S4E37 – Matt Wolach – Built & Sold 2 B2B SaaS companies

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Key Timecodes

• (00:38) – Show intro and background history
• (02:39) – Deeper into his first SaaS venture
• (04:35) – Understanding his marketing and sales strategies
• (07:52) – A bit about his business numbers
• (09:33) – The lesson learned with this first venture
• (11:12) – What is his second business venture
• (12:21) – Understanding his marketing and sales strategies
• (17:14) – A bit about that company numbers
• (18:25) – What mistake did he make in this company
• (19:32) – Understanding his coaching business model
• (22:35) – Few tips from the guest
• (29:38) – A key takeaway from the guest
• (32:23) – What is the worst advice he ever received
• (33:09) – What is the best advice he ever received
• (34:21) – Guest contacts

Transcription

[00:00:00.320] – Show Intro

Hey, this is Sean Tapper, the host of Payback Time, an approachable and transparent podcast in building businesses, increasing wealth, and achieving financial freedom. I like to bring on guests to hear authentic stories while giving you actionable takeaways you can use today. Let’s go.

[00:00:17.450] – Guest Intro

My next guest has built and sold multiple SaaS companies. The first company was for the physical therapy industry, and the second company was for the real estate industry. In this episode, he breaks down what works and doesn’t work for sales and marketing, how much he charges, and what his exit multiples were on both businesses. Please welcome Matt Wolach.

[00:00:38.170] – Sean

Matt, welcome to the show.

[00:00:39.900] – Matt

Thanks, Sean. Glad to be here.

[00:00:41.580] – Sean

Thanks for joining me. So why don’t you kick us off and tell us about your background?

[00:00:45.040] – Matt

Sure. So I was actually educated in hospitality management, basically customer service with hotels and restaurants. Spent some time doing that, which was a great experience for me, really learning how to deal with people, both people who were the customers, yelling at me, and also internal, my the employees what they would need and their desires and having to deal with all of that. So I had a great learning experience, but realized I don’t like working those hours or for that pay. So I eventually got into sales, spent some more time doing that, and really got into SaaS software And it was so much fun starting software companies and growing them and scaling them. And I’ve done it a few times. I’m fortunate enough to have a couple of exits. And now what I do is I help other people understand how they can start and grow their own software company and scale it to be really big so that they can get their dream exit and do what they want to do with their life.

[00:01:34.500] – Sean

Sweet. I can totally relate to your background on hospitality. I worked in, throughout college, I worked in the hotel industry. Downtown Milwaukee, I did hotel security, which is a catch-all helpful segment to the company to help everything from hybrid restaurant, to housekeeping, to management, you name it. So, yeah, I agree with you. Did I want to work every Friday and Saturday and some Sunday days? No.

[00:02:01.240] – Matt

Yeah, exactly. Absolutely not.

[00:02:03.430] – Sean

But good. As you mentioned there, you get a lot of hard, I wouldn’t say tough times with customers, but those moments when they’re really being… They’re demanding, they want everything now, and they’re going to call you names or push you around a little bit. And guess what? You got to take it.

[00:02:22.940] – Matt

So true. The beautiful thing is I still use that experience, what I learned from all those interactions now. So even though that It was quite a while ago in my life, it was very influential and made me the person I am today. So I feel confident and able to handle any time somebody gets a bit upset.

[00:02:39.220] – Sean

Yeah, right on. All right. Well, let’s dive into your first SaaS venture. What was the name of the company? What did it do?

[00:02:48.200] – Matt

It’s called WebPT. Basically, it was an electronic medical record for physical therapists. Eventually, we got into occupational therapy, speech therapy, that stuff. And so we started that back in the mid 2000s. And And the early days were rough. It was a struggle to try and figure things out. So we had to learn on the fly of how to grow it, how to scale, how to get people to look at us, how to get those people to actually sign up. There’s a lot of learning in those early days, that’s for sure.

[00:03:15.590] – Sean

I imagine. So it sounds like this was a play for small and mid-sized businesses?

[00:03:20.700] – Matt

Absolutely. Smb play initially. We eventually got an enterprise, but SMB for sure.

[00:03:25.610] – Sean

Got you. Okay. And price point, what did you charge for that?

[00:03:29.680] – Matt

I mean, average Clearly, it was 5,000-ish, 6,000, somewhere in there for-For customers? Most of them.

[00:03:34.630] – Sean

Nice. Okay. Could you drill into a little more to help me better understand, what problem did you solve for these physical therapists?

