Aleksandar Stojanović, MSc.’s Post

I’m hearing from many founders that this year's big goal is profitability. One metric to watch is customer acquisition costs. As you grow, the cost tends to follow the law of diminishing returns. The good old ways (i.e. 2 years ago) meant ramping up your CAC as long as customers were buying. Now you have to ask yourself, “How can we get more out of what we’re doing?” One of my clients had the goal of profitability by the end of 2024. We knew getting more leads at the top of the funnel wasn’t the answer. While working together, we focused on optimizing your funnel, improving sales and marketing efficiency and focusing narrowly on their ideal customers. Here’s what we worked on: ✅ Modelling the data to determine which part of the funnel will impact lead-to-customer conversion rates. ✅ Reducing the time it took for demo requests to be followed up through automation. ✅ Coaching reps on better discovery to get deeper into pain points. ✅ Improving meeting attended conversion rates for leads that came from outbound. ✅ Add different payment terms and schedules to ease the burden of upfront costs. After 60 days, they improved their discovery-to-proposal conversion rate by 27%. There wasn’t a silver bullet that solved everything. But every change compounded. In the world of profitability, it’s about getting more out of what you’re already doing. If that’s on your mind too, DM me to chat!

IS YOUR CUSTOMER ACQUISITION COST SABOTAGING YOUR EXIT VALUATION? Thinking of selling your business in the next 36 months? Here's a wake-up call… I meet plenty of company owners in the B2B space who have grown their business over the last few years - and generate millions in annual revenue… … and all this from virtually NO marketing at all. Impressive. But when it comes to scaling up to the next level - they look beyond the word of mouth, the referrals and their long-term customers, which got them this far. And yes, having a robust sales and marketing infrastructure is critical to scale your business in a predictable way. Yet many business owners completely lose sight of their Customer Acquisition Cost as they scale up. But your CAC isn't just a marketing metric, it’s a pivotal part of your exit valuation. Why? Because potential acquirers aren't just looking at your revenue. They're figuring out how efficiently you generate it. Delivering a lower CAC doesn't only mean higher margins. It also indicates to buyers that your business can scale even further. We’ve helped many business owners optimise their CAC through streamlining and automating their sales funnel, boosting customer retention and leveraging data. If you're thinking about further scaling your business and want to maximise your exit valuation, drop me a DM. The clock is ticking. #NextLevelGrowth #ExitLaunchpad #M&A ExitStrategy

99% of brands analyze their data wrong. They focus on AOV instead of CLV. The trick is to base your CAC on Customer Lifetime Value. Here's why: 1. CLV considers the total value of a customer over time 2. It allows you to invest more in acquisition 3. You can outspend competitors focused only on AOV 4. It creates a virtuous cycle of growth At Sweet, we help brands focus on the metrics that truly matter for long-term success. Want to learn how to turn CLV into your growth superpower? Follow Oliver Spark for more insights on scaling your business the smart way. 👇

In case you missed it, in March, our team focused on helping you prevent “Catastrophic” Revenue Operations disasters 🙀 Check out some of our favorite insights from the team (bonus points for voting for your favorite cat shirt in the comments) 👇 FullFunnel Partner Matthew Iovanni tackles the question, “How do you define demand generation?” https://lnkd.in/er5V72CW Managing Director David Mercurio, MBA highlights KPIs for Revenue Operations success: https://lnkd.in/eqTMNZEF Managing Director Luke George on how to maximize BDR performance in RevOps: https://lnkd.in/e4YuHvPk Managing Director Brenton Talbott connects the dots between CX surveys and how you can leverage results to identify customer renewal and growth opportunities: https://lnkd.in/eWhwZz45 Managing Director Tyler Williams explains how CPL and CPMQL contribute to the larger RevOps puzzle: https://lnkd.in/e5t3BXai Managing Director genie lutz calls out the “scaredy cats” and emphasizes FullFunnel’s custom approach to meet your business goals: https://lnkd.in/eFf_J5VM #revops #marketingstrategy #salesstrategy #bdrs #techstack #revenueoperations

