Challenge

Figuring out how to change the sales conversation

Virtuals sales can be challenging. Not only do they require the ability to make a solid human-to-human connection via the computer. But they also require powerful sales presentations. Creating those sales presentations can be a challenge. To help businesses deal with this problem, Dean Curtis and Ron Kwiatkowski created Ingage.

Ingage is a SaaS platform that allows companies to high impact sales presentations that are easy to share with prospects and that collects data that allows salespeople to measure their effectiveness.

Ingage had been doing well targeting mid-market companies, particularly in the home improvement business. But Dean and Ron wanted to grow and to do that, they needed help changing the way they looked at sales. “The challenge was figuring out how to move from selling a product to helping solve the problems customers were facing,” says Ron. “We needed to take the conversation away from the current focus on the features of our product to helping them understand how Ingage could help them uplevel their business.”

But they couldn’t do it themselves. “We were looking for someone who had experience in building a solid sales process for SaaS companies,” says Ron.

Previous attempts to work with consultants had either resulted in high-level, long-term strategy or they weren’t a good fit based on where Ingage was as a company. “The majority of people we’ve worked with in the past were very good if you had an established product and market. But they fell short if you hadn’t hit that point of maturity,” says Ron.

Then, one of Dean and Ron’s marketing partners mentioned Dan Morris of Mindracer Consulting.

Building the necessary systems to meet growth goals

Unlike other consultants who focused on the big picture, Dan took a more tactical approach when working with Ingage to create systems that provide the team with a structured way to move through the sales process.

“Prior to working with Dan,” says Dean, “We had a very haphazard approach to sales. We had a good salesperson, who was doing well. But it wasn’t as structured as it is now. Dan brought a vocabulary to sales, as well as a focus on process.”

The first order of business was looking at the sales pipeline to determine how leads were being captured and what was going on in the various stages of the sales process.

Once Dan had a sense of what the sales process looked like, he began coaching the sales team, as well as Dean and Ron. And, Dan started creating systems that allowed them to better understand their sales cycle. “The systems he established,” says Ron, “Allow us to track the data in terms of velocity of deals, and close rates. This enabled us to better understand what our deal cycle time was like. It helped us see that the majority of leads that were generated inside of a quarter, were closed inside the same quarter.”

Along with a better understanding of their sales cycle, Dean and Ron now had the metrics they needed to shape their growth based on capacity and their overall sales cycle.

5X revenue and 3X customer growth

The result of Dan’s work was exactly the kind of growth Dean and Ron had been hoping for. “Since Dan's come on board, we've been able to 5X our annual recurring revenue,” says Dean. “And, along with that, we now have three times as many customers as we did when he started.”

Along with the increase in sales and customers, came internal growth.“We’ve hired a couple of new people,” says Dean. “And, because of Dan, we were able to onboard them in a very structured way. It wasn’t just the onboarding that was structured, but how we hired. We knew we needed people with specific skills and Dan helped us identify those skills.”

Dan helped Dean and Ron get to the root of what was most important to them in terms of growth. “When you’re running a startup, you’ve got a million things coming at you,” says Dean. “Dan helped us figure out what was most important to talk about in the moment and get clear on our priorities.”

But it wasn’t just about clarity and planning, “We've always known where we want to go,” says Dean. We have aggressive growth goals, and I think what Dan’s helped us gain confidence in our plan around those goals.”