Successful Exits (Why You Should Plan For An Exit From Day 1) | With Expert Matt Wolach

So before, just kind of rewind there for a minute there. So you've been through, I believe, at least a couple of exits, right? Including the one when you were working at WebPT. What was the— can you share, like, what was the process and experience for you? After hitting that scale and eventually exiting for the first time, do you remember that moment?

Well, yeah. Well, I mean, I think the first one was, they talk about the double dipping. When initially we got the first investment where we were still involved, but we had a big payoff right in the middle of our journey, not really in the middle, it was closer to the end, but we still weren't done. And so I think that's something that a lot of people don't think about. I had no idea that was a thing. They're like, yeah, investors are going to come in, you're going to get a big chunk of change. I'm like, okay. That sounds like a lot of fun. So if you're asking me what that moment was, I mean, the emotions were amazing. I mean, to be able to celebrate, my wife and I, we looked at our bank account, we're just like, holy cow, we cannot believe it. We never thought that we would see numbers like that. And it changed our lives. You know, obviously we moved, we got a different house, we were able to, you know, before that being a bootstrapped company, things were tight.

Yeah.

And we were a little, you know, scraping by, I would say. It obviously got better as we grew and we were able to sell more and we were able to have some revenue to support. But to go from where we were just barely scraping by to that was definitely a fun ride.

Nice. Nice. And then from there, I believe you went and launched a new startup with Syncleo, which was acquired by Building Engines within a 2-year timeframe. Did you purposely planned that exit this time when you started that company? And was there anything different on how you built that company this time? And what was the challenges and differences between that first exit and then the other one?

Yeah. So Sileo was interesting because in that scenario, we were the only type of our product in the market. So the difference would be with WebPT, we were one of 30. And when we came in, we were the tiny player and everybody kind of laughed at us and there were 30 other companies we were up against in terms of competition. But our model was unique in that it was SaaS and we were the first SaaS player. However, everybody else was already entrenched. And so for that, it was really how do we kind of take over a market and reteach a market about this new delivery method and how much easier it is for them. With Cinlio, that was, you know, 10 years later. People understood what SaaS was by that point. But with our product, which was an RFP automation for real estate property managers and such, nobody was doing that. And so we thought it was blue ocean, big wide open playing field, and we thought it was going to be just, oh, we're just going to home run everything. Well, it wasn't quite like that either. We realized pretty quickly that we needed to educate our market because since nobody had done this before, nobody knew that there was a problem that needed to be solved. Nobody knew that what they were doing currently in their current work situation was bad. It was just their normal work process. And so we had to educate the market on first, you actually do have pain, believe it. This, what you're doing is wrong and you should be doing it a much easier, much simpler way. And then we were able to to have success. We were fortunate that we were able to close the top 3 in a certain market segment. We were able to close the top 3 national players, and that really accelerated our growth quickly. In terms of your question, Akeel, because I kind of got off track there.

Sure.

Yes. Did you want to exit? Yes. We definitely started and had everything set up with a plan to exit. I fully believe that if you're not thinking about your exit when you get started, then you're behind. You need to be thinking about what's the full cycle, what's the plan, what's the future, what will be your exit, what will it look like, how will you set up the company to be able to look good to an acquirer, and how do you make sure that you've got your ducks in a row, your process, your systems, so that they come in and they see something that is just a machine that they say, this is something I want.

Nice. And then so you had that, you took kind of what the learnings from the last Last kind of company, you knew it worked, you then applied it here. Obviously, it did work. You got tremendous growth. Were you planning that 2 years? Like, at that 2-year mark, did you guys go out and try to find that buyer, or did they approach you and you said, okay, tight, let's just do it?

They approached. Yeah, they approached. I didn't think it was going to happen that quickly. So you never know when it's going to happen. Sometimes people aim for like a 3 to 5. That's typically what I would aim for. Depending on the market, depending on the product, but that one was a little bit sooner.

Nice. So coming back to today, or at least in 2020 last year, it's already 2021 here, you launched Xsellus, which is your B2B sales coaching firm. So what was that decision now behind going out? So you went out there and you decided to build this training program to improve sales conversions rather than building another SaaS company.

