# Building a Path to Profit

> A NachoTuesday interview — the C-Suite Insights series from NachoNacho, the B2B SaaS and AI
> marketplace. In conversation with Mason Dettloff, Co-Founder, Praction.

- **Page:** https://nachonacho.com/nachotuesday/video/Building-a-Path-to-Profit
- **Guest:** Mason Dettloff, Co-Founder, Praction
- **Guest on LinkedIn:** https://www.linkedin.com/in/arkadymsokolov/
- **Recorded:** 2024-10-20
- **Watch:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc-dRB1umk4

## Summary

In this NachoTuesday webinar, Mason, co-founder of praction, introduces their company which offers software and consulting services to help B2B software companies accelerate their path to exit. Their platform serves as an "automated Chief Revenue Officer" for companies in the $5-20 million revenue range, focusing on goal feasibility and providing actionable strategies. Their consulting arm offers fractional CRO services for larger companies. Mason emphasizes the blend of technology and human expertise, highlighting how their consulting work informs their product roadmap. He also shares insights on generating demand by educating the 95% of the market not actively buying, identifying key buying signals, and avoiding common early-stage pitfalls like premature hiring and neglecting product-market fit. Key Talking Points: Combining Software Automation with Human Expertise Provides Optimal Value : Practionn's approach of blending an automated platform with fractional CRO services ensures clients receive both strategic guidance and practical execution, leading to better outcomes than relying solely on technology. Effective Demand Generation Involves Educating the Majority of the Market : Instead of solely focusing on the 5% actively looking to buy, marketers should invest in long-term education for the 95% who may not yet realize they have a problem, building trust and future demand. Prioritizing Product-Market Fit and Sales Conversations is Crucial for Early-Stage Success : Before scaling or building excessive features, early-stage companies must validate their product by consistently engaging in sales conversations and ensuring there's genuine demand for their offering.

## Product discussed

- **Name:** Praction
- **Page:** https://nachonacho.com/product/praction
- **What it is:** Automated Chief Revenue Officer platform for SaaS companies seeking to optimize their growth from Seed to Series C.
- **NachoNacho deal:** 15% CASHBACK All Plans. Forever.
- **Estimated savings:** Save up to $16,200/year

## Full transcript

(00:01) Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to another Nacho Tuesday. We're both in New York City today, so we could probably have done this in person, but without further ado, I'd like to introduce you to Mason, the co-founder of Praan. Mason, we'd love to hear what you guys do over there. (00:34) Yeah, it's funny. We've been testing a lot of different elevator pitches and messaging, seeing what sticks as we have all our pitching conversations and marketing. I prepped one specifically for this, so we'll see your reaction to it. This is our newest elevator pitch that has been resonating well with people. So, the TL;DR is that Praan is a software and consulting services company. We specifically help B2B software companies accelerate their path to exit or some sort of liquidity event. For many companies, that's getting acquired; for others, it's an IPO, merger, or whatever it may be. But at the end of the day, that's the North Star for founders, executives, and investors. Our platform and consulting services are meant to help you accomplish that. (01:10) So, what do we do? We call our platform an "automated Chief Revenue Officer." It's specifically designed for companies in the $5M to $20M range that don't have a CRO but need the work that role does, especially in terms of the art and science behind revenue generation, building that infrastructure, and the whole go-to-market motion. Then, our consulting arm is really for those larger companies that need a CRO. We come in and operate in a fractional capacity as a CRO. So, two sides: platform and services. Essentially, we develop custom strategies for these companies, depending on which aspect of our products and services they're using. At the end of the day, we help increase revenue, refine go-to-market operations, and enhance customer value. (02:20) How do we do that? We center everything around goal feasibility. How does our platform and consulting increase the likelihood of hitting your goals? This is different, right? All these other sales tech platforms—which we don't compete with—like Salesforce or HubSpot, just tell you how you're performing against your goal. But none of them are telling you, "Oh, you just set a $20M goal, but it doesn’t seem like you’ll hit it." Where’s the proof you can do this? They just report out how you're doing. So, our platform and services are meant to say, "Hey, pump the brakes, and let us tell you if this goal is feasible." If it’s not feasible, we provide the playbooks, operations, accountability metrics, and business performance you need to day in and day out to increase the likelihood of hitting that goal. That’s our sweet spot—platform and services, all about goal feasibility. How do we make it more likely for you to hit your goal? What are all the art and science aspects of revenue and go-to-market that you need to accomplish? (03:23) So, that’s the quick—maybe 75 seconds—description. It’s a decent elevator ride, but it's very clear about what you guys do. (03:33) Thanks. Yeah, I like how you blend consulting services with the automation side. Do you have any thoughts on the trade-off between automation and keeping a human-in-the-loop approach? You know, with your expertise, you bring that aspect in without relying entirely on automation. Does that make sense? (03:51) Totally. This is something we’ve seen in the market. The market is moving toward more tech-enabled services, and we’ve seen that over time, especially in the last 10 years, with the growth-at-all-costs mentality. Everyone bought software because "software is eating the world." But now, people are realizing, "My tech stack is bloated. It’s hard to extract value from these solutions, and I’m busy. I just need someone to help me." That doesn’t mean there’s no role for software. This was a lesson from our clients. Originally, we tried to make a full software play. The genesis of Praan was our fractional Chief Revenue Officer