[00:03:42.260] – Matt

So it’s an electronic medical record. So they have a requirement to document their visits. So if you were to go visit a physical therapist, they had to say, Okay, Sean had his shoulder injury. He talked about this. He did this. We worked on this. We did that. These are the recommendations I have. They have to document all that. And what was happening was they were all doing it manually on paper. You see the doctor with their clipboard and all that stuff. And it’s really time consuming. And then they would lose those notes or they wouldn’t be able to read it, as we know doctors don’t have great handwriting. And so there was a lot of issues with that, not to mention they would do that, and then they’d have to schedule, and then the whole billing side of billing the appointment were all done in different systems. And we wanted to unify that, sync that up, and make the process really smooth and easy and really modernize it. When we started, about 80 % of the industry wasn’t doing anything. They were all manual. And so our goal was to get that industry up to date, and it worked pretty well.

[00:04:30.310] – Matt

We got to be number one within three years.

[00:04:32.210] – Sean

Wow. Wow. Impressive. Dive into a little bit what worked for marketing and sales, or maybe you could start it this way. What did it work? Something you tried and then transition to what did work.

[00:04:45.010] – Matt

Yeah, I think what didn’t work initially, outbound stuff, we were not good at. It didn’t, for some reason, we couldn’t figure that out. What did work was really networking, creating partnerships. That was fantastic for us. We had some great in partnerships with both other software companies as well as other influential leaders within the industry. They realized that our product was going to be really helpful, so they started to recommend us more and more and more. And we also were very good in terms of going to meetings and being at a conference or a trade show and meeting people and learning from them of what they were struggling with and what they hated. And we would take those learnings and make the product better. We would also make sure that our marketing matched up with what they were saying, make sure our sales process matched up with what they were saying. So we had really great success at events with partnerships. Those things really carried us forward, not to mention from the very beginning, we really pushed our SEO. We made sure our Our site was SEO happy. We made sure that everything we did was SEO happy.

[00:05:48.190] – Matt

We started to create content. We started to get content writers on staff, so we would continually create valuable content. So anytime anybody needed anything, they would come to us first, even if it wasn’t necessarily for our product. Product. And we had people say, Hey, you’re just our single source of truth. We go to you whenever we need anything. And every now and then, they’re going to need our system, our tool.

[00:06:09.830] – Sean

So with the SMB play, what I look at, you would maybe put it in a similar category. I look at really three main categories. You’ve got B2C SaaS, which sits in its own world. You want that low touch. Then in that middle category is SMB play, which your price point, I’m looking at about a little over $400 a month, it sounds like, per customer, getting to that 5,000 a year. And then the larger play is the enterprise. And each of those has the marketing strategies, the sales strategies all over the board. So it sounds like your networking really worked. With the SMB play, can you talk to us about the sales cycle? Were you doing phone calls? I mean, Zoom. I mean, back then, it was maybe go-to-meeting or Webex, but I’m assuming-It was go-to-meeting, you’re right. Yeah. Were you using that to sell? Or what were you using to sell this platform in the mid 2000s?

[00:07:06.010] – Matt

Yeah, you’re exactly right. Gotomeeting was our primary way of doing it. We had customers and clients all over the country and the continent. Essentially, the whole push was just get them onto the call, get them into a demo. We did not have a trial. Our system, we felt, was a little too tough for people to just go in and start trying it without a real training process and onboarding and all that. So we pushed them to demo. That was the first touch point. And we were able to generate a bunch of leads. We eventually got very good at inbound, and we were converting those leads into demos, and then we got very good at demoing. But getting very good at demoing, I just basically yada-yadaed over about three or four years of real struggle, trying to figure out how to make that process really smooth. But that was some fun times.

[00:07:53.240] – Sean

So let’s get into the numbers a little bit, if you’re willing to share. What did your revenues finally get to before you sold?

[00:07:59.820] – Matt

I I can’t share that. It’s still hidden. It was a private scale.

[00:08:03.110] – Sean

Okay, got it. And then can you share, though, what was the multiple of the SaaS? Was it on EBITDA or revenue?

[00:08:11.360] – Matt

It was on revenues.

[00:08:12.620] – Sean

Revenue is nice.

[00:08:14.070] – Matt

Yeah. Top line. It was 8 to 10, if I can remember.

[00:08:17.420] – Sean

8 to 10X?

[00:08:18.540] – Matt

Mm-hmm.

[00:08:19.280] – Sean

That’s great. Yes, that’s really solid. Okay. And were you actively seeking to be sold, or did somebody approach you?

