How to Land Enterprise Customers with Hugo CoFounder Simone Bartlett (Workshop Wednesday)

join. So welcome. While you are joining, please feel free to put in the chat where you are joining from. Love to see where the community is coming in from. And welcome back to Workshop Wednesday. Um, if this is your first Workshop Wednesday, welcome. Um, we have been doing these since the beginning of November, and Workshop Wednesday is designed to be detailed, interactive, and hands-on workshops. Um, the difference here is not only like a podcast or other sessions, you'll actually get to be interactive and ask questions live to our speaker. So we are making sure that we get your questions answered during these sessions. Today we have a great speaker, Simone, CEO and co-founder of Hugo. Who will be discussing Landing Enterprise Clients: Tactical Tips for Early-Stage Companies. I know we have a lot of early-stage companies at SaaStr or in the SaaStr community, and so I think we are going to have a lot of questions about this session. So as a reminder, when— throughout the session, if you do have questions, please add them into the chat. We are really looking forward to tailoring this session to what you want to know. And with that, Simone, welcome.

Hello. Thanks for having me again.

Of course. Thank you so much for joining. We're going to dive into a few questions to get to know you a little bit better before I hand it over to your slides. So Simone, how would you define what you do at Hugo?

So my role has changed over time. I think right now I spend a lot of time just thinking about, do I have the right team? Um, so I spend a lot more time recruiting. Um, and so I'd say I probably spend my time 60% recruiting, 40% client success. Uh, before I spent a lot more time just on like hardcore sales, but as we've grown, I've transitioned more to You know, how do we get the right team and how do we make sure the clients we have are happy, especially in these times?

Great. And do you want to give a little background on Hugo as well?

Yeah, so we are actually a business process outsourcing company. Um, we are headquartered in Chicago, and I think what's different about us is we are, you know, our operations are in Africa, primarily West Africa. Uh, we have a large workforce in Nigeria, in Senegal for French, in Cape Verde for Portuguese. And we do everything from customer support to content moderation to data annotation. And, you know, what is interesting about, you know, our workforce is one, just the language, to share, like, you know, access to languages, but two, also an untapped workforce. A lot of, you know, the more I guess established countries are, you know, pretty tapped out, pretty competitive. Uh, we're in a market that is, you know, just coming online, so we have sort of an employer's market for us. We were able to bring really good talent, uh, really good trained and managed talent to our clients.

Great, uh, thank you for the quick explanation there. I'm sure we're going to dive more into that, but what projects are you working on today that you are most excited about?

Ah, so rate negotiations, um, very interesting time to be involved in rate negotiations. I think one thing I've learned as a CEO is to— this is my first real, like, goal at a recession or recessionary, like, future projections, um, and just wishing I'd started these conversations or initiated these conversations earlier. Um, I, you know, I was just living in the moment of when the contract expires as opposed to Oh, what's coming on the pipeline next year? Should I like push forward now? So I'd say like, you know, that's been a big lesson for me. It's exciting one because I'm learning, and it's also very challenging. But it's scary, right? Because you're negotiating for something, you're negotiating in times of famine for the next 2 or 3 years, which is, you know, pretty difficult thing to think about and to get done. But it's exciting. So that's one of the things I'm working on. And like I said, also like Recruiting. Strange thing to be doing in these times. I know a lot of companies are not recruiting, but we've been pretty conservative for a long time and we think there'll be good talent on the market. So we're actually in the market now trying to like, you know, build out our team for when the feast comes again.

Great. Love to hear someone hiring. This is probably correlated with your last answer, but in the last 12 months, what's been the hardest thing you've worked on?

Definitely rate negotiations. That is something that is just, just, just difficult all around. Clients don't love rate negotiations because, you know, rate negotiations mean increased rates. And like I said, you know, we're just in difficult times. And as a vendor, one of the things you always want to seem is understanding. And a lot of our clients, you know, they're in the news just doing these big layoffs. So, you know, they're doing big layoffs and you're asking like, hi, you know, I need, I need a price increase. That's difficult. So I'd say that's definitely one of the more challenging things. I'm also, you know, about to go on maternity leave. And as a, you know, CEO, you spend a lot of time imagining you always be there. So now just trying to like get everything in place so that when I go on maternity leave, I can really just like, you know, feel good that everything is in place. And that's a bit of a challenge as well because there's so many little things that you do that you don't document. And then you realize, oh, I probably should have been documenting all this stuff. It's just easier for transition.

