Dear SaaStr: I’m at $50m ARR Losing $10m A Year.  We are growing about 20% and have limited cash in the bank.  How Do I Get to Break-Even Fast?

1/ You probably have 50+ sellers at $50m ARR.  You probably need half of them

That’s tough but true.  Cut anyone below mid-pack.  Concentrate leads in those that close the best.  Especially when growth slows, you almost always do better concentrating leads in your top closers.  Later, this robs folks of a chance to grow, learning, train and scale.  But in the short-term, concentrating leads in your top closes always gives you a boost.   More on that here:

Only 52% of You Are Growing Your Sales Team Next Year

2/ Sell harder — but sell to a tighter ICP.  Just sell to your core ICP, where you have the highest win rates.  This isn’t a great option, but it’s the fastest way to get to break-even. 

You conserve cash when you stop selling into segments that are harder to sell at.  Because those segments are more expensive to sell into. You retreat from Dominant Strategy to Only Sell Where We Win.  This is much, much, much more efficient.  You can drop every segment where you aren’t #1 vs. the competition.  This begins a slow death spiral for growth, but it does work.  If you just do it for a quarter or two, it’s probably not the end of the world.  But growth will slow.

A related post here:

A Lot of You Are Doing a “Strategic Retreat” in Sales & Marketing. That’s Flawed.

 

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