[00:08:28.650] – Matt

Yeah, well, we first had VC come to us. So at one point, we were growing extremely fast. We were Inc. 500. We were Inc. 5,000, I think, for five or six straight years. We were growing at an insane pace. So we had people coming to us. We didn’t really have to go out and seek it. And when we were ready, we realized, Okay, let’s do this. So we did the double-dip model, where basically you sell most of the company, 51 %, and the founders take out a nice little bit, and then you work with that VC to grow it for three to five years and sell again. And that’s essentially what we did.

[00:09:03.490] – Sean

Got you. Can you break down that timeline for us? Like, total duration in business, and then the time from that first dip to the second dip?

[00:09:11.250] – Matt

It was about 10 to 11 years or so. In duration From first dip to second dip, I think it was four years.

[00:09:17.920] – Sean

Okay. Yeah. So the VCs came in, bought 49 %. It sounds like you’ve retained. 51. Oh, they did buy 51. Got it. So you guys were a minority share at that point.

[00:09:28.460] – Matt

Yep.

[00:09:29.070] – Sean

Got it. Okay. And And you finally sold after 10, 11 years or so.

[00:09:32.940] – Matt

Yep.

[00:09:33.590] – Sean

Cool. Awesome. All right. Very cool journey. With that venture, we’ll get to the second one here in a second. What is one big lesson learned with that first venture you can share?

[00:09:44.870] – Matt

The biggest lesson that I’ve learned that I now pass on to my clients is if we had had somebody just telling us, Hey, here’s the right way to market. Here’s the right way to sell. Here’s what you should be doing. It would have been so much faster. We grew really fast as it was. Once we figured it out, we took off. But that figuring out phase, and that’s what a lot of clients come to me for, is to try and figure out how they can jump those early struggle phases and just go right to success. And so that’s what I do. I share, Hey, here are the things that I had to learn. Here’s the roadblocks I hit. Here’s what was struggling. And here’s how you can overcome all of that. So you don’t have to make the same stupid mistakes I did.

[00:10:19.570] – Sean

Right. And it sounds like the partnerships was one of the biggest plays to move the needle. Is that right? Building relationships with other companies in the same industry?

[00:10:29.300] – Matt

Yes. Our Our partnerships were fantastic, and we got some of the partnerships to be tight enough that we were literally selling their product. Our team was selling their product directly and not even white label. It was like, okay, they just would talk about ours, then they’d talk about that one, and they’d blend it together so that the buyer saw it as one solution, and it worked great.

[00:10:48.920] – Sean

Sure. I didn’t ask this in the beginning here, but how did you find a need in this industry? It’s hidden. You don’t think about this day unless you’re in the physical therapy space. How did you come up with this?

[00:11:03.420] – Matt

Yeah, my partner was a physical therapist, and she knew that it had to be… She was frustrated and struggling, and she needed it.

[00:11:10.440] – Sean

Got you. There you go. Awesome. All right, that’s Venture One. Let’s You were in this position to Venture Two. What was the name and what did it do?

[00:11:18.080] – Matt

The second one was called Synlio. So after that process and after that company, I’m like, Okay, well, that was a lot of fun. Let’s do it again. Started a new one, new market, new team, new product. But now I kept the same process. So Synlio is a product that targets real estate management companies. So commercial real estate, also HOA management companies, those types of things. And it was a totally new thing for me, although I had had some experience in previous career on HOA management. So it was a nice shift to get a new market.

[00:11:52.510] – Sean

Nice. And was that more of a SMB play as well?

[00:11:55.570] – Matt

We actually had… It was pretty much half and half SMB on enterprise. Nice. We had some pretty big… We were able to win, I think, two of the top three HOA management companies in the US pretty quickly.

[00:12:06.120] – Sean

Wow. By quick, what is quick?

[00:12:09.380] – Matt

Within a year, within our first year of launching, we had those under contract. So for a brand new company, fresh off the mat. I mean, it felt pretty sweet to be able to get some big players on board.

[00:12:20.820] – Sean

Nice. All right. Well, let’s drill into marketing and sales. What didn’t work and what did work.

[00:12:26.880] – Matt

Yeah. So one of the interesting things about that one is it was a two-way play, not necessarily marketplace, but essentially what this system did was it was an RFP automation solution. And so whenever, let’s say, a commercial property manager needed a new parking lot for their building, then instead of calling up every asphalt company, they would come into our system and just write out, Hey, here’s the property, here’s what we need. And it would say, Okay, here’s the questions you probably should be asking those asphalt companies. We had different industries, different things as templates, and they would just click go, and we would go out, and the system would basically bring in four or five different vendors to be bidders and say, Hey, here’s this person looking for this thing, this job. Do you want to bid? And they’d say, Yes. And they just answer those questions in our system and submit their bid. So it was really easy to be able to handle everything within the system. And some of our struggle then was, who do we go after first? Do we go after the property managers first? Do we go after the vendors first?