I totally understand. Well, congratulations from the SASTR team, and I will let you take it away.

Awesome. So my session today is— I'm trying to navigate down. How do I— Let's do this. Sorry. Landing enterprise clients, tactical tips for early-stage companies. This morning I said to my husband, have I landed enough enterprise clients to be, to be an authority on this? I sort of feel like a professor, right? Like just talking on things that are, you know, theoretical but not necessarily have done a ton. I'd say, you know, we are still pretty early on. So we've been in business for 5 years and we have 3 enterprise clients. Under our belt. I think, you know, we've been, we've been lucky in that regard. And, you know, we had some things, some stars just aligned. And I think sometimes, you know, one of the first things that I tell, you know, people thinking about enterprise clients is, you know, operate with a sense of urgency, but be patient, right? Like my team, every time you talk about, you know, approaching a new client, my first advice is let's not rush into a no. Let's think about, is now a good time? Are the stars— does it feel like the stars are aligned in our favor? Is there something going on that, you know, would suggest that this company would be open to a new vendor? Because one of the things that we've learned is that a lot of teams are trying to have less vendors, not more. So why will they make room for you? What is going on in the market? What is going on in the company? What is going on in society, right, that would have this company sort of like be interested in making room for a new vendor that now needs to be managed and like onboarded and integrated, etc. So that's my first tip, just like this is super important. So operate with urgency for sure, but, but there's no value in rushing into a no. And how do we, you know, how do we do that? I think For me, the first thing is about becoming an insider. If we're talking about approaching a new company, well, what do we know? Um, you know, I remember one of the first enterprise clients we approached, I was so sure that they would want Solution X, and just after a couple of conversations, I realized they wanted anything but Solution X because Solution X meant, um, it just meant a lot more administration for them. And I remember thinking, well, if I hadn't had these conversations, I would have been really busy selling Solution X. Um, but you know, haven't had these conversations, I now know that I need to sell Solution Y. I don't really have Solution Y, but I can go back and sort of build Solution Y and sell it, because Solution X and Y are sort of the same. I just need to position it as Y as opposed to X. Um, so I think the first thing is Talking to as many people as possible. One, you learn the lingo. You understand, you know, just how the company talks about their problems, how they talk about possible solutions, where the pain points are around, like, you know, other vendors, because chances are there is another vendor unless your product is, you know, something that's super novel. I think what that does, like I said, is it allows you to tailor your solution and most importantly, your sales material. To sound like you're meeting the company's exact issue. A lot of times, you know, like, we're selling solutions, and it probably is the right solution, but it's not tailored in a way that the company talks about their problem or talks about like what this solution could look like. I think another piece of advice around this is understand that not every conversation is a sale. Because not everybody has a pocketbook, right? I think, you know, talking to as many people as possible and just being very discerning about, well, when do I sell? When do I fall back? When do I just use the time to ask a lot of questions or ask a lot of opinions and guidance on, you know, who else I might want to talk to? So now when I go into meetings, it's more like, well, you know, what do you think of like what I'm doing? Do you see like a fit? You know, who else would be able to tell me like if it's a fit or not? So I'm always trying to like get our next like conversation going. Because eventually you'll run into someone that says, oh, Oh, you know, maybe I should introduce you to X. And that's the point where you feel like, okay, you're sort of like getting it because now they're offering to introduce you to the person that has their pocketbook. Um, so I'd say again, not every conversation is a sale. Just be someone that people, you know, they're happy to talk to because you feel like energetic, you feel inquisitive, you feel like, you know, considerate. Um, and then the actual, you know, final piece of advice is, you know, find an actual insider, someone that's just like excited about you for whatever reason, excited about what you're doing for whatever reason. And it could be either, right? It could be excited about you, they could be excited about what you're doing or what you're trying to build. And those people will prove invaluable. If I'm honest, like our first enterprise client, you know, we probably wouldn't have gotten it without having an insider because insider would just say, oh, don't say that. That will just like scare them, say this. And that was just invaluable. And I kept thinking like, how would we have known that? How could we have known that without someone that was on the inside just rooting for us and, you know, helping us prep for conversations, et cetera. So I think that, you know, it's my second piece of advice, just really invest the time in becoming an insider. And to my point about, you know, not rushing into a no, I remember I had a conversation you know, when I was going through the process with Meta, and at one point in the conversation, and the person said, oh, you know, I should introduce you to X, and I said, oh, I don't think I'm ready, right? Like, after everything he'd said, I realized like, wow, like, I'm not ready. Um, so no, don't introduce me just yet, you know. I'll like, I'll, I'll reach out when I think like, you know, I'm ready to be, to be introduced. And, you know, that's a hard thing to say because you just want to move forward, but again, it's all