#91 Elevate Your Sales Game and Scale Your Tech Startup with Gary Garth's Expert Insights

0:06 Hello, and welcome to a new episode of the CTO show with Muhammad. My name is Muhammad and each episode. I discussed different topics from the technology, like digital transformation cybersecurity emerging Tech. A, I know code and so on and at the same time, we discuss topics related to business specially in the startup and an entrepreneurship. And in some episodes I would have with me a special guest Our thought leaders who are entrepreneurs themselves, who would share with us their insights about both the world of startups and Tech if possible. And today, I am very happy to have with me. Gary Garrett, who's joining me? I think you are in Colombia, right, Gary, that's correct.

0:46 We made million Columbia to be exact. Okay, nice. So again he's an entrepreneur himself and he have like long experience, he's a Serial entrepreneur, he started many companies but the area that he Socialized. And I think it would resonate also with the audience because we talked about startups, but starting a start-up without getting the revenue and surpassing certain amount of Revenue. You know, if we don't reach that, it doesn't make any sense. So, this is why I have Gary with me today. Gary just introduce yourself like little bit about your background and what you are up to.

1:26 Absolutely. And thanks again for having me on your show. Mammoth, I am a Serial entrepreneur. I'm a part-time angel. Investor invested in a few projects and I'm an author of the recent book published called the sea route, 100 million sales. Blueprint I run a couple of companies right now, they're all in the arena of tech and and digital marketing. So to a couple of Projects. I focus on a lot right now is a growth accelerator for companies where we help companies with their like a 360-degree Solutions. So it's lead generation technology enablement. And then also sales an element, I'm currently living in Midian Columbia, immediate km everybody in the show since I presume the majority, has a strong interest in technology. Etc.

2:22 Immediately has this vision of becoming the Silicon Valley. Lee of Latin America. They actually have this program here run by run by the government where they invite foreign investors to come down. If you work with in Tech, and then you can be set up and get five years tax exception. So, that's when people ask me. What the heck, are you doing begin Colombia? Then when I was running my last company, a, I read in an agency for about 10 years. We're fortunate to experience some exponential growth. Like where thousands of clients 300 employees were nominated fastest growing company for years in a row on the Inc, 5000 list. But long story short, when I was then at that point living in Miami, is this organization Pro Columbia came knocking on my door and say Gary why are you guys not in Colombia and I was like that's a damn good question fast forward a couple of years. I saw the shares in that company and I decided, you know, it's time to pack up pack my bags and try a little experiment Adventure, South of the Border.

3:24 So here I am. And that's It's a little background of me that's great. And I'm always curious to learn, you know, specially from fellow entrepreneurs about their successes. So you have successfully exited six companies including an eight-figure digital marketing agency. I am sure, maybe it's a traditional question, but you know what where the biggest lessons you learned throughout this journey? It's difficult questions because I have a lot. I always tell people my book could have been labeled 101. Things not to do in business because it's a it's accumulation of my learnings. But I think one thing that has stood by me and still does is well, two things one is customer centricity, make everything around the customer and secondly equally important is it's putting sales first So I say that because I work with a lot of companies, I've invested in several companies, I managed marketing campaign, sales campaigns for thousands of companies, and I saw a certain pattern, you know, you could have the greatest greatest Concept in the world and a very strong, very strong position, affordable product better than the competition.

4:47 But if you're lacking in sales, the extensor you going to cease to exist and it's common knowledge. 80% of companies startup cease to exist, within 18 months, right? What it's about, furthermore, 10% of those remaining 20%, don't even make it above a million dollars in annual recurring Revenue. Hmm. So for me I always tell founders of a new co-star top six. It has like put you have to also become the chief sales officer, right? You have to, you cannot just expect some to hire somebody else and for them to sell you products, if you can't do it. It. And if you do not have that skill set, then you got to somehow figure out how to compliment that because I always say rather have a fulfillment problem than sales problem.

5:34 Obviously, you need to have a strong product Etc, but essentially, if you generating Revenue, if you have enough sales, then you can always find solutions for the wrist typically, right? So that would be my two big takeaways. I would say after all these different projects, that's very informative. Very You know, like to the point, I would say thank you for sharing that, you know, these lessons now being an expert. Now after all this long journey, I would say in an entrepreneurship, I am sure because now you become an investor yourself. So if you can tell me, like, how do you evaluate startups to say? Yep, I should invest in these guys. They look like they have a high potential. Action.