[00:13:26.780] – Matt

Because we need both of them signed up on the application. It’s It’s like a marketplace play. To be able to get a marketplace, you need both sides to be really strong quickly. And so we had a concerted effort to try and make sure we got enough from this side as well as this side, so everybody was happy.

[00:13:42.940] – Sean

Yeah, we’ve had a few market Great Place guests on the show before, and it’s tough. I mean, SaaS is tough in itself, but another level up, I’d say bringing on two audiences on the same platform is… That’s pretty difficult.

[00:13:57.950] – Matt

Absolutely.

[00:13:59.150] – Sean

And was Was this, I assume, was it the SaaS play for the real estate companies, and then the vendors would come on like they could use it?

[00:14:10.670] – Matt

Yeah. So it was a SaaS play for the real estate companies because there’s a tool that they were able to use to make their life a lot easier. It saved them so much time. It was so great for them. For the vendors, it was more of a lead purchase type thing. So yes, they were using the tool, but it’s like, hey, do you want to join? And in which case anybody in the area who says they need a new parking lot, you get that lead right away. So instead of hoping they call you, instead of hoping that they see your ad, you’ll just get it. So they loved it. So they would actually pay per lead.

[00:14:38.890] – Sean

Got you. Okay. And with this business drilling into marketing and sales a little bit, what really worked with this? Were you doing paid ads? Were you doing outbound calls?

[00:14:49.160] – Matt

Outbound was this one. So it was a completely different shift. Now we went to more of an outbound play. We had SDRs, BDRs on board who are out calling vendors, who are calling the the property management companies. Relationships here helped as well. We were fortunate to be able to know some big players, and that opened some doors for us. But we still needed to go through a proper sales process to make sure that they fully understood the problem that they’re facing and why they need to solve that problem.

[00:15:21.100] – Sean

Right on. Real quick here, can you define the difference between the SDR and BDR, sales development rep, business development rep?

[00:15:28.580] – Matt

Yeah, I I think they’re fairly synonymous. I mean, a lot of people might look at them differently. Maybe they have slightly different roles. For me, it’s just terminology. I call them basically the same. It’s basically somebody who’s purely focused on generating leads in an outbound movement.

[00:15:43.040] – Sean

Yeah, got it. And sales And the sales cycle for that, was it a similar process? Like get a demo set up, get people onboarded? How did it work?

[00:15:51.230] – Matt

Yeah. So we had two different sales cycles because it was two different targets. But essentially, if you were a property management company, it was a demo. We walk you through it. We’d go through step by step of what your challenges were and then how we can solve those problems, and let’s get you signed up. And then the other side, working with the vendors, there was no demo. We didn’t really need to show it to them. It was just like, Hey, here’s what we can provide. We can provide X amount of leads over the course of whatever. The beautiful part for them is they didn’t really have to pay a set up cost or anything. They just paid per lead as it came through.

[00:16:24.140] – Sean

That’s smart model. Lower friction, get them in. They can pay as they go. That’s awesome. The price point on the real estate firms, what were you charging?

[00:16:33.480] – Matt

You’re going to make me remember this. It’s been a few years now.

[00:16:36.490] – Sean

If you can’t, ballpark it.

[00:16:40.070] – Matt

No, I remember some of the medium-sized firms paying 10 to 20K a year, somewhere in there. Larger got bigger, of course.

[00:16:50.870] – Sean

Yeah, of course. That’s what you’re getting in enterprise plays. Would you break into six figures per client, or would it stay in five figures?

[00:16:56.610] – Matt

It was probably 50, 60, 70, so not quite six figures.

[00:17:00.140] – Sean

Okay, got you. And with those bigger dollar amounts, did you have a longer sales cycle?

[00:17:05.490] – Matt

Oh, yeah. It followed the same path of up markets going to take a little bit longer, more stakeholders, more things to go through.

[00:17:11.670] – Sean

Red tape. Yeah, got you. Okay. And then selling this company, I assume the numbers here, private as well, are you willing to share?

[00:17:21.460] – Matt

Yeah, private. This one wasn’t as big of a sale. It was still a really nice deal, an eight-figure deal. But that one was It was actually a quicker sale, and we didn’t do the double dip. We just straight sold it.