business, which was very successful. We built a robust consulting business, either in a shotgun approach—coming in as your CRO to fix everything and help you grow—or in a laser-focused approach, addressing specific problems like customer journeys or sales enablement. (04:51) We were successful in doing that and thought, "There’s a software play here that could help automate some of this—help with goal feasibility and executive accountability." So, we started building toward that. But the market was telling us—and what we saw with other clients helping software companies—was that people still really want a human being. Left to their own devices, it’s hard, especially for premium software solutions, to showcase time to value if users are left on their own. (05:24) So, the tech-enabled services model makes sense. The analogy I use is that the platform is like Google Maps. We show you different ways to hit your revenue goals—whether by car, plane, boat, or bike—but our consulting arm comes in and acts as the driver. We're there to help you. (06:19) execute on what the platform is dictating and showing you and we found that that just to be a really sweet spot and and makes us stickier and and it's candid what people want because I I think we've seen with our customers in our Consulting that people are are a little tired out of buying software they're like okay great another user seat and and Tech solution that I'm gonna have to manage so it's like no let the platform actually guide yeah you customer and then us as the as the vendor on the work that we'll execute on (06:55) together you know hand inand yeah we've definitely noticed that we're a subscription management platform we have we have that as a premium feature but uh yeah people buy so much software they don't know who's using it how much they're spending so you know we we kind of focus on that problem ourselves and uh to your point too i' I've seen a lot of companies that the tech enabled Services is really a big Trend um and a lot of a lot of the best Founders I've actually seen over the years um have (07:20) been people that have had maybe an agency or a service side business yeah and what they realized is that if you know they started building tools to kind of solve their client problems and kind of kind of automate some stuff and then they they realize from that that there's a actually a huge Market opportunity for it as well so you know I definitely agree there's um there's definitely a bigger movement towards blending the service side of the business especially when it comes to onboarding new clients (07:44) and then having some sort of tech to help automate some of the process and you know lead to some of those uh elusive reoccurring Revenue opportunities that everybody wants totally but look and and we've discovered it's actually been one of the best ways to get product intelligence and dictate our road map is doing the Consulting work yep you're customer yep getting our hands dirty going in there looking under the hood actually doing all the Tactical like building the strategy but then also executing on it (08:14) and getting very tactical and everything that we do in the Consulting validates um and brings to light what we need to build in the product but with the lens of okay hey this no software is going to replace a person fully but how can how can what we're building increase our impact make that impact much much um quicker and allow us to be at more places at once yeah which is the goal and so far we're we're seeing a lot of success with kind of marrying the two but then also aligning saying hey like we we've just launched a (08:52) pretty successful pilot program where it's like you're going to get our software and our services together but you're going to pick one pain point one challenge that we're going to prove to you in those 90 days that both of these things can solve together not isolated not one or the other together um and again that that's proven to to just be um you know responds really well W with with these prospects of like okay great I'm not just I get I want the tech okay are you just another Consulting person (09:24) that's going to tell me what to do and not help me actually execute so both of them together with a unified focus is just you know resonated really well yeah you guys are definitely on Trend you know I've seen a lot of like SEO agencies that have like MO is a great example you know agency that kind of launched you know the tools and everything to kind of support it and you know I interview a lot of Founders you know both launching like a lot of different marketing tools like their agency would literally create this stuff (09:53) and you know tie that in with the consulting services that they offer as well so uh definitely definitely a lot of value there how did you guys how did you get to this point in your career um where where did where did everything start from yeah I mean it's cliche to to say but I was like I had no dreams of working at B2B SAS growing up I think if anyone did they probably need a diagnosis of some sort but um you know for me I always had you know a desire or passion to create something build something from scratch (10:26) and grow it so early on and look that could have been selling cookies you know building a house whatever it may be but I was like okay that Northstar that sort of fundamental of building and growing something was an itch I wanted a scratch I also wanted you know some Financial Liberation so starting a career in B2B sales was definitely you know a good a good place to to start with that and I learned with sales you know because I had my preconceived notions of like salesman you know the the used car person you know so I had some baggage (11:05) going into it but I was like that's just for selling used cars but when you're selling something of value to people it's actually very consultative and you're actually helping people exactly but you know everyone has those kind of stereotypes you think in the you see movies and 70s 80s of the of the salesmen don't ask the engineers what they think about us well well exactly right well that's why many companies back in the day separated the two you know you on different floors I like Engineers but they they do think (11:30) different as as well as we do so 100% you can't have a successful company you know without each other but what I saw I was like oh starting a career in sales and I I wanted to join a startup you know be an early employee