B2b sales development for sport organisations

How to create outlook signature

welcome to the dream at dose for b2b startups crossing one million dollars in annual recurring revenue or arr is a magical moment it feels like you're finding product market fit and investors will now take you more seriously so how do you determine the best early potential companies to focus on that will help you cross this magical arr threshold as quickly as possible let's dive in dream adventures has been investing in great early stage startups for over a decade the dream at dose allows us to share best practices to help even more founders tell us about your great startup using the links below [Music] before we go head first into this topic i want to make sure that we are 100 on the same page on what exactly arr is we see so many startups create confusion for themselves and investors around the term arr is a very important metric for most investors and it's critical that you use the term correctly let's define ar by covering what it is not it is not one-off hardware or product sales it is not money paid for proof of concept or trial it's not fees charge implementation services or one-off non-recurring revenue all of the above are revenue but are not recurring revenue and should not be counted as such we hear startups interchangeably use the terms ar and revenue avoid making that mistake further often startups will mistakenly count total contract value or tcv as though it's arr for example when we ask about arr startup will tell us they signed a contract for 300 000 we ask wait is that a multi-year contract many times the answer is yes and it turns out to be something like a two-year deal so if that's the case the startup's three hundred thousand dollar contract should be stated as a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in ar oh and wait if in that contract it includes implementation services and other non-recurring charges those need to be removed to discover the true arr net net when speaking to investors make sure you're talking about arr correctly and not intermixing non-recurring revenue or adding the total value of multi-year contracts into your arr okay end of ramp let's start hitting ideas on where to focus to break through the 1 million ar threshold to get there as quickly as possible make sure you are prioritizing and focusing on companies and opportunities that have the highest paying point for the problem you're solving we see a lot of startups stall and trying to get to one million dollars in arr their sales pipeline is full of companies that have the problem but it's not a big and urgent need for them the time to close those mildly affected companies drags on those potential customers don't have a strong sense of urgency or forcing function to get your solution in place as quickly as possible keep in mind as the level of paying accompany feels goes up the time to close goes down therefore to close sales more quickly you should focus on potential customers experiencing the greatest pain the next type of potential customer i want you to target is those that are the easiest to close sometimes we see startups going after huge companies that are well-known brands that they know are going to be extremely difficult to sell to this is often a mistake going after lesser known brands may seem counterintuitive but it can be a great way to gain early customers instead of trying to hook fight and land a thousand pound tuna go after the smaller fish often startups don't want to go after easy fish as it's like well what's the sport in that screw sport this is about closing customers and building revenue think about focusing on your ideal customers that are the easiest to close next to get past one million dollars in arr make sure you're targeting potential customers that are extremely well aligned with your go to market strategy if you haven't seen our dose in the topic please make sure to check it out most startups don't have a solid go to market strategy and in that dose we quickly explain what you need to do to put it together correctly a quick summary is i want you to create a litmus test of the top criteria that describe your ideal early adopters using this litmus test you'll figure out how to focus your efforts on potential customers that have those characteristics and a higher likelihood to purchase next up an overall way of thinking about a lot of these things is to apply a sales methodology like bant which stands for budget authority need and timing this sales approach has been around since the 60s and there are many similar strategies sadly many early stage startups aren't even aware of these sales approaches bant does a nice job of integrating several items we've talked about first budget how much is the target customer able and willing to spend in your discussions make sure customers have the budget to bring in your solution in the time frame you're looking to close early sales now let's talk about authority does your main point person at the target customer have the authority to purchase your product you can definitely ask something along the lines of who do we need to get a yes from to move forward with this purchase next up let's talk about need we talked earlier about pain points when discussing bant need simply means do they have an urgent problem aka need that your product solves the last part of bant is the t timing in this case we mean is there enough urgency is there some forcing function that's going to drive them to purchase sooner rather than later okay the last item i want to cover is land and expand we hear a lot of startups talk a good game about how they're going to use a land and expand sales approach you know once they get in the door of a potential customer and get one department or team using it they'll be able to expand that customer get more departments and teams and generate even greater revenue the problem we see frequently the startup has no real examples of land and expand working so prove out that you can get land and expand to work for you not only will you get to your 1 million ar revenue threshold more quickly but in your next investor pitch you'll have evidence that your land and expand strategy actually works okay that's it those are six things you should focus on when trying to get your company to one million dollars an ar first make sure when an investor asks you about arr you're using the term correctly and talking about revenue that truly recurs second focus on potential customers that have huge pain around the problem you're solving sales will close more quickly third focus on potential customers that are easiest to close don't just chase after big logos which are usually harder to get fourth make sure the customers you are targeting are aligned with your well thought through and finely tuned go to market strategy fifth apply the bant or similar sales method make sure you have clarity on budget authority need and timing finally sixth if you're claiming a land and expand approach make sure you prove that it works your ar and investors will thank you that's it that's your dream at dose please leave your questions in the comments section if you found this video valuable please like and subscribe we have a lot more coming to see all of our doses go to dreamit.com see you next time was it a whole different section i don't know i'm just a reading tool i just read you put it up i read it but it can be a great way to get early so let's rip through bran that have the characteristics that will make them the hollywood i screwed it up again