6:24 What would be the characteristics of such startups? Yeah, great question. I would say first and foremost, is the disclaimer. I'm not your conventional angel. Investor. What I saw is just in my last project, we were reselling marketing services, to other marketing agencies in a white label format. So, I came across all these different tools dashboards software as a service platform. Homes that we needed as additional plugins in order to create a overall solution and very often. I saw these great products where I was like damn this is better than the rest of the market. Why is this cheaper, why are they not more popular? Am I, what am I missing here?

7:10 What's the my blind spot here? So what I try to do is try to look for great products that are already have some sort of Market penetration, but maybe they don't have a strong, go-to-market strategy, the business. And efforts are lacking because that's where as a in Angel vest I could come in. Apply my skill set as some strategic know how, add a little bit of capital at my infrastructure to support network and then aim to 210 exhales basically, that's the kind of vehicles. But when I came down here, just to rewind the clock, two years ago I went to all these different textile, conferences, Etc. I got pitched at least 100 times and I see that many startups, you know, the majority.

7:58 Especially in Tech, they put a lot of emphasis on the product Etc but sales and the go-to-market strategy is like a little bit left to the end. So when I came in and asked and like simple questions, like what's our client acquisition strategy, and what's the, what's going to be the burn rate? What's your three year Financial forecast? What? Who's the competition? Have you done research on them. They were lacking all the answers and that, so that would be another. Other detractor, and I would say as an entrepreneur, as a new startup, you looking for funding, you got to know the answers to all those questions. Like, that's just a red flag when you don't because you want somebody who's like, look turned, every single Stone and investigated, like, okay, how are we going to make this successful?

8:46 And that's by no means that you should go into some analysis paralysis. But it's just, you know, you wouldn't want to be betting with that kind of investment, right? Is that, we rather go to the casino and put it on Red or black? Yeah, that's will bring me to ask you the following question, right? And I asked that question on purpose. Now you mentioned when you were doing your introduction the importance of sales and I think I would be surprised if any founder doesn't know that, if they don't themselves, have the same skill, they should do something about it.

9:26 Now, I know that. You wrote a book, you wrote recently was all about how to go from zero to a hundred billion dollars, right? Yes. Now I want to little bit. Of course, like we will not read the book or here on the air today. But I mean, you can't like just summarize the key things, you know, that Founders should know, right? And you know, what is the roadmap that they have to plan? So they know yes. We are now Day Zero. We're going to reach 200 million and in Europeans, like a question inside the question, what is the normal time frame to reach this milestone? Oh, that's typically like a five-year to a decade at least, right?

10:14 And obviously, I would say, the first sooner million is the most difficult one up to 10 million for that matter, right? Because that's where there's a lot of transformational processes in the company. What I put in my book is everything from the beginning, stop begin with the end in mind and then build out a plan and framework accordingly and yes you're right. Most Founders most everybody knows sales is instrumental for success but how They attack it is a little bit backwards, right? I put a whole chapter on that like failing. To prepare is preparing to fail, right? Where essentially you want to stop we're having a sales plan, right? Instead of like, instead of very common. It's like okay, we have a product hit. Let's build a website.

10:58 He is a pricing screen. Let's go out and go and Pitch now. That's okay to get some initial feedback Etc. But initially you want to stop by doing proper research understanding who should Your customer profile and maybe even doing mystery shopping with the competition. So see how do they position themselves? How can you find some unique? Differentiating factors that can give you some some market share in a, you know, an intriguing way for prospects. So, so I start out with a whole section on strategic marketing because that's key to when you start launching all your marketing campaign. So you can send the right message to the right, people at the right time and construct your offer. Right then the next thing I dive into it's like, once you are done all this as a Founder, right? Maybe you're a great engineer, great programmer. And you just don't have the sales DNA. And even though I put in my book, The Great salespeople are made not born you.

11:55 I do also say that you should double down on your strengths and delegate the rest. So, I have a whole chapter devoted to, okay, if you want to go out and find a co-founder like the witch, I have a questionnaire with 50 questions to identify, do we have the same values? Do we have the same vision so that we can align because we all know if you go into a partnership and is it goes out that can be both when it's successful, you experienced a massive success. That is like, how do we manage Equity Dividend the dividend distribution. What if we get an offer that you know you need to align on everything before, right? That's almost like a prenup. So to speak at least making sure that aligning values and vision and everything. And if you don't have that co-founder, how can you go out and make a key Higher by, for instance, creating an employee stock, option, plan and providing some Equity over four or five year period to get the right people on board, that has that long-term Vision as well.

