I’ve seen, and even created, some very bad playbooks. And some pretty bad playbooks.  And some not-so-terrible playbooks. And a handful of good playbooks (to be honest, the good ones are rare—most playbooks are just flat out awful). Along the way,

Rev rec must be timely, accurate, consistent and auditable in order to be reliable as a management tool. Strategically, deferred revenue has sizable implications on how cash in the business is managed and invested.

Creating a sales playbook is a big undertaking. And once you have it launched, it doesn’t guarantee adoption. And it needs to be updated very regularly. And reviewed for accuracy. It’s just a lot of freaking work to get the ball rolling and keep it in ...

My framework for running a growing company is "wheels on, pedal down". Both 'wheels on', and 'pedal down' activities are important. I need to do just enough things that keep the wheels on, and I also need to push the pedal down constantly.

Revenue churn is a huge indicator of growth potential. That’s because, even when companies have significant customer churn, they can overcome it with expansion revenue. When you have that, combined with success in new customer acquisition,

This isn’t about your CRM, or your marketing automation platform, or your auto-dialer, or your…anything. You may have those things, and you may not. Don’t worry about that stuff. It will all work itself out later.

SaaS businesses grow at the intersection of customer acquisition and lifetime value. When customers churn they cut short lifetime value and upend the fundamental driver of healthy growth

I will sacrifice luxurious features, chalk them up as ‘nice to haves’, and go with thinner, less cumbersome solutions. I’d much rather have 80% of the features run well 100% of the time than the inverse. 

Acceleration comes from focusing the right sales and marketing messaging and tactics on the right prospects at the right time. The data needed to make that sort of success predictable must be intentionally sought, recorded and leveraged.

When the ratios are off…for example too many salespeople for available marketing spend; or too many marketing team members for the available spend and lead requirements; the whole program is destined to fail.