As the founder of a tech services company, you'll have to build your leadership team. As an early-stage tech services company, you'll work with more constraints than in a large organization or a funded startup. You'll have to run a tight ship to grow your team in balance with the company's growth. We want to provide a blueprint to understand your business units' responsibilities and critical roles. The four business units we will cover in this series are:
Sales and marketing
Delivery
Operations
Talent
In this article, we will start by discussing the growth of your company's revenue engine: the sales and marketing business units.
Sales And Marketing: Fueling The Growth Engine
Your company's growth from your first client starts with sales and marketing. You need both functions working in tandem to maintain steady growth for your tech services startup. This article discusses this growth in terms of revenue. The numbers are aligned to blended onshore/offshore revenue and would need to be adjusted accordingly for fully onshore and offshore companies.
0 - 500k: Laying The Foundation
The founder often doubles as the primary salesperson, leveraging personal networks and referrals. The founder-led sales supplements founder-led marketing activities. Starting activities will include events, conferences, blogs, and social media.
500k - 1.5M: Getting Help
The CEO would still be the primary seller, but you may use a sales coordinator to rescue some of their time. A business development manager to generate, process, and nurture leads. At this point, spending money on a more strategic marketing effort makes sense. A fractional CMO and marketing specialists must continue the thought leadership and brand awareness effort. You should also develop partner relationships.
1.5M - 3M: Beyond The Founder
At this stage, the primary sales responsibility must extend beyond the founders. You need to bring on dedicated account executives and solutions architects. Marketing efforts become more strategic with focused campaigns to establish a stronger brand. At this stage, you would leverage all the strategies mentioned in this article, including a fully developed marketing and partnership team.
3M - 5M: Building The Team
Scaling beyond 3 million requires developing the sales function into a sales team. You no longer have the benefit of being small and must weave the founder's vision and passion into the messaging and the processes for sales to continue to grow. Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) and Chief Product Officer (CPO) hires would integrate the customer journey from contact to delivery.
What This Means For Your Tech Services Startup
Building and refining the sales and marketing machinery is a continuous endeavor. This article gives you a blueprint for understanding how the sales and marketing functions in your business will change as your business grows. With this knowledge, you can be intentioned in your growth developing capabilities as you need them. The next installment of this series delves into the intricacies of 'Delivery' – ensuring promises made are promises kept.