[00:17:33.790] – Sean

Just straight sold it. Got it. And multiple on this one?

[00:17:38.950] – Matt

I figure this multiple… Again, you’re hitting me on these things. It’s been years. Five to six, I think.

[00:17:45.910] – Sean

Okay. Not as high. Was it because maybe lower profit margins?

[00:17:52.250] – Matt

Maybe that, but just smaller revenues. I think as you get bigger on revenues, the multiplier goes up.

[00:17:56.850] – Sean

Got you. Okay. And with And this business, how long did you have it?

[00:18:01.900] – Matt

Two years.

[00:18:02.790] – Sean

Two years and out for eight figures.

[00:18:05.170] – Matt

Yeah. When you know the process, that’s the thing. I cut my teeth learning the process in the first company, and then we applied that same process. So I had made all the mistakes before. I didn’t make the same mistakes. I didn’t hit the same roadblocks.

[00:18:17.050] – Sean

That’s awesome. 11 years, first venture, two years, second venture, eight-figure exit. Okay, now we’re talking.

[00:18:23.680] – Matt

Nice. Yeah, exactly.

[00:18:25.530] – Sean

With this second venture, you didn’t have as long of a timeline to make mistakes, but can you share a mistake you made? And any regrets, anything you wish you didn’t do?

[00:18:35.460] – Matt

Oh, I think some of my hiring wasn’t good. I think also if you think about hiring, especially if I narrow it down to hiring salespeople, I think salespeople hiring is very, very tough. They say the best way to find a great salesperson is hire three and fire two. It’s a very aggressive way to think about it and something I don’t necessarily believe in. I’d love to hire three and have all three work great. But it’s the idea that it’s really Really hard to tell who’s a good salesperson from an outside perspective. Even when you’re interviewing them, you go through it and you really fine-tooth comb it. It’s really, really tough. And I feel like I’m ahead of the curve in that I have about a 60 % hit rate, whereas I think most people are at about 40 or 50 %. But it’s just difficult. There were some of the people we brought in that just weren’t good fits. But I mean, one mentor told me, high or slow, fire fast. Once you realize that it’s not a good fit, let them go. Let them go do something that they’re better Yeah, totally agree.

[00:19:32.580] – Sean

Well, let’s transition into your coaching business. Now, you’re helping a lot of SaaS businesses. And I know one of the key things that jumped out at me was, I can’t recall if I saw it on your site or we’re in the same podcast network together, but you really help businesses get to that 1 million MRR, monthly reoccurring revenue. Can you dive into that a little bit?

[00:19:53.410] – Matt

Yeah, for sure. So as I mentioned, those early days, if you’re not quite sure what to do, I mean, there’s so many different things things to try and work out, from marketing to sales to your product, product-market fit. There’s so many things as a founder that we have to try and solve that it’s really tough. And without knowing what to do, it’s a real struggle. And I went through that struggle. And so after the last one, I’m like, Okay, well, I hated that. And I’m sure there are people out there who also hate that. And one of the things that moved me into this is that after having some success in a few different companies, I had people coming to me, some friends like, Hey, tell me, what did you do? And I had people even bring me in to talk with their sales team. Can you just talk with my team? And they’re friends. So I’m like, yeah, sure. I’ll just come over, shared some tidbits and such. So I realized I really liked that. And I would get notes from those people afterwards, a week or two after, Hey, I used what you said.

[00:20:45.970] – Matt

We closed a deal. And that would give me energy. So I said, Maybe I could just do that. Maybe there’s people out there who need that. So it was literally one month before COVID. I’m like, let’s do this. So I launched it and COVID hit, but I didn’t really see an impact on that. In fact, maybe it was a little bit of a boost because everybody was sitting at home and they realized, hey, how am I going to do this? I need some help. So they just would get on the Zoom with me and we get after it. But I basically applied everything that I had learned, put it into an easy to understand format with processes and such, and said, Hey, if you want to scale, if you want to get to what most founders want to get to, a million MRR or Initially a Million ARR. And if you want to be able to do that, I’ve got a path I can show you exactly how to do it. And it’s been a fun ride. I’m not sure if your audience is on video, but behind me, there’s flags. There’s 35 of them.

[00:21:43.550] – Matt

So we have 35 different countries of people who have come through the program, over 250 different companies I’ve trained with and worked with to get to a really good place so that they can do some good things. And fortunately, about 23 of my clients had an exit and seen some amazing success. That says something right there.

