As a two-time CEO and COO for multiple companies from seed to IPO-stage, I entered a challenging but critical hyper-learning phase. I often felt that I learned more each day than I previously learned in a quarter.
Along the way, I learned by making mistakes… a lot of them! At the time, I wanted to run from these missteps, and not share them with the world. Why? Simply stated, I wanted to inspire confidence in my team and investors. Gradually, I grew more comfortable in my role and as a leader. I learned to embrace and share these mistakes with employees and investors. In doing so, I helped develop my team, inspired trust, and learned to lead with authenticity.
I have since coached and helped a lot of CEO’s and decided to write this short article with helpful tips. I’ll share my view of where you — as a CEO or C-level leader — should focus. In addition, I’ll share tips on where you should not waste time after seeing many leaders veer off course and focus on the wrong things.
Where Should You Focus?
#1: “Walk a Mile”… in Your Customers’ Shoes
Spend time with your top customers — together with your team. Build real relationships to help you deeply understand their problems and what “keeps them awake at night”. Know what their strategic goals are, and how they are measured. Write them handwritten thank you notes and invest in long-term relationships.
Doing so enables you to become empathetic and better meet their needs. In doing so, you will ascend from “vendor” to “strategic partner”. This positions you to equip your customers for success, and fine-tune your overall product and value proposition needed to scale your business.
These relationships will help you:
Meet their needs: Grasp customers’ business problems and address them better than anyone else.
Become entrenched: Spending quality time with your customers ensures that you deliver maximum value and cement solid, long-term relationships.
Land and expand: Identify customer challenges and unmet needs so you and your team can innovate to provide solutions that customers will love once they have them.
#2: Strategic Partnerships
Building partnerships with larger companies should be a top priority. These relationships should be built and managed by an experienced executive on your team. However, as a CEO, you should maintain involvement in the process from the definition of the initial strategy through relationship building to execution.
Partnerships are critical for your growth and strategic “breakout:. Building partnerships with larger companies should be a top priority
The reasons are twofold:
1. Revenue Growth: Great partnerships can drive substantial revenue! While every partnership is different, growth can come from selling directly to a partner, through product integrations or bundles, where you go to market together, and by leveraging the partner sales team to co-sell your product or aid in distribution.
2. Strategic Acquisitions: Sizable exits are more likely to happen when you have a pre-existing relationship and mutual familiarity.. Larger partners often become strategic acquirers, paying significant premiums for businesses they understand well.
#3: Selling
Closing and maintaining major customers is a permanent CEO responsibility. High-profile customers should feel valued by the CEO and have direct access to you. Here’s how:
Support Sales Reps: Assist your sales team in closing major accounts and accompany them on key sales calls.
Maintain Relationships: Ensure major clients have your cell phone number and feel comfortable reaching out at any time. Regularly check in with them to ensure satisfaction, and explore new opportunities.
#4: Recruiting
As the CEO of a growing company, you should continuously engage with top industry talent and entice them to join your firm. This includes:
C-Suite Executives: Target high-level executives to strengthen your leadership team.
Sales and Tech Talent: Pursue the best sales reps and tech professionals.
Customer Success Reps: Ensure your customers have the best support possible.
#5: Scrutinizing the Numbers
A deep understanding of key performance indicators (KPIs) is crucial:
Cash Efficiency: Monitor how effectively you are using cash and how investments contribute to near-term growth.
Net Dollar Retention: Track the percentage of revenue retained from existing customers.
Gross Dollar Retention: Measure the total revenue retained without any upsells.
Burn: You always need to know “how much gas is left in the tank” and how fast you are consuming it. I’ve learned that there are always opportunities to reduce burn without impacting growth.
These metrics help identify your ideal customer, allowing you to focus solely on them and drive growth.
#6: Communication with Your Team
Communicate on a regular cadence to your team. Ideally once a month, but at least once a quarter. No matter how hard, be open, honest, and frank. Embrace “radical candor” when doing so — this will help build trust with your team. In addition, publicly recognizing employees for hard work and great outcomes is an important strategy. Last, admit mistakes and embrace them in front of your team. Doing so will help you become the CEO your team will want to work for again.
#7: Pricing Strategy
Aligning your pricing strategy with the value your product provides is essential. If you are one of the few tech businesses remaining without a recurring revenue model, figure out how to get there — FAST!
As a recurring revenue business, consider:
Avoiding Per-Seat Pricing: Unlimited seats can make your product stickier.
Value-Based Pricing: Charge based on the value your product delivers.
Simplify your model: Complex pricing models that deviate from market models and are hard for customers to understand.
Focus is Paramount to Success!
Concentrating on the tasks above will help you grow as a leader, focus on the most impactful areas of the business to maximize your impact, and scale your company effectively.
Areas You Should Avoid:
“Visioning”
While having a vision is important, avoid becoming an aloof CEO who spends too much time on the conference circuit preaching about the future of your industry or selling a grand vision. Execution is key, and a CEO should actively engage internally with sales, customer success, and product teams.
Reviewing Legal Documents
Leave complex legal matters to lawyers. Be familiar with significant deal points, but for minor edits, trust your legal team and move on. Minor legal details — especially if handled by your legal team — rarely impact business outcomes significantly.
Engaging with Venture Capitalists (VCs)
Unless you are actively fundraising, limit your interactions with VCs. They will seek you out when your business is attractive. Avoid non-essential calls, as these rarely build meaningful relationships and can be a distraction.
Key Takeaway: Focus!
You only have so many hours in a day. By focusing on customer relationships, strategic partnerships, talent acquisition, value proposition, KPIs, and pricing strategy, while ruthlessly eliminating distractions, you can lead your team to sustained success.
Good luck, and drop me a line if you want any advice or an experienced sounding board for effectively running your company.
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