and and grow it I was like oh sales what is this teaching me teaching me how to pitch something persuasion convince someone with money that they need what I'm in here and to actually give us money to do it um at a pretty premium price point those type of fundamentals I was like wait this can be (12:08) applied to many many other things um and I was like wait this is a great place to start if I know long term I want to build you know my own type of venture Product Company so I started my career in the startup world you know Business Development jack of all trades kind of grew my career to then you know lead sales organizations and then from there um you know me and my business partner Scott we saw that hey there's a big opportunity here to to help companies that are you know our sweet spot started in this like (12:43) five to20 million Revenue range that hey they've seen a lot of success but that success has been through grit a lot of luck right founder Le sales but they haven't started this repeatable process they haven't you know really figured out how to build a revenue infrastructure to get them to that next level because what got you from 5 to 20 million is not what's going to get you to 20 to 50 yeah 50 to 100 and so on so we started a company together knowing that hey there's a big need for that type of company for us to (13:17) come in as sort of that Chief Revenue officer because look and as you know Andy the the chief Revenue officer role it's high attrition they generally don't last more than 18 months there's huge mismanagement of the role amongst Executives thinking it's some sort of Magic Bullet you come in they're just gonna all of a sudden give you product Market fit or or bring Revenue generating especially the marketing too it's it's like oh you're just going to fix everything overnight well it's like (13:44) first you got to start with the product if the product's good then you can work on how to you position the product and then you know are you hitting the right customers and then everything else kind of goes downhill after that but it's a it's a really long-term game it's not an overnight fix for anything exactly and look we at the companies that we were at we saw that people hired the chief Revenue officer too prematurely yeah thinking when you didn't have a lot of this infrastructure you didn't have all the the signals that (14:12) you just mentioned in place to make that role successful so we're like oh like but people still need what that cro does yeah it's like we're not selling hard enough but it's like well no you got to check a couple more boxes first before you get to that get to that right space before you can start to scale what you have exactly so with that we're like oh okay these companies need this role but they can't hire it full-time I mean and this was a little bit before you know we were on Trend thankfully because now I go on (14:42) LinkedIn and everyone's talking about fractional type of work but we started this we we started this several years ago I think you know before it was in the Zeitgeist um you know and just saw you know Mass success with it um but knowing again we came from private Equity VC back companies and we saw okay all these sort of white-haired Consultants come in they give you a PDF Playbook maybe some strategy that they've seen before work but they weren't actually helping you execute on it so that became our sweet spot too is (15:16) like Hey we're gonna develop the strategy with you but then we're also gonna come in and execute and that only came to be because I grew up and and led sales my business partner has been a chief Revenue officer so you know it was just a nice timing you know a nice Market need and and something that we knew could provide value um and I was like okay let's build it and then now we're launching a software product all this stuff so the rest is rest is history yeah yeah a lot of people that have like that VC background and (15:49) everything kind of have I think it gives them a good perspective because they see so many companies from like the outside looking in so they get a pretty good idea for you know what works what doesn't because they see probably 10 similar types of companies right or hundred even or more and yeah so they could really you know connect the dots or sometimes if you're in like one particular product category or even heck even worse if you're just you know deep into your own product it's really hard (16:14) to take a step outside and see what's not working uh because your perspective is so limited frankly yeah exactly and then look I think a lot of and this is no offense to you know all the VCS or or PE shops out there is you know a lot of them have had tremendous success but many of them you know haven't been haven't actually built a company from scratch exactly the operating experience is the operating experience and then a lot of operators you know don't have too much to skin in the game or they've been (16:47) out of the game for a minute so you know we had a unique vantage point and and and sold a lot because it was like Hey founder we're in your exact shoes we're building a company just as you're building it hey we've just left Revenue organizations that we built very successfully so there was a there was a you know unique element to that um that made us you know get brought on by VCS and other PE shops that Founders just really responded well because they're like wait the these folks you know there (17:19) there's a relatability they have skin in the game they're building something from scratch as well they've been those operators so let's and they're willing to get tactical um which a lot of a lot of people aren't they just want to do the strategy and advisory type of work but they don't to roll up their sleeves and actually be held accountable to see if their strategy that they just gave you works right you just nailed it there I think yeah that operator experience because you kind of he you learn that (17:44) intuition for how things really work um and then two you actually see them in practice right and you actually get to try things um you know doing you understand by doing you understand stuff so much more like you did mention too The Operators also have uh some sometimes tend to have an myopic view potentially um if they're working on just their product and they think of everything in terms of their product uh where maybe if they have that VC approach to kind of look to opening up