about, well, why rush into a no when I can like really, you know, spend the next 2 months just like trying to like you know, become what they're looking for exactly. The third thing is process. Um, I don't know how many of you have been to business school, but, you know, when I got to business school, I realized, wow, getting into business school was far harder than being at business school. Um, and getting into business school has nothing to do with how smart you are, in my opinion. It's really about there's a process, and do you understand the process? And do you understand like the different levers within the process? And I would say like, you know, going through like the different enterprise companies that we've worked with, like I spend most of my time trying to understand the process because it's— I mean, the processes are so like cumbersome, they're contradictory sometimes. And I figured out like, you know, a lot of the— a lot of No's come from like the process and not the capability, not the actual capabilities. So I'd say like one, understanding that, you know, enterprise clients have processes. One, you know, people get paid to put these like processes that they're super proud of in place. And the processes aren't to let in more vendors, it's to keep out vendors, right? So I think I see the process as, well, this is the first gate you have to get down, get through. Expect the processes to be rigorous, but, and really invest in understanding them and the different gatekeepers at every, like, step of the process. And then I would say, you know, invest whatever is needed to get through that process. Because again, like, for me, at least what I've experienced is that the process is usually more difficult than actually working, you know, with the client. I think the fourth thing that, you know, I've learned as well is, you know, enterprise people, there are people too, and enterprises have a lot, a lot of people, um, with a lot, a lot of different motives and interests. Um, so I think, you know, for me, I just approach it as in, as I find people at enterprise actually to be I find working with enterprises, like, I spend much more time thinking about this, the people that are involved, than I do with other companies. And maybe it's just like sheer number of people, the fact that, you know, processes are much more in place. But I also, I always try to think about, well, you're a person, you know, how do I make this as easy as possible, right? Like, people like certain things. They like easy to understand. So what am I selling? Am I selling it in a way that like, this is just super clear, I get it, I don't have to think about it. I don't have to ask more questions. I really just get it. Familiarity is a big thing. I remember once I was listening to an interview from Black Eyed Peas, and they say, you know, depending on the city we go to, that'll determine who we send forward to open the show. And I remember thinking, ah, that's very clever. I mean, they're all equally talented, but, you know, truth is people like just more empathetic or more open to things that feel familiar. And part of this idea of becoming an insider is even if I can't look like you, I definitely want to sound like you in terms of I speak the lingo a bit, like I ref some names, et cetera. So I'd say familiarity is a big thing and really thinking about who in your team would be good to like open the conversation and lead the conversation. Checking boxes. Enterprise clients love to check boxes. So You know, do you have your I's dotted and your T's crossed? Like, just like basic criteria. Do you meet the basic criteria? And I think also, you know, people like when you do the heavy lifting. Yeah, I'm interested in helping you, but what's your ask? Is it clear? You know, you send me an email, right? Is it something I can just forward without like thinking about it? What are the talking points? Oh, you want me to talk to X about this? Like, What are the 3 talking points? What are the 3 things that you want me to say on your behalf? So I think really thinking about how do I make it super easy for a possible advocate or someone that, you know, just like, okay, I can do that, that's not hard, for them to like be super helpful. And then the final thing, and I left this last because I think like, you know, this is, I imagine a lot of us have faced this question. So who else are you working with? And you know, people talk a lot about just the flock mentality where one, like, nobody wants to be your first. That's for sure, right? Nobody wants to be your first, and everybody wants cover, right? Like, oh, well, you're already doing this for X. So okay, that means you're probably safe. And you know, just what are your— and if you don't have any enterprise clients yet, are you not doing for that enterprise client the thing that you're offering to do for this enterprise client, right? Like, how do you keep the conversation going? Um, for me, a lot of conversations die at, so who else are you working with, right? And I'll say, oh, you know, you're working with A, B, and C. But what I— what the question really is, is who of my peers, right, of my publicly traded peers, of my peers that I think have the same, like, rigorous processes or like, you know, have the same like, you know, public scrutiny, you know, who are you working with? Um, so having an answer to that question I think is, is so important, you know, like a very thoughtful answer. I mean, if you're already working with companies, with enterprise peers, um, doing the exact thing, I think it's super easy, right? But for a lot of us, this is a conversation about, well, how do we get our first client? And I think This is a question you should prepare for. So who else, who else are you working with? Or, oh, what do you do at X? Because that'll determine like where I send you, right? Like who I send you to, because we're not taking chances. So tell me like where you have like proven experience, and you know, then I'll reach out to my colleague over there to ask like how you're doing. So those are the 5 tips, and I'd say 1 and 5 are probably like the ones I would really like stress. And with that, yeah, I will, you know, take any questions.

