Sales Killed the company

I worked at a SaaS company, we were doing good. More deals every day - household names you all know - the Walmarts and the Nestles of the world.

So what?

Well, shit hit the fan.
Key clients wouldn’t renew.
New deals stopped coming in.
Brand strength declined.

It’s a loop.

Ok. But why?

We were not retaining. At all. In fact,
we were not even activating.
The first thing I did after joining was to measure activation.
It was the first time anyone in the org did it.
It was low single digit registration to activation rates.
We could have fixed it. But we didn’t.

Why?

Shortermism.
Fixing activation doesn’t bring more deals IMMEDIATELY.

Fixing retention doesn’t bring mode deals IMMEDIATELY.

Preparing mocks for demos brings more short-term bad leads, and some do convert to clients.
Handling fires caused by those bad leads could retain clients. Like a band-aid.
That was the situation, and it led to another vicious loop.

Remember this -
you might have more time, and patience, to get where your company needs to go than your board.
You should make the calls.
Don't les sales kill your company.

Originally post on the GrowthMail: growthmail.substack.com