February 07, 2024   |   Read Online

Consolidation is coming

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The Middle from GrowthCurve.io

Three ideas to level up your week.

Hey Reader,

Welcome to The Middle, your midweek rundown of the most interesting things we've read so far this week.

Brought to you by Jay & Jeff at GrowthCurve.io, formerly customersuccess.io.

We're here to help SaaS VPs, directors, and managers level up to become better business leaders.

It's Wednesday, so let's jump into The Middle...

  THE MARKET

Point solutions: is consolidation on the horizon?

In recent years, each department has had plenty of point solutions at its fingertips.

These point solutions create operational headaches:

• Your teams switch between multiple products a day - this context-switching serves no one

• Your customer (and their data) somehow doesn't quite make it into the right tools at the right times

• Your operations team gets stuck trying to build reporting procedures that are "accurate" but often don't match

All of this means complexity for you, your teams and the customer.
Integrations can only cover the gap for so long.

Two ways for you to be thinking about consolidation:

• Can you create an internal win by finding functionality within a tool that your company already pays for?

• The market will show consolidation (acquisitions, mergers, etc.) - have you shopped around to find your next solution if yours is acquired?

Consolidation is coming, better to be prepared.

  BUSINESS OPERATIONS

Inspect your renewal process

The renewal can be a "scary" period for a vendor -- the customer might be shopping for other products, they're certainly going to negotiate terms and they have leverage.

But the scary aspect may be hiding in plain sight - your teams don't understand the mechanics of a SaaS contract.

There are 3 levers part of most SaaS contracts that our teams should understand:

• Pricing & Packaging: Determines the cost of the service and the extent of features, users, or usage limits included, which is crucial for aligning the service with the budget and operational needs of the team.

• Term Length: Defines the duration of the contract, impacting the team's commitment level and flexibility to adapt to changing business needs or technology advancements.

• Payment Structure: Outlines how and when payments are made, affecting cash flow management and financial planning for the team, ensuring affordability and fiscal responsibility.

Those are 3 levers that might be "on the table" in terms of negotiating.

When you inspect your renewal process take into account

• Is the team educated the team on these 3 levers?

• Have we created playbooks for renewal owners to make decisions?

• What support do they have available to them?

When you are trying to optimize for speed, the answer is usually empowering your team to make decisions that require less oversight.

Build guardrails, find a way for checks and balances, but eliminate the friction so you can move.

  LEADERSHIP

Communicate with your team more than you think

If you go read any article about "communication as a manager" it has things like:

• Be approachable

• Be direct, but not overbearing

• Don't just focus on weaknesses

Sure, those are the basics but we're beyond regurgitating that type of content. Instead, let's focus on where you communicate with your teams.

We're (mostly) working on remote teams - and that means a lack of real connection with your teams. You are fighting an uphill battle.

You have to build trust, authenticity, and openness.
That's tough to do with purely emails or Slack.

So, here's a few ways I've expanded my methods to try and get into a better relationship:

• Short-form video - give your team the ability to see your face

• Audio notes - a personal way to think out-loud and provide context

• Collaborative doc - force the idea into a word doc where you can all contribute

Your teams are missing camradier -- they sit in a lonely place.
Working from home, no real context on the business, and Town Halls once a quarter.

Find ways to get them energized and moving -- the business will thrive.

      AI CORNER

We're in on the AI hype.
Here's one way to use AI within your day-to-day work.
​

This week: Customer Research
​
​You need to learn more about your customer, a publicly traded company.

Go take their most recent public filing, copy and paste it into ChatGPT.
​
Ask ChatGPT questions (examples):
- What is their 2024 strategy to grow revenue?
- Where do they perceive risk in the business?
​
It's an easy way for you to become more informed about your customer, while letting ChatGPT do the work.

Thanks for reading the first edition of The Middle, from GrowthCurve.io.

​Drop us a line, and let us know what you think.​

Better yet, if you found it valuable - forward it to a friend or colleague. We'll owe you one.

🚀

Cheers!

Jay & Jeff

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