Great. Okay. If you want to stop sharing your slides so we can open it up and see any questions that are coming in. Great. If you do, we're seeing a lot of kudos in the chat right now for sure. Um, so thank you so much, Simone. If you do have questions, please put them in the chat. Um, if you do want to unmute yourself to ask them, feel free to do so. We would love to hear from you. All right, first question, um, on your comment of become an insider and talking to as many people as possible, do you just use word of mouth or do you also use surveys or any other more quantitative versions of collecting data from clients?

So I think, you know, for me, I found surveys are difficult when you're not actually already a vendor. So it's really word of mouth, right? So I'll go on the website. I, you know, I'm lucky in terms of my network, I'll be honest, right? So I'll go see, okay, well, how many people from my school work here? I'll open, I'll see, you know, well, what could be my connection to anyone? Because I'm a Black woman, I look for diversity, you know, channels, or just diversity advocates within the organization. It's really just like having conversations, very— for them, chill conversations. But for me, I come into the conversation prepared, like, okay, what is it I want to get out of this conversation? Do I want to be introduced to a specific person? Do I want you to like give me some feedback on how I'm thinking about approaching the company? Have you seen like new vendors, you know, like, you know, who's in charge here, etc.? So I haven't done surveys. It's been more just like for them, casual, casual chats that just give me like a sense of— I treat it like I'm trying to like, you know, recruit for the company or get into the company as like an employee. I sort of have like those types of conversations.

Great. We have a question from Kevin in the chat if you want to unmute yourself and ask.

Hi Simone, your slide 5 on talking to enterprise was really, really powerful. And I wanted to ask for your advice on landing your first customer within a size band. When you're trying to break in and they're asking, hey, what are you doing with our peers? And you don't have peers yet. How do you answer that?

So what I do is I talk about working alongside their current vendors, right? So I will say, I mean, it's tough. It's a tough one. You have to hope to have a friendly audience. But I usually say, you know, like, you know, currently we are, you know, in talks with X, or we're piloting. But, you know, the, the best, sort of the best example, I guess, is I work alongside, let's say, TaskUs, right, with this particular client. So you work with TaskUs, and I compete alongside TaskUs successfully working with another client. So I've, I've used that a lot. Um, just making it about, well, I'm already competing or working alongside the vendors that you're working with. Because before I had an enterprise client, it was super difficult. And I remember I was getting an introduction to, um, Uber at one point, and they were super excited, and they were like, oh, what do you do for Meta? And then they realized, like, what I did for Meta wasn't what they wanted. That was the end of the conversation. So I just became, like, very mindful of just giving them like— because what they're looking for is comfort or cover. And how can I sort of like give comfort and, and/or cover? And so that's one thing that I've tried, but I'm not— I, I don't pretend to know it all. So I would love to hear others talk about how they have answered that question, because I imagine like that question just always, uh, comes up. And are there like, you know, more sophisticated or clever ways to sort of get that, get past that question and not have the conversation die there.

So can I just ask a quick follow-up? You have an omnichannel support line of business, which is like Slack, email, or chat, email, text, etc. And so if you were trying to break into enterprise along this, would you say, hey, we're current, you know, we have support solutions that compete with Zendesk, Front, etc.? Would you talk about the tools that you're competing against, or like, you know, you're trying to get your first enterprise pilot and you're trying to compete with existing solutions. Do you talk about the solutions that you're successfully competing against or working alongside?