[00:22:05.150] – Sean

That’s track record. You said program. Is this an accelerator you’re running?

[00:22:10.100] – Matt

Yeah, you can equate it to an accelerator, essentially. A very marketing and sales focused accelerator. So we’re not going to really talk about, Hey, here’s how to build your product. Here’s how to update your systems. It’s really like, Hey, if you want to market and get a ton of leads and sell a ton, I will show you exactly how to do it.

[00:22:26.260] – Sean

Got you. Now with this accelerator, sometimes accelerators will invest. Do you invest in these businesses and take some equity, or how is it structured?

[00:22:33.700] – Matt

Don’t take any equity. It’s just straight cash. You pay a monthly cost, and basically from that, you’re going to get as much as I can give you to make sure that you get to where you got to get.

[00:22:44.170] – Sean

Got you. So you’re charging like a consulting firm would.

[00:22:48.420] – Matt

Exactly. Yeah.

[00:22:49.590] – Sean

Nice. Okay. Let’s take a quick commercial break. So do you have an interest in investing in the market, but you’re not sure where to start? In that case, I invite you to join Ticker for free. However, if you want to go a step further and really get up to speed, you can go to TickerEDU. So check this out. If you go to ticker. Com and then click on Courses, it’ll take you right to TickerEDU, which includes a few courses such as Stock Investing for Beginners that can help you get up to speed in about a week or less. And then I also have how I get the Most Out of Ticker, which shows you exactly how I use Ticker in every way, shape, or form, and even has a few real-life stock reviews them. So if you want to start investing with confidence, I invite you to check out Ticker EDU. You don’t have to give away the whole recipe here because we want people to call you, but is there one or two really solid tips you can give? And before you answer that question, I assume you’re more focused on B2B since your background is all B2B.

[00:23:49.460] – Matt

It is all B2B. We don’t accept any B2C, actually.

[00:23:52.320] – Sean

Got you. Okay.

[00:23:53.240] – Matt

I just wouldn’t be able to help them.

[00:23:55.750] – Sean

Right. All right. So yeah, one or two really hot tips you can help our B2B SaaS founders.

[00:24:02.730] – Matt

Yeah, for sure. So in B2B, most of the time with B2B, depending on your price point, of course, you’re going to need to talk to your buyers, especially as you move up market. You’re going to have to have some conversations in B2B SaaS. We call that a demo, typically, where you’re demonstrating the product. Now, the problem is there are things that work in a demo and things that don’t work, but nobody tells you this stuff. There’s no school or college to be able to train you on how to do this. And so these are some of the things that I fail I pulled that miserably in my early days of selling software that I had to learn the hard way. It sometimes took me years to learn some of these lessons. And so what I want to do is just make it easy. And what I’ve done is come up with a process that people can follow that just a step by step so you can follow your demo and make it follow that exact same model, and you start seeing repeatable, scalable deals coming in. Now, the process we call it, it’s called the Perfect Deal Process.

[00:24:58.670] – Matt

And deal, D-E-A-A L is an acronym, and that makes it really easy to follow. So the D is for discovery. We need to learn from our buyers exactly what’s going on. What’s your problems? What are you facing? What are your goals? What are you trying to get to? All that fun stuff. And so there’s a process of how we do that, what to do, and we can get really fine tooth comb on how to do this at an expert level. But discovery is the D. We need to do that so we understand them. Then E is educate. We need to educate our buyers. This is something that a lot of sellers forget. If we’re going to be consultative, if we’re going to be their advisor, then we also have to educate them on something maybe that’s going on in the industry that they’re not aware of. I think something that we forget as sellers is we’re talking to this same person every day. Ideally, if you’ve nailed your ideal customer profile, you’re talking to basically a person in that role at different companies every day, which means you have a feel for the entire industry of what’s happening.

[00:25:53.370] – Matt

Whereas somebody within their own company, they’re just focused on their own thing. They don’t really know what’s happening out there so much. So we We can educate them and help them like, Hey, these are some of the trends. This is what’s happening. This is a shift that’s going on. And sometimes they realize we’re behind. We’re not making that shift. If we’re not making that shift, what’s going to happen? We’re in trouble. And it starts to get them realizing, We need to take action. We need to do something. So we discover, we educate. And then the A is associate. We need to associate our tool, our solution, to their problems. This is why discovery is so key. Once we unearth those challenges that they have, we need to make sure we connect the dots to show that our tool, our solution, will solve those problems. And so sometimes people have just a straight script. They walk through their demo like step by step. Don’t do that, because if you do that, then you’re going to cover stuff that this person doesn’t care about. And as soon as you do that, they’re going to get bored, they’re going to look away.

