The Road to Exit

I fundamentally believe that the goal of any entrepreneur looking to scale a company is to choose the path of least resistance and then simply double down on that path.

Whether you’re looking to exit, go public, or simply achieve your growth plans, the focus should always be on the strategy that's the most effective, profitable, and scalable. That’s it!

Too often, we get stuck in the day-to-day operations and plan ahead based on quarterly targets rather than really taking the time to step back and reverse engineer our end game from the start.

I understand that as entrepreneurs, we all thrive on challenges, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the past 20 years of running businesses, it's to pick the right challenges to invest my time and money in.

For me, it’s about achieving my goal as quickly as possible, not necessarily the hardest one.

Obviously, you still need to put in the work, have a great product, know how to sell/market the business, and put a good team in place, etc.

But at least your energy is spent on the strategy with the highest chance of success, giving you, the team and shareholders confidence that the business is heading in the right direction.

In this article, I’m going to break down a step-by-step system to reach this outcome based on a sales and marketing framework I’ve developed called ‘Scale’.

I’ve used this to grow and exit 3 of my own businesses and hundreds of others I've advised over the years. Based on a 40-step process, the first pillar is all about having a deep and intimate understanding of the business.

The goal by the end of this stage is to zero in on the one to two products/services that are best geared to hitting your growth plans and know exactly how many sales you need to get there.

For this to happen, you need a solid understanding of your industry's history, market size, competitors and exit strategy. This will help you identify the right opportunities to focus on and also formulate the right mission and vision for the business.

From this, you can then develop your overall company brand and team culture and set your growth plans. To do this, you need to investigate the best products and services to focus on.

Make a list of them, then look at the percentage of sales currently within the business for each line, including the sales process, conversations, length of sale and time it takes to close.

Other metrics you need to pay attention to are deal and lifetime value, along with profit margins. Once you’ve done this, compare the numbers, as the figures will help you identify the path of least resistance for scale.

This will then lead you to the second pillar, which is about developing the right strategy to help you sell and market these products/services and pursue the company’s growth plans.

To achieve this outcome, you need to look at the motivating drives, key pain points, misconceptions and generalisations in the industry for each product or service and combine that with the research you did across the industry to develop your USP and positioning in the market.

After completing the steps, you can develop the resources and overall strategy for your sales and marketing campaign. Start by examining your past results to gain insights and any lessons learnt.

Then, look at whether seasonality will affect your overall approach. This is very important as it will guide your budget and how/when you flex up and down your spending.

At this point, the stage is set for you to work on who you want to target, the channels to market on and the right sales funnel to convert leads into sales opportunities.

Remember, the key is to follow the path of least resistance. Based on the products or services you’re focused on, zero in on the best industries, locations, company sizes etc.

Once you’ve done this, look at your existing conversions and set benchmarks for each stage of the sales process. This is critical for tracking purposes, as you can’t improve what you don’t measure.

Beyond this, setting benchmarks will also help you properly map the type of team you need to achieve your growth plans, the resources to build out the campaigns, and whether or not they are scalable when you consider all the associated costs.

If you go through this process and realise it’s not scalable, you’ll need to go back to the drawing board and potentially examine the audience, deal value, offering, and other important metrics to make the model work.

When you’ve got the modelling right, the final pillar is taking the strategy you’ve developed, turning it into a clear road map, and then working with the team to execute it. To ensure this happens. assign a specific team member to project manage the rollout.

This person will then be responsible for involving other team members and external stakeholders to execute the plan, with you stepping in to review progress through weekly reporting and quarterly check-in sessions.