12:53 That's a key element. And then next thing, after you've done all the research, I say, well very common, this especially in B2B is direct sales comment, but Channel sales is often overlooked like, in other words, finding a distribution Network that can be To Affiliates, it can be you know wide label agreements. Some of the biggest companies right? Google Microsoft all of them rely on challenges is the predominant Revenue driver for them. So investigate what are the the right sales channel. So you are have a whole chapter 4 then next is. Okay. Now we've got to start building out the sales team and it's okay. How do we find the right sales hires? I'm under the notion that again that Gracie has people are made not born.

13:37 So instead of finding an Experience rep at a competing company that's going to ask for six figures and you already bootstrapped as a start-up Instead try to look for like I have top 20 attributes you should look for. So you're looking for like the attitude and attributes is then see if you have the right coaching firm work, if you have a sales plan, if you have a 90-day onboarding plan and you have all the all the elements in place you can make most people successful. So then it goes into Sales Management. Then it goes into the best advertising channels as for acquisition. How to compliment inbound and outbound together. It goes into sales operations, a huge one for me because it's all about, you know, processes, documentation CRM, integrating system, Etc. And then it goes into several other chapters such as the significance of technology for scale, which is, you know, it's like from the recent state of sales report by Salesforce, they clearly indicate that at today's leading companies all use technology as a multiplier right to accelerate. Its so, but I've also seen the flip side in terms of companies that just at that to, they adopt every single new cool application.

14:56 That is launched at that they fail to see. Okay, how's everything going to be integrated? And it's my team going to adapt a top two technologies and then it goes into Outsourcing, certain certain things of your sales and business operations. Duration how to integrate that. So covers the whole Spectrum in terms of like, okay, here's a journey. If you're scaling your company, what one of the considerations you need to? To make yes the 10,000 foot over you a very brief one and what's the time frame? Because I ask you about time frame. What do you think is? You know, the average time frame to reach the 100 million ARR Five to ten years. That gift? Yeah, makes sense. You you touch on a point which is you know like about cultures value and you know, the other stuff. But at the same time, I need a, I like to listen from different opinions and this is why I'm asking you this question. Now, of course, you have the, the phase where you are, still in the early phases, you're trying to figure things out. Then, there is the moment which we have the product Market fit, right?

16:12 Yes, yes, right. And then after the product Market, fit, this is where you start to think about the next. The next scale, I would say how talking about this. What I'm curious to know from your experience is, sometimes we see startups. Once there is the product Market, fit. They pivot, right? A lot. And then they drive their tails towards that. But while you know the market maybe doesn't want this pivot at that time. What does your you know General? I would say, advice for Or companies that think they are struggling. But actually maybe they have to wait a little bit before they go to the next phase, you know, like what really they should wait for before doing this pivot in their messaging and their product and their technology is whatever.

17:05 Yes, great question. That's typically where a lot, you know, they crumble in that process because it's damn difficult, right? Maybe you have proven the concept to some extent with some clients, you got a great Great salesperson. You tried it in a certain Geo, but then there's certain other factors if you want to expand it into new markets, new segments with different approach or you just trying to add a team to the equation and scale things, right? Maybe you've been very Hands-On in the process with everything. So I would say, the key word there is, you know, shoot bullets, fire bullets and then shoot cannonballs. So once you lock yourself in on something, and there's a product Market fit to your point, you prove the concept you scale it in the Same Dimension, what's key for that? And I think everybody knows that but kind of forget it when you in that journey is documentation. Its documentation is implementation or processes and it's try to automate as best as possible with a coaching firm work overlapped about it because I see, I see I've seen a lot of different scenarios and I've done a lot of mistakes where, you know, sometimes it's just about document document document and they have a head hold on.

18:19 Knowledge base with all these processes. But people don't know how to navigate, how to adopt it, the things get lost in translation. So it's all about determining the best practices. Rolling them out, putting them into systems, and then educating your team on it because that's at this, at the same time in order to scale, you need to scale, human capital, so to speak and get everybody to perform at the best. I think that's the difficult part. So if you throw, if you pivot at that point into a new product category, you're starting all over you, almost missed it. To feel in my opinion and I think we share, you press the reset button. Yes, that's cool. Gary like I'm asking this question because myself, you know, I always wanted to, you know, have this multiple startups, you know, multiple, you know, being a Serial entrepreneur and I will, I'm still on the hunt out. Say, you know, for the right path, let's say, let's call it. I hope that I started.