their perspective more from like what (18:12) you know outside perspectives might be able to offer um while still being you know in the trenches working on the product the right way um it could be you know better for them as well yeah they don't look they're not the model has been historically where they're not held accountable or metric or compensated on the plan that they just recommended actually working yeah we've been successful because we believe so strongly in what we do but we're willing to prove it right so it's like hey we're (18:45) going to work with you three to six months average is six months for our our our work you know those first couple of months are going to be the diagnostic you know evaluating what you're doing and coming up with actually a thoughtful plan here but then we're going to execute on it side by side and you're going to see increase in Revenue per employee you're going to see go to market operations really refined and you know bigger alignment your customer value increasing um but that was a unique concept you know um just even a few (19:20) years ago where most people were like wait you're gonna actually stay after and help us execute on this plan we're used to people just giving us the Playbook and getting the hell out of here right and it's like well there's a very specific reason for that um so that was that's what we've seen and I think you know the the the buyer you know has gotten smart and and is now demanding that of of a lot of companies yeah you're right like a nice looking pitch deck doesn't really go too far if you (19:47) don't how to implement it and uh have the the tools and processes to actually roll it out as well so I guess what what tips would you recommend for software marketers to generate more demand for their product you know today yeah that's a good question you know we we talk a lot about this attration because obviously we're trying to get demand um you know from it and you know there's obviously smarter marketers out there than than me but you know what I've really responded to and and seeing you (20:17) know there's a lot of chatter on this in LinkedIn and how I've gotten myself educated is you know the tried intrude concept of you know you have your Market 95% of that market obviously these numbers change well you know this is a this is a stat but it's an ethos we live by 95% of that market isn't trying to buy you right now isn't even looking for you isn't even aware that they have a problem that they need your solution 5% of your Market is actively looking and have identified that they have a problem (20:51) and then even within that 5% a smaller percentage is what's going to buy you right so we've done our whole demand program you know around you know those type of categories and buckets so what are the things you know that 95% that we can start now it's planting the seed knowing that we're not going to see results for 12 plus months right but how do we start educating you know these personas that we know have a problem they don't know they have a problem yet that we can solve um and how do we start (21:25) educating them how do we you know do that that warming so one of the things that we do for for that awareness is you know we're very intentional with the with the signals you know in that in that 95% so we look at okay a bunch of different factors that qualify a company that they need to start being educated by fraction right we're not selling them but they need to be educated knowing 6 12 18 24 months that they're going to come to realize that they need us it's okay what's going on with with the (21:58) company and um a variety of kind of those Phantom factors that we know stalls out growth what are their Glass Door reviews how many times have they hired a chief Revenue officer or heads of sales and it's not worked out yeah you know a bunch of those type of you know not demographic signals of like okay yeah you're a B2B SAS company that's you know has $20 million you're in a series B like we have all of that but you know I think marketers and companies you know you really want to look at you know (22:30) those non-demographic firmographic signals of like okay who should be do you need to start educating that based off of all these signals you know that they likely have a problem but they haven't raised their hand to it so you know starting that awareness doing that long-term education not expecting to be result um getting an immediate sales result having an opinion right like we're very vocal you know in our awareness and education like we go out companies and say Hey you are not ready for a chief Revenue officer let us tell (23:02) you why and we get responses they're like they're like what what do you mean how do you even know that now they trust you because you're guy actually trying to help them and give them like real like give them you're straight shooter to give them the real answer and they're like hey maybe we don't actually but when we do we know a guy we can trust we can go to the guy that guy knows what he's talking about exactly right and that's exactly happened to us but it's all okay that 95% we have an opinion and (23:28) we're just working on we want you to know about these issues educate about the the problems companies like you face and then you know you tell us when you're ready the um then that 5% is you know we really go hard on you know specific individuals right we're moving out of this company and then we know hey there are specific individual because we're selling to people at the end of the day as as every company is right like everyone wants to sell to Coca-Cola and you know all the big brands in the world (24:01) but at the end of day you got to sell to John and Susie and Patty right A lot of people forget that they just have these IP profiles of people and they're like oh yeah just this but like you really understand the customer understand what their problem is and then if you do you could really position accordingly yeah it's people that are buying buying the the the software and it's the people that have the the the pain points and problems so you know that 95% were're we really diligent about focusing on the company (24:29) educating the company to these things in this 5% we have certain signals that we know hey okay we know this exact individual is really ripe to have a conversation with us so what are the things that we've done to identify we look at hey were you just hired as a chief Revenue officer at