[00:26:47.320] – Matt

And when you do get something in your script that they like, it doesn’t matter because they’ve already lost interest. They’re already checked out. So focus purely on what they care about, and you’re going to get a lot more deals done. And the last So in the L, that’s lead. We need to lead. We need to take charge. We need to be the ones in control during the entire sales process. Something that really cripples sellers is they think, well, I’ll just do whatever the customer thinks is right. Well, the problem is that customer has no idea what is right. They don’t know how to buy your product. They don’t know how to learn if it’s something that’s going to fit for them. They’ve been through your sales process one time, whereas you’ve been through it dozens or hundreds of times. You should have a good idea of what needs to happen for this person understand if this is a fit for them or not. So take control, be the advisor, and walk them right to the close. And so DEAL, people who have followed that have seen insane results. One of my clients, Paul, in the UK, he went from a 26 % close rate to 87 % close rate.

[00:27:46.690] – Matt

Another one of my clients, Brian, he went from 11 % to 42 %. Camille in France, he went from 5 % to 60 % close rate just following this process.

[00:27:57.090] – Sean

I’ve heard a lot of people talk about B2B sales, and you’re right, it’s a lot of calls. And the better you can get at setting up more calls, but then, sure, you can book them, but can you close them? And this framework, I have not heard before by anybody selling B2B sales. This is good.

[00:28:16.560] – Matt

Thank you. You’re exactly right. I would actually have people coming to me saying exactly that. They’re like, Hey, we’ve been able to generate some leads, but now our close rate is terrible. We got these leads, we spent all this money on them, and it feels like we’re wasting the money. We They wasted this effort to generate these leads because they’re just sitting there dead. And it’s so frustrating. It’s really, really scary.

[00:28:38.200] – Sean

Yeah, because if you’re going day by day, week by week, and you do that over months, and your close ratio is like, You mentioned that one guy went from 5 % to 60. If you’re at 5 %, that’s you getting up to the home plate and swinging and missing, and swinging and missing over and over and over. How demoralizing.

[00:28:56.610] – Matt

It’s exactly that. It’s demoralizing not only for you as the leader, but if you have a sales team, they start to wonder, Am I even good or should I leave if this product isn’t good and I can’t sell it? And so you see turnover. What we look at, we see about 20 % is the minimum. If you can’t close at least 20 %, your company is not going to make it. There’s going to be a real struggle. It’s going to be really tough. So we want to get 20 %, but that’s still minimum. Ideal, if you want to be one of those scaling SaaS companies to get those big exits, you need 30, 33 % to start getting that good growth going forward. I have clients that are doing much more than that. One of my clients, Mike, went 19 % to 71 % because of some of this foundational structure we put in.

[00:29:36.180] – Sean

Wow. Impressive. That’s awesome. All right, before we jump to the rapid fire round, can you give us one key takeaway for anybody looking to scale their B2B SaaS?

[00:29:48.290] – Matt

Yeah, I think the biggest thing I had to learn, because as I was like, okay, I’m of the partnership trio. I’m the seller. I need to sell. And something that took me a generation to learn I learned was, don’t sell, help. Be a helper. Don’t be a salesperson, be a helper person. And that’s my mantra with my clients now is, focus on what they need. Focus on what’s important for them and what would make their business better. Now, If you’ve done your work right, the people you’re talking to are within your ICP, which means they are the ones who are going to get the help. So most of the people where you focus on this, you’re going to be the one that can help them. But of course, you also have to realize that every now and then, there’s going to be somebody that you can’t help in the best way, and you need to send them elsewhere. The good news is, if you do that, then that person really trusts you because they think you’re not there to just sell them. And I’ve gotten referrals from those people who I’ve declined very often because they realize, Hey, this person just wants to help.

[00:30:44.800] – Matt

Maybe there’s somebody else that can be helped, even if it wasn’t me. And so help, don’t sell. That’s one of my biggest takeaways.

[00:30:50.920] – Sean

Right. What is the old saying, People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.

[00:30:56.710] – Matt

Yeah, that’s Zig Zigler.

[00:30:57.940] – Sean

Right. That’s the guy. But it’s like that right there. That methodology, that works.

[00:31:06.460] – Matt

Absolutely.

[00:31:07.230] – Sean

All right, let’s transition to the rapid fire round. This is the part of the episode where we get to find out who Matt really is, if you can.

[00:31:15.140] – Matt

I’m scared.