Good question. Because I do love the SaaS game and I love the startup game. And I just, it's just such a fun environment when you have a team and you get the team and they're all kind of pushing the flywheel the same way and you start to see traction, you start to see things happening and building. It's just a really exciting time. So I love that. But what I also realized that I love was building my own team and finding somebody who was totally green, didn't know the industry, didn't even completely understand sales, And teaching them and coaching them on the market, on the product, on our process, and showing them exactly how they can succeed. That coaching, for me, I realized that I absolutely loved. And watching that person get to that level of success and seeing them absolutely kill it, going from 0 to 100, was really, really special for me. And so what I said was, hey, I really enjoy that. And why don't I just do that on a bigger scale and make a bigger impact? I also love SaaS. I mean, I'm an enthusiast. I think about, oh, that's a great idea, they're doing a great job, or that— well, that's really slick over there, I love what's happening there. And so instead of focusing on one product in one market, now I can work with a ton, you know. And so I have many clients in many countries targeting many different types of markets. So it's, for me, an awesome mental challenge that I've got these different markets to think of, these different strategies to put together with my clients. And the fact that I can have an impact worldwide. I mean, I have clients in, I think, so these are all my clients' flags for anybody who can see that. I know we're on an audio podcast, but I think there's 18 different countries in 5 different continents. So It's really, really fun for me to have that impact. I think that that's really what it's all about. Will I get back to SaaS? Yeah, I might dip my toe back in the water. I think it's a fun time, maybe more as a board advisor as opposed to somebody actually working in the trenches.

Nice. So I guess it's more of rather than chasing, you know, another building a new company and looking at that exit and maybe the money as kind of the primary motivation factor, seems you're more driven by, you know, the purpose, the impact. At this point and seeing that kind of change in somebody.

Absolutely. That's so fun for me. Impact is a great word for it, Akeel, because it's fun when I have a client come to me, they're struggling. And I remember one in particular, Greg. He was basically about to give up his company. He built a great product. It was really, really slick. And it's planless.io, by the way, and was frustrated because he knew he had a great product. but didn't know how to convince others that it was a great product. And so fortunately, he found me, we got together, he took what I gave him for Bible and said, I'm going to definitely put the work in and implement this. He did. He went from about a 2.9% close rate to about a 30% close rate in a few months.

Wow.

10x. And so he's now like absolutely killing it. He's hiring a team, he's growing, he's seeing that exponential lift. He's closing— the other day, he messaged me and said he had 5 demos, closed 4 of them with cash on the call. And I was just super, super proud of him. So it's fun to see somebody go from, I'm about to give up, to, wow, this thing has a future, we're scaling, I can see where this is going, and it's looking really good.

Nice, going through the entire hero's journey. So let's talk about what you helped Greg with. Can you walk us through more exactly about what that DEAL process is and how do you help other B2B SaaS founders actually implement that within their sales process?

Yeah. So let's dive into what that perfect DEAL process is. So in that DEAL, in perfect DEAL process is an acronym and each of those letters stand for something. So first in the sales process, you need to discover, that's the D. You need to learn all about the prospect, the buyer that you're talking to. You need to understand their current situation, you need to understand their goals, what makes them tick. And really it's all about pain and what, what are they trying to solve? What's happening? And so we really work on that whole discovery process, which is something that a lot of people before they get into the, the, into sales mode, because a lot of the people I work with originally were technical founders, they don't understand how important discovery is, but really it's the most important part of the sales process. And so once they learn that, it gives them a really strong foundation from which to build upon. The second letter, the E, is educate. And so in educate, you need to teach them about what's going on. People look up to teachers, they look up to advisors. So if you're coaching them on something that's happening within the industry, instead of just pitching and selling to them— see, when people pitch, you're going to put up a wall.

Sure.

But if you're educating, that wall comes down and like, yeah, give me all— I'm— you're going to train me, you're going to show me, you're going to coach me, great, give it all to me. So we teach our clients how to shift from being a salesperson to being a helper, to being a consultant, and educate is part of that. The A in Perfect Deal Process is associate. And so in associate, now what you need to do is you've learned their problems, you've learned their pain and the goals. Now you need to associate your product, your solution to their pain. And their goals. And if you can do that, that's gold. Okay, you need to figure out, okay, you've got a problem, you've got a challenge. Discovery is where you can decide, is this somebody I can help? If not, do not continue. If you can't help them, if you can't solve their problem, get them somewhere else that can. But once you realize that, now you need to associate how your product does it, because you know it, but it's really important to make sure that they understand it. And so there's some real Great, really cool tactics to be able to do that. We implemented that with Greg, and it was awesome to see. We do that with everybody. And then the L is lead. Lead means you need to be the one to lead the prospect through the process. You need to guide them and show them exactly what should happen at every step of the way, and kind of hold their hand through the entire sales process, through the beginning, the calls, the end. All of it. Too many times sales reps, you know, we've been taught forever the customer is always right, right? And so they say, well, whatever they want to do. No, no, no, it's not whatever they want to do. And I have clients who ask me, hey Matt, I understand lead, I know I should do it, but here's a Fortune 500 and these are big dogs, C-level, and they know this and they've been to MBA and all this, all this. I, I don't think I should. And I asked them Let me ask you, how many times have you been through your sales process? Oh, 100, 200, 1,000, whatever. How many times have they been through your sales process? Once. This is it. Okay, so who knows more about what should happen during this process? Who knows more about what the most efficient way for them to understand if they can be helped or not? Who knows more about how they can get to the next steps and learn how to solve their problem?

Exactly.

And it's you every time. And so leading the customer is really, really important, but that's the perfect deal process.