at at a B2B company were you the first one first time they've ever had a chief Revenue officer because what does that tell us about this company nine times out of 10 they may be the lucky one out of 10 where this isn't the case but nine times (25:00) out of 10 it's like okay if you're a B2B SAS company that's never had a chief Revenue officer and you've just hired your first one likely the executives and the founders have misaligned expectations out of your role there's probably no Revenue infrastructure in place for you to be successful there is um you know a real a lot of pressure to ramp quickly and show Revenue impact quickly yeah so all of those things we know pretty well likely the case so we go those are all things that proaction can help this brand new cro at (25:35) this company to be super successful and educate the founders of like hey you do not want to become the statistic and what's the uh statistic that most cro don't last beyond 18 months because of all the things that we just described so that 5% is we have a signal to go hey this person was just hired at this company they're the first person in that role ever then we have stuff on a more negative aspect right of like this company is turned and burned through these three cro these three individuals they haven't been able to (26:08) maintain that type of role now we know there's a buying signal there that they need to have a conversation with us because they're now in this situation where the problem is front and center so you know those are examp and I'm using this as like we're for marketers into your question like these are all things we're going through every single day to to generate demand and what our strategy has been that's so far super fruitful but like you said gets out of this ICP gets out of this you (26:36) know firmographic type of conversation and it's more um situation based more people based and what are those immediate signals that tell us hey there's there's a distress at this company and a need um that we've seen from our experience like I said nine times out of 10 is true um so let us you know start to swoop a little more aggressively to see how we can help any other warning signs you think or or I guess things that companies get wrong especially in the early stages I mean we mentioned product Market fit what is is (27:10) kind of a big one that a lot of people try to skip over yeah look I mean I I think there's a lot right I've already hinted on it and look early stage can mean a lot of things you know depending some people still consider raising $50 million in series a as early stage versus you know hey you got 10 employees and maybe a million dollars in Revenue but I think you know some fundamentals you know agnostic to to that are like I just mentioned I think you know there's a lot of phantom issues that people (27:42) don't realize you know create this death by a thousand paper cut scenario that actually knap growth and and and stall it out so what what are one of those things hiring mistakes yeah we really focus on on our messaging but then in our pitch and then what we work with customers on is like you know you need the role but are you hiring too early are you actually set up for Success because nothing can be more damaging to a revenue organization than hiring a sales leader too early hiring a chief Revenue officer you know are you (28:12) gonna be putting a you know what's the cliche a a Lamborghini and a parking garage right get much Ro uh use out of it unless you have the track and everything built for it to to to to be leveraged so you know hiring hiring not for the right right role not understanding how senior of roles that you need um hiring too much all those are fundamentals that that we often see I think as it relates to product Market fit and look at something that we learned you know good way and the hard way is you know if you're not having (28:48) sales conversations you don't have product Market fit right if you are not able to get people on the phone get get them to allocate time to you for a 15 20 30 minute meeting and do it in a decent volume on a weekly basis you don't have the product Market fit doesn't matter how sexy of a product that you have how much research that you've done tinkering with it um and look it's something we have to stay super disciplined on because we're so close to the issue and that our a lot of Founders so like yeah (29:24) yeah you're right if you're if you're chasing your clients for meetings and to try to sell people things something's off with either the way you position your product or you know your product in general yeah and and look it requires a lot of discipline because we've Fallen victim to this because again we have a Consulting business so we're so close to that the problem that we're trying to solve that we want the software to solve that we sometimes you know have to pull ourselves back of constantly tinkering (29:50) and going like oh wait this feature is going to be amazing oh let's build that oh the customer needs it because we see it day in and day out but we have to stop ourselves and go okay let's not one make perfect the enemy of the good here yep yeah all that happens all the time yeah does all of this need to actually be in the software today yeah right what's the base minimum and then pivoting from a building constantly building mode to like all right hey we need to stop building for a second and we need to just do nothing but focus on (30:22) our goto Market focus on having sales conversations because that's actually going to validate the the product that we built that's going to provide us product Market fit if we can con get people to get on the phone with us can we book calls then obviously can we get them to sign and then the proof and the pudding can we get them to renew yeah you shouldn't have to be twisting people's arms for it exactly are you ready to buy like they should be begging to buy themselves you know but I think that's (30:51) what you know people have to forget and they they think like oh I can create the most unicorn amazing product but then you know and look it's what allows us to also have a successful business is because people forget this right and they need our help for it but they they forego all those goto Market type of activities that are really important they they build an amazing product but then they have no distribution for it that and they want to build a you know build a ton of features on a shaky Foundation