Chapter 4 Are You a Nice-to-Have? Example: What Acme Learned from Failing at Outbound Lead Generation A $15 million SaaS company, let’s call them Acme Corp., came to us and said, “We need to grow, we need more leads!” Acme had grown to that point by being a partner of Salesforce and getting referrals from them. These referrals closed at a high rate, quickly. Acme was growing, but wanted to grow faster to double its rate with paid lead generation. Referrals and organic growth weren’t enough. But Acme assumed that if it just got twice as many leads, it could grow twice as fast. Trouble Clue #1: The company had been trying different online and offline marketing campaigns for the past three years, with results ranging from abysmal to crummy. Trouble Clue #2: The company started an outbound prospecting program (with Aaron’s help) and totally failed. A total zero. It took four months (well, on top of the prior three years), but the key learning finally was it wasn’t ready to grow faster. This company hadn’t nailed down a niche. The signs were there before, but Acme didn’t want to accept it until it tried outbound marketing and hit a wall. Any kind of paid or nonorganic lead generation (like marketing or prospecting) can be a forcing function that makes you confront the reality of whether you’ve nailed a niche or not. If it doesn’t work, you need to rethink your target customer, and possibly your solution. Acme was in a noisy, commoditized market. All of Acme’s target prospects already had something “good enough.” Its targets’ pains weren’t ones Acme could credibly solve. To the prospects, anything Acme could offer beyond what they already had was just a nice-to-have, and not worth the pain of switching systems. However excited the Acme team was about its own stuff, prospects didn’t get it. They didn’t need Acme’s solution. Target + Pain + Solution Your niche isn’t just picking an industry vertical or target, though being picky about whom you’re targeting is a big part. It also sits at the intersection of the pain they have and your solution. Now, if you’re in the same situation, do you blame the prospects for not immediately buying into your idea or product, or do you admit you have some more work to do?