19:19 Now, what I wanted to ask you is like if someone want really to have, you know, the same career path that you have done, what are the steps that they should follow? Because I know one of the things the things I try to do on the show like other than just sharing news and Tech Trends. I'm interested also the for people to learn from, you know, successful entrepreneurs. And this is why I'm asking you this question. That's a difficult one. I would say, Obviously, you pick a copy about pick up a copy of my book that specifically to get in my head and understand I unwrap all the Learners. It is it those by the the head of sales at Google, Microsoft and Amazon and a lot of other smart folks. So, and I basically I solved a lot of the learnings from all these great people.

20:14 I had the privilege to work with. But to that extent, I would say Well, really, what? What is what is your objective or on my on my end I think it's typically always had a great hunger. So I think the biggest thing is, assessing yourself, ma'am. It and saying, okay, how bad do I want this? And it's the tied up with a why. I know that may sound a little fluffy and so forth but we all have the resources and resourcefulness in order to make things happen like a, my current journey is because we specialize lies a lot in in helping companies from a growth acceleration standpoint. But one of the big verticals that we penetrated is the is that diction treatment and the mental health care industry for me. It's very personal because I had a post to me family that has struggled with those issues.

21:09 So it directly helping these like 23 million Americans that are suffering from from addictions or the one out of three Americans. The Experience, the health issues mental health issues. For me, it's almost a little bit of. It's my purpose to some extend. I'm very driven, I feel some, I feel a great reward and that helps me, you know, put forth an extra effort and go through the hard times. When I feel like giving up, I get reminded about it. I actually I created this is called the gold screwed and greatness planner and and I offer that to all my employees and clients Etc. Because it's been a great tool for myself, too. You know, to stay on track, try to try to establish my goals based on my purpose and my internal drivers and then constantly daily remind myself of that because if you don't do that then you know it's an opposite.

22:03 Going to be a lot of adversity. You you kind of feel so yeah. Awesome advice. I would say. Now before we close the final question, I want to ask you Gary, like again, you are in the in the scene of startups and business. And Tech. What are, you know, the trends that you are seeing? You know, what are the hot startups out say from from what you're following? In which verticals in which areas. That's a difficult question. To answer difficult questions today. Yeah, no. No I'm thinking because I think there's so many different shifts occurring right now.

22:45 I don't want to say anything with AI and chechi extra because the whole whole world is talking about that, but it's obvious, it's obvious. I'm trying to think of other categories that that I'm considering I think everything in general is going to be much more Performance Based whichever it is. What if it whether its marketing with its sales, whether it's Consulting, everything is going to be like am I going to pay for desired outcome and an incremental Roi or the guaranteed effect? I think this the market in general is too saturated with promising office and they said us, I think that's what we're working towards. I think a i AI is going to be a big Amplifier of that whole notion.

23:31 Yeah, that's what I said, final question but I should think scarce one becomes the curveball. Yeah, no, because recently I'm asking this to to my guests and I like to have different opinions. Are we going to see more solopreneurs? Or one-man businesses. I don't think so actually. Okay find is that is that is that align with the common answer you get for that question? No I got mixed answers. Usually some people are very excited about the topic. Some people they they approached it similar to what you did. Honestly I believe it's a same movement. Let's see how long it will continue because you know what's happening with the tech layer.

24:23 A of sand and all the stuff that's going on. That's great. But also to hear from an expert also about your views because I like to have mixed views also on my show. So that's yes, good to know. Well Gary, thank you very much for having the time what I will do I will share with the audience, the links for the website of Gary where you can find his books where you can find the guy that he's just showed also as well. If you want to connect with him, thank you very much. Gary again for joining me on this episode. And for the audience, if you are watching this on YouTube, don't forget to subscribe to the channel if you are listening this on your favorite podcasting platform.

25:08 Also, don't forget to subscribe there and recommend us and share it with your friends and colleagues. And as usual, if you have any question, comment about this episode or the show in general, don't hesitate to reach out to me either by By email Twitter or LinkedIn. Thank you very much and until we meet next time. Bye bye. Thank you very much.