right eventually that thing's (31:21) coming down when we right and if you're not if you're not having the sales conversations how are you validating that these 20 features that you just build people even want and we we've learned the hard way on that sometimes you know because we we were like okay we have so many Consulting customers we know what the market wants and they're like oh wait when we're leading with a a software first discussion their needs are very different than we when we've LED with a Consulting needs um Prospect (31:50) conversation so that's allowed us to Pivot but I think th those are lessons we learned from the hard way you know and kind of finding that product Market fit and getting out of that build mode and just you need to I think you know I saw you know someone I fall in LinkedIn you know another influencer or expert they had a really good stat they were like you know if you're not having five to 10 sales conversations a week as an early stage company yeah you know you're you're not GNA find product Market fed (32:18) right because if you're having 10 conversations you're only going to get maybe three of those to take a next step with you and then one of those will maybe sign so you know that that hit home to us and you know it's how we've kind of made sure to avoid those common pitfalls yeah I've learned the hard way myself too you know I've been on the operator side I've been a founder and everything um I've had some wins and some losses you know had this Marketplace a long time ago and one of (32:43) the things that we got caught up in was it was like an early stage influencer marketing platform yeah really you know designed to be like a Marketplace for Brands and influencers to connect and collaborate um which you know came out of an agency that we had um you know because influencer marketing was just kind of becoming an interesting topic back then um but you know we got so focused on trying to build these features that we thought were cool these like analytics tools and campaign features that you know we got so (33:10) distracted with that instead of just being a basic marketplace with the core basic value of just connecting brands that wanted to do business with influencers and making that as easy and transparent as possible like this is an influencer for fashion and they have this many followers connect with them you know so go to the basics right and and and and just get out there now you know I think I I see a lot of people Hawking the concept of like oh just get the you know the shittiest version of your product out as soon as possible like I don't (33:41) know if that's the case either because you have to you don't want to turn people off maybe small beta maybe a small beta list but friends and family to really give you the hard feedback yeah yeah you need you know everything you know within reason and balance but let the let people that are willing to pay you money dictate the road map yeah is that you know I think the is the key there yeah that's uh you know some good lessons there um so I guess uh any other tips for increasing convergence for customers like just you know like once (34:14) you have product Market fit just really getting out there and you know really telling your story in the right way so people really get hey that's the product for me I need to this right away yeah I think you know we really preach both on you know the conversion customer success sales side it's you know we got to get back to basics so people you know you can look at all the things like product usage MPS like all these there's a million fancy metrics that you can use to see if people are leveraging your (34:43) product but what we often see companies you know fall apart on is like are you actually talking to your customer yeah are you listening too for that matter are you listening a lot of times they'll tell you what they'll make it as obvious as possible to tell you what they want yep and um absolutely right are you listening and also are you doing what you say you're going to do for the customer right which is you know are you holding yourself accountable but I think you know we've been always shocked by (35:12) how many sales how many customer success how many marketing Etc organizations don't do some of these fundamentals they have all this fancy apparatus in place but it's like when was the last time you've talked to a customer yeah right and you know I think you know what we really do for conversion that we've seen is like hey you're let's use Simple Math you just you're a Enterprise solution or whatever it may be your contracts are 100 Grand right you just convince someone to spend $100,000 with you for your software (35:44) product have you laid out for them very clearly what is the value that they're going to see in the first 30 days first 60 days first 90 days and then that halfway point of an annual contract the next 100 20 or the first 120 days have you actually laid out in your customer journey in your time to Value what they're actually going to see what the benefit is of it what is the impact across each of those stages to make sure that they feel like they're getting a $100,000 worth of an experience yeah and (36:17) I'm never not sh most people have not laid that out right it's easy to sell but it's hard to deliver you know well that's what also stalls right you you pump new business but then you you bleed out and back because you're not you're not focused on on yeah deling the value yeah if you're creating that value people will love you for it they'll tell other people about it and that's how you get your net promoter score up it's not just some fancy metric it's something you feed (36:42) into with that experience that your business provides for people to totally and again when we go into organizations and see like hey we gotta you know help enhance you know this and make sure that you're you're getting that conversion you're you're renewing that customer you're expanding them you know it's really you know again they have all this fancy stuff like automated messages and emails and notifications when you go in and click this button and run a report but they forget the basics it's (37:09) like okay have you talked to this customer yeah in the in the last couple of months just hear how things are going what do they need help on are you guaranteeing and validating that your product is offering value just because you have a lot of usage doesn't mean that there's actual