[00:31:15.980] – Sean

I know. Here we go. You can try to answer each question in about 15 seconds or less. You ready?

[00:31:21.870] – Matt

Okay. Ready.

[00:31:22.120] – Sean

What is your favorite podcast?

[00:31:24.910] – Matt

My favorite podcast is a podcast called Espanolistos. I’m in the process of learning Spanish. I’ve They’ve gotten decent at it, but they just speak Spanish and try to help you understand how to learn Spanish. It’s awesome.

[00:31:35.290] – Sean

That is so cool. Awesome. All right. What is a recent book you read and would recommend?

[00:31:41.110] – Matt

I don’t know if it’s recent, but I have read it, I guess, in the last few years. Actually, I did it originally years and years ago, but it’s called the Challenger Sale. And it teaches you how to do sales a little bit differently than you might think. And I actually give it to all my clients, and they absolutely love it. But it’s brilliant. It changes the game in sales.

[00:31:59.950] – Sean

All right. The movie question. What is your favorite movie?

[00:32:03.220] – Matt

Favorite movie is Oceans 11. I cannot get enough of it. I’m one of those people who doesn’t watch a movie over and over. My wife and kids, they love watching movies over and over. I only see it once, and I’m good. This one I can watch over and over. That tells me it’s my favorite.

[00:32:15.170] – Sean

It’s a brilliant, brilliant film. Those first three, I actually love. But that first one is something special.

[00:32:21.410] – Matt

Amazing. Yeah.

[00:32:22.730] – Sean

Nice. All right, a few more serious questions here. What is the worst advice you ever received?

[00:32:29.020] – Matt

The worst advice I ever received may not be the worst for certain people, but for me, going into sales, it was. And it was the customer is always right, and they’re not. And I learned that pretty quickly, that often they’re not right. And actually in sales, we need to trash that saying because it makes us do things that we shouldn’t be doing that aren’t helping that customer. If we think that they’re right and they say, I need to do this, and you just do it, even though you don’t think it’s the right thing, you’re not helping them. We need to help them. We We are the expert. We are the ones that they’re coming to for that expertise. So the customer is not always right. Tell them what’s wrong and what they need to fix.

[00:33:08.410] – Sean

All right. Look at that equation. What’s the best advice you ever received?

[00:33:14.020] – Matt

Best advice I ever received is something that actually I saw maybe a year or two ago is the only people who will know that you worked extra hard and stayed late are your kids. And so that really hit me. And I I want to make sure that I’m there for them and I spend time with them.

[00:33:33.400] – Sean

Yeah, I love that. Good call. And the last question here, if you could go back in time to give your younger self advice, what age would you visit? What would you say?

[00:33:42.770] – Matt

I would probably visit my college self, just as I was ready to get out, I’d say, Hey, take more risks. In the early days, you don’t have to be conservative and just play the whatever game. Take some risks, see what can happen. And it’s something that I’ve learned in later days. But with my time horizon, that’s not as as available. But fortunately, I’ve been able to get successful in some of those risks like we talked about when we started that first company. My wife was pregnant with our first kid, and I didn’t earn any money from that company for a year. So it was quite the risk, but I’m glad it happened. I just wish that maybe a little bit younger, I would have been able to take some of those risks.

[00:34:19.460] – Sean

Sure. Sure. Good call. Great advice. All right. And where can the audience reach you?

[00:34:24.380] – Matt

I’m great on LinkedIn. I spend a lot of time there, so you can reach me there, Matt Wallach, W-O-L-A-C-H. But you can also go to mattwallet. Com, where I have a lot of tips and tricks. I even have some giveaways where you can download a scorecard to keep track of all your stats, and it has all kinds of charts to show you if you’re doing well or not.

[00:34:40.550] – Sean

Awesome. I’m on it right after this episode. Love it. Cool. Love it, Sean. All right, Matt. Thank you so much for your time.

[00:34:47.710] – Matt

Yeah. Thanks for having me. All right.

[00:34:49.570] – Sean

We’ll see you. See you.

[00:34:50.650] – Sean

Hey, I’d like to say thank you for checking out this podcast. I know there’s a lot of other podcasts out there you could be listening to, so thanks for spending some time with me. And if you have a moment, please head over to Apple Podcasts and leave a five-star review. The more reviews we get, especially five-star reviews, the higher this podcast will rank in Apple. So thanks for doing that. And remember, this show is for entertainment purposes only. If you heard any stocks mentioned on this podcast, please do not buy or sell those stocks based solely on what you hear. All right, thanks for your time. We’ll see you.