So I think what's different from, you know, about our business that we are mostly people, which is why we'll position ourselves against other people businesses, right? So we'll say, oh, you know, we work with alongside TaskUs on this account. But for, you know, a software, yeah, that, that makes perfect sense, right? Like, oh, you know, like, you know, we are piloting with X or we successfully piloted with Y, you know, who currently like uses Zendesk or whatever the solution is, right? Like just, just because they're trying to frame you relative to these other guys and you're, you're sort of agreeing to that framing by saying, yes, you know, like we, we, we compete against these other tools. Here. So yeah, I think that's a very clever way to go about it. But I, again, I would love to hear how other people have answered that question, because for me, like, it's still the question that brings me the most, like, unease, because a lot of times, like, people use it to, like, as a decision, right? Am I going to continue the conversation, or do we just, like, close the conversation here? Whether they say it or not, that's, like, a lot of times what they're doing.

Thank you so much.

Great. And if you have responses on how you answer that question in the chat, feel free to put them so people can continue to talk about this. Chris, our next question comes from you.

Great, thanks. Simone, curious as to what books made the biggest change in your, your personal self as a professional in the working world, regardless of discipline or skill set.

So it doesn't necessarily have to be sales.

Just curious.

Sorry, can you ask your question again? Sorry.

Yeah. So what book has made the biggest change on you as a working professional, regardless of sales-specific discipline?

Yeah. I'm drawing a blank now, and I literally just had the book in my head. My therapist recommended it, and it's because I was having a lot of trouble. I felt like I was having a lot of trouble recruiting, or just like finding the right team. Extreme Leadership. And, you know, Extreme Leadership, it was a difficult book because it uses a lot of war analogies. It was written by, you know, people that went to war. But what it showed you is, in the end, like, and this is the whole point of entrepreneurship, like, the right leader will change any situation, right? So if you come in with the mindset of like, well, you know, it's all about how I lead, as opposed to what anyone else is doing, it— one, it changes your— it just changes your mindset. It puts a lot of responsibility on you to get the outcomes that you want. And I think once you take on Once I started like seeing it that way, as opposed to like, well, is this person talented enough, or is this person like experienced enough, it just changed everything. And, and I, I think that book was really good for me and, and the team because of the business that we're in, right? So now, like, you know, when people think about outsourcing, they just think about shit work, if I'm honest. But we come with the idea of like, no, like, give us, give us the people and we will lead them to like just like do the best work, right? Like, we want to be able to like take an agent that sits in Ghana, for example, and drop them into like a chat that's happening in Canada, and they don't feel alien, right? And we can do that, right? Like, so it just puts all this, all the power in your hands, right? Like, you're the leader, you decide. And I think like that book was, was great. Another book was Asking Who, Not How, right? And that's been the transition for me, which is why I spend so much more time recruiting. Because before everything was about, oh, how are we going to get this done? And then I realized, or, you know, having read this book, it's like, I'm never going to think of the right how because I only have 5% or 10%, um, of my mindshare to give to that. Why don't I focus on, like, getting the right who, and then that who person can think of the right how? So I'd say those two books have had, like, the biggest impact because one gives me a lot of control or just like, you know, change my mindset where like, okay, it's me, it's just like me and I'm gonna like make this happen. And the second was, you know, as the company evolves, you have to like move away from that mindset into like, well, not how anymore, because that still makes it all about you. It's like, well, who is the right who to do this?

Great. Okay. We have a ton of questions coming in in the chat. Keep them coming. Really excited to see. Our next question actually comes from LinkedIn Live. So this is regarding point number 2. How do you respond if you know the company is reviewing your competitors at the same time? Are you still going to wait the 3 months to be connected to someone, or would you want to continue to move forward at a quicker speed knowing that they are evaluating competitors now?

So I think, you know, I would move forward because I know like oftentimes nothing— for me, things haven't happened quickly with enterprise clients. Like things, there's usually a sales cycle or there's just a lot, a lot of months that are involved between like opening conversations and getting to the end answer. But if it's an RFP, for example, You know, you have to move forward, right? Like, this is— if the window is going to close— my comment was based on, like, you know, this is— there's no closed window. With an RFP, RFQ, there is a closed window. So I think it's about moving forward, but really shifting resources to, like, become who they're looking for. Because in the end, they're not going to take who they're not looking for. So if you, you know, can shift resources to be— to be what they're looking for by the time, like, you know, like, they get to you and really, like, scrutinizing what you have, I would say that's, that's, that hands down the right decision because there's a, there's a timer.