value for them to justify renewing or growing you know your your contract so um going in and saying okay hey you just spent doing a client kickoff doing it in person saying hey you just spent $100,000 with us here's how we're going (37:44) to make sure that we see the impact that we're going to provide in that 30 60 90 120 days yeah validate that for us oh yes okay cool you just validated that impact timeline what that specific impact is going to be so then if we show you that we're going to do that by that 120 day point we'll know you'll confirm with us that you're going to renew because we just proved and had a plan towards impact yeah that very simple fundamentals right not a ton of metrics in place not you know this crazy (38:16) infrastructure to talk to the customer validate the impact validate the timeline that they want to see that impact and just do it right but it's just Back to Basics which look a funny to say but it's a thing that we we do with so many customers because I think people lose sight of it right companies get bigger the product gets more complicated you end up having you know 500 employees and then you realize all right no one's picking up the phone no one's flying on a plane to just go see them and validate that what you're doing (38:49) is good yeah that's that's so true I think a lot of people get caught up in like these high level ideas or they read a book and they think you know that's the way things work but they don't know understand how it works right I really respect you know a lot of times you know like a CEO like uh Starbucks for instance goes out to actually work in one of the stores serving Cofe people yeah you'll see stuff there live like operational breakdowns you know problems with your company at the ground level if (39:17) you go back to the basics everything's simple simplified at the end of the day and you'll see stuff there that you're not going to understand from some fancy report that comes in from your teams that tells you your net prom score went down or like your sales are dropping you know but do you understand why like just go go work as a employee in your company at the very bottom FL in the trenches for a day and you have a lot better perspective because of it 100 perc and you know it's funny like a common issue (39:43) that we see with our customers like you know we engage with this company around 20 million in Revenue um they were having some product issues right they had initial great product Market fit um but you know they were starting to see higher churn product usage go down you know a lot of the a lot of the the fundamentals that you you look at from a metric perspective um they built this crazy client feedback loop process system sales inputting like that went into this Matrix that then developed you know what their road map should be how (40:17) should they should address all these product issues but then come to find that no one on the executive team ever logs into the platform none of the executive team is going and doing a pitch and demo right everything that salespeople dread sometimes you know you get the rainbow wheel or you say oh I have internet issues because something's not working um but none of them kind of you know with the Starbucks example none of them have just sat in front of the customer and tried to use the product none of them have went and (40:47) pitched a prospect and did a live demo which would very clearly show them directly all the issues that they need to solve so instead they they build this fancy structure they get all this client feedback they come with you know all these algorithms and metrics that you know because they read a LinkedIn influencers post on just come to find like hey you're the CEO you're the chief customer officer you're the chief product officer have you tried to use this product with a customer yep most of your questions would have been answered (41:17) and we didn't need to do all of this so you know exactly to your point and it's just people people lose sight of it right that they most of the issues you know are actually self-inflicted and most the issues are pretty simple you know at the end of the day doesn't mean it's not difficult to solve but you know the actual core of the issue is is pretty clear I think you just nailed it there I think that's where you know a lot of companies really struggle a lot of times it's just go back to the basics (41:45) you know like your product love your customer um at the end of the day if you put yourself in their shoes or like put yourself in you on the front lines and actually do the pitches or actually serve a customer and understand how that experience is heck even be a customer for for your business you know maybe the Starbucks CEO I don't know if he did but uh maybe he went through the drive-through as well as as well as being on the other side serving coffee he actually drives through and sees uh what the experience is like as well too (42:10) all aspects and look I think we lose sight of that client first customer first experience and then look we even see in you know the the sales Tech Marketplace um people kind of run wild like what what's trending right now is um that I see constantly and there's been a lot of issues with it is the AI Business Development rep right AI at all cost we'll just automate it not really get you know these AI sdrs you don't need humans right all of your leads prospects or whatever this AI tool is gonna gonna solve it these tools are (42:45) super popular they're part of the Zeitgeist but they're heavy churn right now and why is that cool trendy concept but we didn't actually think about the client first experience which is we're just adding AI to it just throw AI on it you know just throw some AI on it but it's like at the end of the day hey if I'm trying to reach out to you and you're a $50,000 software product a year yeah I want to talk to a damn person exactly one company I really like using AI the right way is like a company you (43:11) might like them too uh hyper bound uh so they use AI as like a productivity oh go ahead oh I say I'll have to look them up that sounds familiar yeah so they they do like sales training so like they they replicate like buyers and sales calls like train like so you get to interact like it's a live training like a live like a live sales process uh without obviously crashing and burning and killing that $50,000 contract so I like their approach because they're actually training people