SCALING-UP AGENDA, BASED LONDON Innovation apps
The hiring challenge! The two co-founders had taken their idea of an innovation and sustainability app for major global enterprises to market.
Not an easy journey. The initial response was tepid; early prospects liked the idea but felt there were some gaps. Months quarters later and this London-based SaaS vendor saw their app deployed on a large basis with a UK household name Telco. This, together with a few other seed-type clients and another break…
Series “A” funding £2M. Time for scale-up. Build a sales organisation, sign up new customers and accelerate sales.
They wanted to open new doors, win new clients and drive revenue growth. The co-founders were recommended to talk with us.
The remit. to headhunt a high-potential, high-achieving sales team, compromising: a Chief Revenue Officer, a Head of Pre Sales and 2 x Enterprise sales professionals.
They wanted a CRO accomplished in scaling up a sales organisation from zero to 30, a Head of Pre Sales who’d join as a player and become a player-manager, who had expertise in their market space, who could relate to customers and be convincing in the detail.
Plus, they need two sellers ideally familiar with the space, which is really not just sustainability but, for large enterprises, their supply chain – they wanted sellers with know-how in the supply chain. The mission to grow sales from £2M to £6M to £12M and beyond… The approach. Robert Tearle Consulting undertook initial research to determine the ideal source backgrounds of the individuals.
The most suitable backgrounds were identified as being SaaS vendors with apps for supply chain, procurement, innovation, environmental/sustainability, governance and risk management.
Next, we identified the specific companies in the above areas and went about identifying all the specific relevant “A” player talents and reaching out to them.
This generated a prospective high-quality talent pool, from which we were able to qualify people in and out on the basis of interest level and ability.
Presenting to the client 3+ “A” player type candidates for each, giving choice and perspective/comparison.
From which 3 hires were made.
At the end of the project, we identified a final sales candidate who was particularly relevant and of really high quality and insisted to the client that they meet with the candidate even though all three headcounts had been filled. This very special talent was invited to interview and hired. The results Few things are straightforward in life, particularly when you’re in start-up/scale-up mode. What happened next? Covid.
So, with a hit squad assembled, our client was ready to go to the market however the market was caught in headlights…
First to market, with a new category of app not the easiest of jobs…
What followed was a slow 12 months however, in that period, the team engaged with the market, profiled customers, engaged with decision-makers, and created interest and projects that had not previously been on the agenda…
They’ve raised visibility and won over hearts and minds at the “C” suite level across many of the UK’s FTSE Top 100 companies.
They’ve been landing pilots, departmental projects, land and expand deals… and enterprise-wide ones…
In one major European company, 19 companies in a group have deployed these apps.
One of the household name Telcos in the UK has 2,000 plus users.
Their target market is large enterprises, so they don’t move too quickly however sales started to happen and are beginning to enjoy a domino effect… big names are signing up on a monthly basis high street names you’d be familiar with in banking, top, consumer packaged goods companies, pharma/life sciences firms and pre-eminent beer brands in the UK, and Western Europe.
This success was initiated, driven and successfully concluded by the hires made through us with the support of the founding team.
Now, they’re poised to land their Series “B” funding.