Great. Okay. Thank you. Emre, if you want to unmute yourself and ask your question.

No, actually, my question has been answered at this point. I wrote that into the chat. Sorry.

All right. No problem at all. Thank you for unmuting yourself. Can, if you would like to ask your question.

Thank you very much for amazing presentation. I agree everything you said, especially number 1, spot on. So we have been selling in mid-market for quite some time and we tried to switch to enterprise last year and we have some success. But one of our biggest points is that sometimes we lose deals to much larger competitors, sometimes public competitors, right? And we are startup like yourself. So I was wondering if you have any insights how to win against much larger competitors? It is like similar to good old Silicon Valley saying that nobody is lost their job by signing IBM. So we are having that kind of situation. Insights about how to win against larger competitors.

Thank you. So my strategy with that honestly is to present as a great backup solution. I talk about how well we work with the larger companies, right? So I reference accounts where we, you know, work alongside, for example, TELUS, right? Like, that's one of our— I don't even call them competitors because they're so large. How could they be my competitor, right? Like, I'm— they're like an elephant and I'm literally like an ant. But I, I spend a lot of time talking about how well we integrate with larger companies, how well we work alongside, you know, larger companies, how well we act as like a second player. And then a lot of the— and I give specific references. So I don't want you to like decide, okay, is, you know, Accenture or Hugo. I want you to say, well, I'm not going to only have Accenture, so who are the little players that I get to keep Accenture in check? And the other thing I talk about is And this is more like verbal conversations. Like, what the little guys do is they keep the big guys in check, right? Because the big guys are just— they're too big to fail. But having like the little ants around, it sort of keeps them on their toes. And that sounds pretty good, right? So you're not going with Accenture over— you're not going with Ugo over Accenture because that's probably a very difficult decision to make, right? Like, why would you do that? Uh, but the idea that you have like another vendor which, you know, gives you some, like, risk management that, that is fine integrated and, like, talks about how well they integrate with the big players, I'd say is good. And also this idea, like, you know, it's hard to communicate, like, rhythm, but, like, well, what we do is we, like, we, we lift the bar, right? Like, you're not gonna get TELUS's best, like, clients or best, like, what do you call it, agents. But we'll give you our best agents, and our best agents will force their agents to sort of like, you know, meet the bar. So I think that's how we talk about it, because you're just not going to take me over Accenture. So it's more like, will you take— when you take Accenture, you're going to take some other people. Can we— can we be one of the other people that you, you take?

Okay. Okay.

And again, would love to hear if people think about, you know, how people think about that, because for me, you know, I'm learning as well. You know, I try things, they work sometimes, they don't work sometimes, then I try something else. Um, so very happy to like hear others like comment on that.

Great, got some discussion going on the chat, or if you want to unmute yourself, um, with a differing opinion, let me know. All right, our next question: how do How do you do pipeline generation for enterprise customers? Email, cold call, or any other channel? And it does look like there are some plus ones in the chat to this. A lot of interest in this topic.

We do mostly like, you know, finding people on the inside to start the conversations. We haven't had success with cold emails for enterprise. I'd say more with like, um, you know, SMEs and I guess mid-market. But with enterprise, I think, you know, we just haven't had a lot of success. So we focus on relationships, not relationships that we already had, but like, you know, building relationships or finding people on LinkedIn, uh, finding people in databases that we are affiliated with. To just get the conversation started and to get the first introduction. Um, I'd say like that has been the biggest thing for, for us. Haven't had like success with cold emails. Um, it's been more like, how do you get that like first person to like send an email to say, hey, you know, I'd love such and such, would love to learn about why, or, you know, such and such has a solution Can they be included in the RFP life cycle? And RFP is a request for proposals that sometimes enterprise clients will put out. So that has been our strategy.

Great. If anyone has any other ways that they've been able to reach out to enterprise clients, feel free to put them in the chat. Our next question comes from Brinley on LinkedIn Live. What are the top 3 red flags decision makers look for How can you communicate certainty in these areas?