and they're using it as (43:42) a productivity hack as opposed to like automating it just trying to be cheap to just you know let's throw this tool up and you know it's a faster cheaper way to do it but at the end the customer experience ends up sucking right but you know sales people don't have a problem you know going through these exercises and training because you know it's actually making them better it's going to help them close more deals and they don't have to go through the embarrassment of actually you know doing (44:05) a live cor crashing and burning in it yeah no look I it's amazing I think that's the exact where look and these things come in Cycles I think that's where we're goingon to end up is the you know everyone wants to automate but the companies that are going to St the the software companies that are going to stand out the most and win in the long term and actually have the highest customer lifetime value be really good about landing and expanding are the ones that put a people first approach and (44:32) that give you the human experience that go and like hey we just signed that $50,000 contract I'm gonna do our client kickoff in person I'm gonna give you that really um bespoke curated experience with our software right but um not having all these tools that just really make for a poor customer experience um so I think we're eventually going to get back to that is you're going to see everyone was obsessed with automation efficiency but it's like those are going to be the companies with the higher turn yeah (45:06) because they're not actually focused on the fundamentals the basics of like someone just spent $50,000 with your company are they getting a $50,000 experience likely it's just going to be a push back on it too because you know AI is great if it's used the right way but it's not a replacement that's the common theme it's an enhancement a productivity tool but if you're seeking to replace stuff you already have the wrong strategy right exactly but you know all these companies which is where (45:33) we step in a lot of times is that they make a lot of knee-jerk reactions you know so obviously the VC crisis of couple years it's the buzz word everybody find an AI product to invest in let's find an AI product oh we're we we're a growth at all cost company so now we have to cut everything because we're not going to be able to raise again because our valuations are insane and we were never profitable so let's cut everything and then put AI Tools in place to rep U to replace oh wait but then that just increased our (46:03) turn even more because now people are getting it even worse right it's the stuff you know follows a cycle so I think people are going to come out of it yeah and then you know realize that you know that Back to Basics customer first approach like you said is just it's going to be what's going to win long term yeah totally agree I just everything always goes back no matter what technology comes out we're in the business of serving people and if you have that customer first approach no matter what the new (46:30) technology Trends are you're going to you're probably going to do you're going to do a lot better than people that just go with the technology first approach 100% the balance like you know we have a customer right now you know a big player in their space and but the space is starting to become a little more commoditized so it's becoming really hard to compete with competitors over feature and functionality because everyone's sort of building the same stuff at this point yeah so now how are (46:57) the big Enterprise companies choosing them over a competitor that has parody you know with their with their software they literally say like oh we chose you because of your people we chose you because we feel like we can trust you we chose you because we feel like you're GNA give us an amazing experience y even though your software maybe is quite similar to this competitor so that's a trend that's only gon to continue but it's a simple thing that that people forget it's like you can win with people (47:25) yep i' always well I know we went a little over today it's been a great discussion actually um yeah fantastic discussion actually a lot of great topics and uh tips covered here um so how can people learn more about your company aside from it being in our Marketplace of course yep uh yeah and the nacho nacho Marketplace is awesome you know we've been super excited to to to launch on it and and be a partner with you all so we're we're very appreciative um look I think you know not to be cliched our our website which (47:55) we Toil and spend a lot of time on with the the messaging and the offer you know proaction you know. co definitely check us out connect with me on LinkedIn and um you know we would love to always you know make any connection and um uh continue the conversation and see if anything that you know you and I talked about today resonated with them and you know we're big Believers even if there's not an immediate engagement opportunity like Rising Tides raise All Ships like you know we can figure out ways to to (48:25) help you um in any way possible like we love those type of conversations nice yeah that sounds very really helpful yeah actually that's in our marketing pitch deck too Rising tide raises all boats because uh now as a somebody building a Marketplace here we're trying to build a community around it um you know and if we could do these kind of kind of webinars that we're doing help tell your guys' story and vice Vera I mean know everybody's getting more awareness for it and uh because of that (48:49) you know I think we've done a really good job building you know a great marketplace with you know the best brands at the best prices right and uh know if anybody does want to check out your services definitely go to prac and.co um or you can visit it in the nacha nacha marketplace uh we do have the best Brands like I mentioned uh we do have a nice little cash back offer on it 15% um for anybody that wants to check it out uh but definitely go to prac in. (49:14) co learn more about their company love their business model love the way they do business uh could highly recommend Mason's business here and uh go check it out today and once again thanks for coming on today Mason yeah no thank you so much Andy likewise all right [Music]

---

All NachoTuesday interviews: https://nachonacho.com/nachotuesday
About NachoNacho: https://nachonacho.com/llms.txt