From Impossible to Inevitable: How Saas and Other Hyper-Growth Companies Create Predictable Revenue (Hardcover, 2)

Preface. Systematizing Success

Lessons from the World’s Fastest-Growing Companies

Part I: Nail A Niche

Chapter 1: “Niche” Doesn’t Mean Small

Are You Sure You’re Ready to Grow Faster?

How to Know If You’ve Nailed A Niche

Achieve World Domination One Niche at a Time

The Arc of Attention

Chapter 2: Signs of Slogging

Are You a Nice-to-Have?

Big Companies Suffer, Too

Case Study: Where Aaron Went Wrong

Your Current Strength Can Be a Future Weakness

Chapter 3: How to Nail It

Where Can You Be a Big Fish in a Small Pond?

Work through the Niche Matrix

Case Study: How Twilio Nailed A Billion Dollar Niche By Walking In Its Customers Shoes

The 20-Interview Rule

Chapter 4: Your Pitch

If You Were a Radio Station, Would Anyone Tune In?

Elevator Pitches Are Always Frustrating

They Don’t Care about “You”: Three Simple Questions

Part II: Create Predictable Pipeline

Chapter 5: Seeds—Customer Success

How to Grow Seeds Predictably

Case Study: How Gild Dropped Monthly Churn from 4 to 1

Case Study: Customer Service Excellence at Topcon

Chapter 6: Nets—Marketing

3 Uncommon Approaches Of Hyper-Growth CMOs

The Forcing Function Your Marketing Leader Needs: A “Lead Commit”

Corporate Marketing versus Demand Generation

Case Study: How Inbound Changed In 10 Years Between Scaling Marketo to $100M+ And Founding Engagio

Heroic Marketing: When You Have No Money and Little Time

Chapter 7: Spears—Outbound Prospecting

Where Outbound Works Best—and Where It Fails

Outbound Lessons Learned Since Predictable Revenue Was Published

Case Study: Outbound’s Role in Acquia’s $100 Million Trajectory

Case Study: How Sagemount Triples The Value Of a Company In 3 Years

Case Study: How Zuora Drives 60%+ of its Growth By Outbound, Even When Accounts Need Years Of Nurturing

Build an Outbound Program Right the 1st Time

Have You Been “Too Successful” at Inbound?

Chapter 8: What Executives Miss

Pipeline Creation Rate: Your #1 Leading Metric

The 15/85 Rule: Early Adopters and Mainstream Buyers

Why You’re Underestimating Customer Lifetime Value

Part III: Make Sales Scalable

Chapter 9: Learn from Our Mistakes

Growth Creates More Problems Than It Solves—But They Are Better Problems

Top 12 Mistakes in Building Sales Teams

Advice from the VP Sales behind LinkedIn and EchoSign

Chapter 10: Specialization: Your #1 Sales Multiplier

Why Salespeople Shouldn’t Prospect

Case Study: How Clio Restructured Sales in Three Months

Can You Be Too Small, or Too Big, to Specialize?

Specialization: Two Common Objections

Specialization Snapshot at Acquia

Chapter 11: Sales Leaders

The #1 Mis-Hire is the VP/Head of Sales

The Right VP Sales for Your Stage

10 Favorite Interview Questions

Chapter 12: Hiring Best Practices for Sales

Simple Hiring Tricks

When Doing Something New, Start with Two

The $100 Million HubSpot Sales Machine: Recruiting and Coaching Essentials

Case Study: How to Cut Down on Wasted Interviewing

Chapter 13: Scaling the Sales Team

If You’re Churning More Than 10% of Your Salespeople, They Aren’t the Problem

3 Ways to Cut Churn & Increase Sales Motivation While You Scale

Put Nonsales Leaders on Variable Comp Plans Too

Are Your Enterprise Deals Taking Forever?

Five Key Sales Metrics (with a Twist)

Chapter 14: For Startups Only

4 Phases of Hiring Your 1st Sales Team

Every Tech Company Should Offer Services

What Jason Invests In, and Do You Need to Raise Money to Scale?

What the Headcount of a 100-Person SaaS Company Looks Like

Part IV: Double Your Deal-size

Chapter 15: Deal Size Math

You Need 50 Million Users to Make Freemium Work

Small Deals Get You Started, Big Deals Drive Growth

Chapter 16: Not Too Big, Not Too Small

When You Can’t Turn Small Deals into Big Ones

If You Have Customers of All Sizes

Chapter 17: Going Upmarket

If You Don’t Want Salespeople . . .

Add Another Top Pricing Tier

Pricing Is Always a Pain

Going Fortune 1000

Part V: Do The Time

Chapter 18: Embrace Frustration

Are You Sure You’re Ready for This?

Everyone Has a Year of Hell

Comfort Is the Enemy of Growth

Motivation: How Aaron Reached Escape Velocity

Chapter 19: Success Isn’t a Straight Line

The Anxiety Economy and Entrepreneur Depression

Mark Suster’s Question: “Should a Person Learn or Earn?”

When a Straight Line Isn’t the Shortest Path to Success

Change Your World, Not the World

Part VI: Embrace Employee Ownership

Chapter 20: A Reality Check

Dear Executives (From an Employee)

Dear Employee (From the Executives)

P.S.: “Dear Senior Executives, Don’t Get Left Behind” (From the CEO and Board)

Are Your People Renting or Owning?

Chapter 21: For Executives: Create Functional Ownership

A Simple Survey

“No Surprises”

Functional Ownership

Case Study: How a Struggling Team Turned into a Self-Managing Success

Chapter 22: Taking Ownership to the Next Level

Financial Ownership

Move People Around

The Four Types of Employees

Part VII: Define Your Destiny

Chapter 23: Are You Abdicating Your Opportunity?

Your Opportunity Is Bigger Than You Realize

How to Expand Your Opportunity at Work

You Need Some Humdrum Passions

Your Company Isn’t Your Mommy or Daddy

Forcing Functions: How to Motivate Yourself to Do Things You Don’t Feel Like Doing

Sales Is a Life Skill

Sales Is a Multistep Process

Chapter 24: Combining Money and Meaning

Meaning Gone Wrong

What’s Your Unique Genius?

Ignoring Real Life Doesn’t Make It Go Away

Aaron: How the Hell Do You Juggle 9 Kids and Work?

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

Index