrepreneurship, think that thetime that they're spending at
the gym or running or doingwhatever.
Is stealing from the business.
And I actually look at it aslike mini strategic planning
sessions where I am creating themost value for the business at
that time, because that's whenmy brain is connecting all the
ideas and the podcasts I'mlistening to.
(41:28):
So if you're listening to thisand you're out there on the
trails right now, kudos to youbecause I think a lot of people
miss that.
Dan Balcauski (41:35):
Yes highly agree with the importance of physical
activity and getting out fromour screens.
Even if you have to have theearbuds in while you're doing
physical activity,
Chris Ronzio (41:43):
Yeah.
Dan Balcauski (41:44):
think our, we're not we're directly linear
people.
So, what's a contrarian take youhold about AI's role either in
the future of SaaS or inbusiness?
Chris Ronzio (41:55):
Contrarian.
I think that AI summarizingeverything and making everything
so efficient will actually bebad for business innovation.
I think that.
Part of innovation requiresbeing in the long form of things
like, we need to have time toprocess, we need to have time
(42:16):
to, to think about things.
And if everything comes soeasily to you and so automated I
think it actually could give usless space to really think.
And so we'll see how that playsout.
Dan Balcauski (42:27):
Yeah, I've never really understood those.
There's those services that takelike business books and give you
like the one page executivesummary and I've just never
quite understood that.
'cause I was like, first of all,most business books probably
aren't worth more than you knowthat, but I'm sure yours is.
I'm not not throwing
Chris Ronzio (42:43):
The value is in between the words and in between
the pages.
And like I, I've read the samebooks often, and when you read
'em again five years later, youget an entirely different set of
insights and lessons based onwhere you are.
At that time in your life andwhat's going on in the business
at that time, same withlistening to different podcast
episodes that you've heard inthe past.
(43:04):
And so I think summaries areprobably bad long for if that's
all we have in the world.
Dan Balcauski (43:09):
Yeah I'm trying to do an experiment right now
where I try to get a summary toknow if I want to invest in the
long term version or the longform version of the
Chris Ronzio (43:19):
Okay.
Dan Balcauski (43:20):
To but not but definitely not using a summary
as a, substitute.
Look, when you think about allthe spectacular people you've
had a chance to work with orlearn from, is there anyone that
just pops to mind who's had adisproportionate effect on the
way that you think aboutbuilding or leading companies?
Chris Ronzio (43:34):
Yeah, one of my mentors, clay Mask, he's the
founder and CEO of Infusionsoftand CRM if you know that tool.
And he told me early on that Ishould always be working to be
a.
The CEO my company needs a yearfrom now.
And I thought that was so wiseand I've shared that with so
many people because I think evenin any position in the company,
(43:57):
if you are not equipped to bethat position still in another
year or at another 50% growth ora hundred percent growth of the
company like you, you have to beoutgrowing your company if you
wanna maintain your role and youhave to be doing even better
than that if you wanna move onup.
Dan Balcauski (44:14):
Such powerful advice and advice as well.
Any, anybody inside the company,whether in a leadership position
or in an IC role, right?
If those companies are growingfast, you've kind of, you've
gotta accelerate your own growthas well to be constantly putting
yourself out of a job anddocumenting along the way so the
person behind you knows how todo it.
Chris, if you, if I gave you abillboard, you could put any
advice on there for other B2Bsios trying to scale their
(44:35):
companies, what would it say?
Chris Ronzio (44:38):
Com.
Dan Balcauski (44:40):
Well done, sir.
Played.
Chris Ronzio (44:42):
Free advertising.
Right.
Thank you.
For the billboard.
No.
If if it wasn't an ad for mycompany, what would it be?
Let's see.
I'd probably say something like,hang around success long enough
and you'll catch it.
It's success I think comes basedon who you surround yourself
with, the content you listen to,the friends that you have, the
business groups that you're in,and.
There's no real overnightsuccesses.
(45:04):
I was in peer and mastermindgroups for 12 years before I hit
my first million in revenue.
And that's a lot of time to putin and a lot of people just
wanna wake up one day and besuccessful, but there's so much
value in the process.
Dan Balcauski (45:19):
Oh, love it.
Love it.
Trainual.com.
Everyone train.com.
Chris, this has been great.
If our listeners want to connectwith you, learn more about
Trainual mul, how can they do
that?
Yeah, so Trainual.
Just search Trainual orTrainual.com
Chris Ronzio (45:30):
for me, Chris Zi.
I hang out most on Instagram andLinkedIn, so if you want to
connect with me, shoot me amessage.
Dan Balcauski (45:37):
Cool.
I will put those links in theshow notes for listeners,
everyone that wraps up thisepisode of Sask Scaling Secrets.
Thank you to Chris for sharinghis journey and insights.
For our listeners, you foundChris's insights valuable.
Please leave a review and sharethis episode with your network.
Really helps the podcast grow.
Thank you so much.
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