“It’s really hard to get buy-in for customer success,” are the types of conversations we hear a lot. But that’s because CS isn’t being positioned as the growth engine it is. We've been our own best-kept secret for farrrrr too long. At our Customer Success Festival London, Rav Dhaliwal, Investor, Venture & Limited Partner at Crane Venture Partners, dropped some real home truths about re-positioning CS: 1️⃣ We speak a different language than the board. 👉 While we focus on day-to-day wins, they're looking at quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year trends. It's time we align our reporting with their thinking. 2️⃣ We're too quiet about our victories. 👉 Rav pointed out that no sales leader closes a deal without shouting it from the rooftops. Why should we be any different when we secure a complex renewal or upsell? 3️⃣ Visibility is everything. 👉 If we're not in the board pack, as far as they're concerned, we don't exist. It's a sobering thought, isn't it? 4️⃣ We need to be our own advocates. 👉 In Rav's words, "There is no harm in asking." Whether it's getting our CEO to present our metrics or finding our way into that board meeting, we need to step up and ask for the spotlight. Remember, we're not just making customers successful; we're driving business growth. It's time the whole company knows it. Let’s make noise about customer success and change the game together! 💪 #CustomerSuccess #Value #Conference #Growth

Are we too quiet about our victories? Just like Rav pointed out, no sales leader would hesitate to shout about a closed deal. Why should we be any different when we secure a complex renewal or upsell? Visibility is everything. If we're not in the boardroom, it's like we don't exist. It's time to step up and be our own advocates. Let's show the world the value we bring to the table! Remember: We're not just making customers successful; we're driving business growth. Let's make some noise about customer success and change the game together! 💪 #CustomerSuccess #Value #Growth #Advocacy

When a target account shows intent signals, how should your revenue teams respond? We’ve got the answers in our next Coffee Break. Come for great tips on using intent data fully. Stay because Netline’s 🌿 Josh Baez 🌿 is one of the smartest people we know. Sign up at https://bit.ly/3zFAN8M #intentdata #intent #revops #b2bmarketing

One thing I wish I'd had as a first-time founder was a barometer for product-market fit. When we were struggling to get our first couple of customers... I too often felt stuck because it was clear we didn't have that mystical product-market fit feeling. And it wasn't clear to me exactly where to focus to move TOWARDS the mystical PMF feeling. - Wrong niche? - Wrong value prop? - Wrong product? - All of the above? Something else? Which has led me down this many-year path to explore PMF and how it works. In my opinion, the most useful definition for product-market fit is: "The demonstrated ability to continuously replicate one 'hell yes' customer case study." This takes the mysticism and random metrics out of it - and focuses us. One customer case study. Hell yes. Repeat. Then, the most useful way to think about PMF is as a spectrum, not a checkbox. Hence - the five levels of PMF: 1. Don't have a customer case study worth replicating 2. Have a case study, but can't consistently replicate it 3. Can replicate a customer case study, but it's not a "hell yes" every time 4. Can replicate a customer case study, just need a growth lever 5. "Hell yes" case study + growth lever, holding on for dear life How do we find PMF then? We focus on figuring out our one "hell yes" customer case study and replicating it. We do this by obsessing over having a high volume of customer interactions to figure this out, and debug our case study when it isn't a hell yes. A relatively straightforward process, but it sure ain't easy.

Does your company actually care about its “customer centricity” value? I’ve heard both of these quotes word-for-word in the past week from VC funds over $1B in AUM: “Your team replies in minutes, my Pitchbook rep takes 5 days” “What does support look like? When we bought from <competitor> they were super responsive, and the second we bought, we found out that 100% of support is overseas, and they’re only available from 8am-10am” So, I sent the second customer this screenshot of our last year of our post-sale stats. Shockingly simple strategy to 10X* the post-sale customer experience: 1) Hire a post-sale team that actually lives and breathes customer obsession, like Miles Konstantin, Carter Headley and Olivia Haskell. 2) Actually care personally about it as much as revenue. We pull up this dash every week in our team forecast just like the revenue numbers - I’ll bet the competition doesn’t. *Technically it’s more like 100X-1000X on responsiveness, but in the spirit of good will among competitors, I’m spotting them a 10X or two.

If there is a secret to building a successful growth strategy post-acquisition, it’s probably this: The answers are right in front of you. 👉 It’s right there in your customer reviews, in your NPS rating or support tickets, and doing an analysis of this data always surfaces some great ideas. 👉 It’s in your product managers’ wishlists and the feedback your BD team hears. Themselves informed by customer interviews and the quantitative data (e.g., CSAT, AOV, Churn, LTV) from the business. It’s simple, but tedious. Which is why most people probably don’t do it. This is one of the first steps I take with my PE clients and their portfolio companies. I can virtually guarantee if we spend time: ✅ Talking to customers… ✅ Talking to your product or BD team… ✅ Mystery shopping you and your competitors… At a minimum we’ll find the low hanging fruit. And it’s likely we’ll identify your next profitable product or market opportunity.