Articles by David Cummings
Build a Three Year Vision PlanDavid provides a template for what a three year company vision plan might look like: • S.W.O.T. Analysis – Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats as they exist three years from now (e.g. strengths will change over time — what will they look like in three years?) • Product – Core modules and functionality, much like a simple roadmap for the product • Team – Outline all the departments, job titles, reporting structure, etc. (e.g. going from 10 people to 100 people is a major undertaking, and this exercise of going through all 100 positions is well worth it — see What Your First 100 Hires Will Look Like) • Metrics – Include things like annual recurring revenue, customer count, renewal rates, cost of customer acquisition, marketing qualified leads, sales qualified leads, etc. • Funding – Detail how many rounds of funding are required, dollar amounts, and any other pertinent information • Miscellaneous – Anything else that’s relevant to the three year vision of the business
- Mapping Out the Sales Stages
David provides 2 examples of sales stages for startups.
- Growth-Stage Startups Should Have In-House Recruiters
David covers 6 reasons for bringing recruiting in-house at growth stage startups.
- 6 Steps to Build a Culture of Accountability
The 6 steps David covers are: 1. Answer the "three basic questions" for every employee 2. Decide on 3-5 operational metrics with goals that each employee owns and reports on weekly 3. Review the employee’s work and metrics at a regular meeting 4. Provide a KPI Dashboard for each department 5. Analyze personal goals on a quarterly basis as part of the quarterly check-ins 6. Tie everything together with the "Simplified One Page Strategic Plan"
- Questions to Develop the Ideal Customer Profile
David provides 5 questions you can leverage to make an ideal customer profile, and provides an example of what the answers looked like at Pardot to make their ICP.
- Discovery Calls – A Critical Part of the Sales Process
David identifies sales discovery questions that have worked for him in the past, including: • How do you currently do X? • What tools, system or process do you use to do X? • What works well with X? • What are some challenges with X? • Who else is involved with X? • How much time do you spend on X? • If you could wave a magic wand, how would X work? • What’s your timeline for changing X? • Anything else I need to know about X?