6 Key Lessons I Learned from Pavilion CRO School. Part 1
Back in September last year, I was in Barcelona with my family.
We love BCN, and I have lots of close friends out there.
Most of them were from my Linkedin time, and we are still connected very closely.
We were having dinner, and we started talking about business. (as always!).
One topic that came out was about the tech and sales ecosystem and the main trends.
Somebody mentioned Pavilion when talking about trends and where they have seen them.
Aha moment!
I have heard about Pavilion a lot, mainly from the LinkedIn post of their CEO and Co-Founder, Sam Jacobs.
We kept talking about my job and my consultancy business and the risk of not learning or stopping learning.
I learned, again, on that night, that people call it 'the teacher syndrome'.
Somebody that for a living keeps teaching but maybe forgets about learning.
Considering the speed of the information, the trends and insights, you might be outpaced if not up to date.
On the night, I went on my laptop and signed up for their Executive Membership.
I needed to keep learning and find the right source of information. Pavilion seemed to be the right one for the SAAS, tech, and all-revenue industries.
They have different chapters, founders, CRO, CMO and even a section for fractional / consultants.
The first class recommended to me was the CRO (Chief Revenue Officer) School.
So I signed up.
CRO school has been one of the best learning experiences I have had in a long time.
It's a live 10-week course for CRO and Revenue leaders.
I will focus on the first part of the school and the takeaways of the first lessons. The school, in total, took us a few months, and it was one session per week.
I will break down 6 takeaways into two parts; here is the first.
1. Strategy, People, Process, Systems, Metrics
As a CRO, you will wear many caps, and that's normal.
The complexity is enormous, and considering our current crisis, 2024 might even be more arduous.
However, as a CRO, you must prioritize and allocate your time. That is why the SPPSM framework is a must. Start with the strategy, then the people, processes come later and then systems and metrics.
Pavilion Intellectual Property
2. When to Scale
During the session, I was astonished by Josh Allen's session. Josh led multiple sales teams, and he is a seasoned CRO.
There are many highlights, but the best for me remains the 'when to scale' part.
Josh gave us a structured process to understand when to start scaling; according to John, you need the following:
Gross customer retention of 90%+ & Net retention of 100%+
LTV: CAC of 3:1 or better
The Golden Rule of Quota Attainment:
At least 50% of reps at 100%+ AND
At least 70% of reps at 70%+
There's evidence of at least one significant sales segment/channel having Crossed the Chasm into the early/late buyer majority.
You have identified a primary ICP and buyer persona(s)
There is a large, clearly identified, underpenetrated TAM to support
Pavilion Intellectual Property
3. The 3Ps of Scaling.
People
process (with a lowercase "p")
Planning
People are the first and the most essential part of 'Scaling'. Finding the right people and hiring and onboarding them is essential.
Josh Allen's slide (Pavilion's intellectual property)
Process (lowercase "o") comes later, not before.
Here, you should be able to build and communicate a sales process, everyday language, hiring and onboarding, performance management and forecasting.
The last P of Scaling is planning. Planning would involve creating a revenue plan, a team capacity plan and a GTM. Understand the core vs emerging marketings, and build and scale your tech stack.
Summary
Learning has always been an obsession for me.
Last year, for the first six months of my business, I had trouble focusing on something else than actually building the business.
That is why Pavilion helped me so much.
It got me back in the learning phase, back at school, but with today's technologies. (Slack, LMS, live and recorded sessions).
See you next week for part 2 of the learnings, same time, same inbox. Ciao!