So it depends on who the decision maker is. So I think, you know, when I interact with enterprise clients, there are two groups. There's the group that has the need, and then there's the risk management admin. And I always tell people, one group cares about the work you do, and the other group cares about how you get that work done. I think, you know, from my business specifically, people think a lot about headlines, right? Um, you know, there's just a lot of negative press around just outsourced work and remote work in general. Um, so I think in terms of like— I think in terms of red flags that they look for in general, you just— who's involved in the company? So when you go through these processes, they want to understand like all the different owners. I think they do background checks, like intense background checks on senior people in the team. So just making sure that your team, uh, is legitimate or legit, I guess. I think in terms of also, um, you just— where you're incorporated, I think companies are spending a lot more time thinking about like, you know, incorporation and, you know, where companies— where people sit, etc. I'm trying to think of other red flags because again, I think more of these processes are about process and checking boxes than they are about capabilities, because capabilities you get to like with the product, right? That's an easy one. Like, let's test your product and we'll see. So I think, I think, but when I think about, you know, like for the guys that I talk to, when they think about what was a red flag, I wouldn't say is that you're not currently working with any of their peers. I think that's, that's more of a green flag, right? Like, oh, you're working with my peers. So that's a green flag. Oh, you're not working with my peers. It's not, it's not that it's a red flag. It's just that I'm not interested because I don't see, I don't have a green flag. But I can't think of other big blockers beyond like, well, who are you? Who are we like associating with from like just a reputation standpoint? Those have been the red flags that we have been very like, you know, interest or aware of, like, you know, they don't say out loud, but I definitely felt like, oh, you know, like there's a lot of— they wanted to know, you know, who were our main investors, which investors own, you know, above X percent, etc. So I think that's— that has seemed more relevant than my actual solution or product, to be honest.

Great. Okay, thank you. If there are more questions, please put them in the chat. For our next question, I know you talked about this being your first recession as a CEO, but do you have any tips or tricks to retaining clients during these uncertain financial times?

Well, I think not only is it our first recession, but we are also not the largest player in the room, right? Like, I'm not Google, so I don't get to dictate, no, you still have to pay that for your enterprise mailbox. So we've been very flexible, I'd say. And even when you're like, I mean, as soon as I get emails, I've been getting emails and I'm just like, I hate these people. This is what I think in my mind. But when I get on the phone, right, like I'm super empathetic. I mean, I literally said to one of my team members, oh, I feel worse for them than I do for us because your business was, it was a COVID darling and now like COVID is over and like what's going to happen? So I think super empathetic, you know, super flexible. We've like relaxed a lot of the contract rules or just like a lot of terms of the contract. We've relaxed. I think this is where having an insider also becomes relevant because they can sort of give you like just a general, like, you know, what are the conversations like internally? Is it really do or die or are they just using this as a negotiation tactic? Tactic. And that's an area where I've struggled. Um, you know, you're seeing all these headlines, you know, we serve primarily tech businesses and you're seeing all these headlines. Um, and you know, people have to like— whether it's a, a, you know, Series E startup or, you know, an enterprise client, like they have to like do more with less, right? That's what investors are pushing for. You have to do more with less. And how less is less, right? And that's, that's why it's good to have like insiders that can just give you a sense of how good or bad things really are. Um, so I'd say like, you know, be, be a little bit relaxed and constantly be pushing on, well, when the future is bright again, right? So now I talk about feast and famine, right? We're in famine times, and okay, I will do this in the famine. When there's a feast again, can we talk about what that will look like? Um, so I try to spend a lot of time thinking about What will the feast look like? Because it's hard for me not knowing like what's actually happening on the inside to really like negotiate hard. One, I'm not, like I said, Accenture, right? Like you, you don't need me. As in like, I'm not too big to fail, right? Like Accenture is too big to fail, or Citi is too big to fail. But I just don't have that negotiating power. So what I do is I'm building goodwill for when the feast comes, comes again. And hopefully that answers like the question, but it's, it's hard.

Right. Yeah, I think that's a great perspective. I think that is all the questions in the chat. Simone, thank you so much for joining us, and thank you all. We had a lot of great discussion in the chat today. So a reminder to join these sessions live because you have the opportunity to really talk, network with your peers and our SASTR experts like Simone as well. So Simone, thank you again so much. We will be back next week with another great session, 5 Metrics Every SaaS Company Should Care About for Success in Any Market Conditions. And this will be from Jessica Bartos, investor at Salesforce Ventures. So please be sure to join again next week. And thank you again, Simone.

Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Of course. Hi, everyone.