5 Tips for Scaling a Billion Dollar Business

Paul Teshima, Co-Founder & CEO at Nudge Software, sat down with us to give some great advice on scaling business, based on his own personal journey as an entrepreneur.

1. When in Doubt, Sell Something

You never know what customers really want until they purchase a product and see its value. As a startup, you’ll want to attract a type of luck referred to as Motion Luck.

Motion Luck happens when you’re out there doing things. The more you get out into your industry and try to sell products, the greater the chance (or luck) of selling your product becomes.

That is why it’s important as a startup to harness motion luck – to sell your product and scale your business.

2. Culture is Built Through Storytelling

You won’t be able to execute your strategy if you don’t have a great culture. Developing your company culture is the seed that can help scale a business quickly.

You can develop a great culture by introducing fun company events to get your employees involved.

At these events you’ll want to finish by sharing stories about positive customer interactions you’ve had throughout the month. Storytelling is an effective means of creating culture because people remember a good story.

When employees remember the reactions the storyteller got from their coworkers, it motivates them to look for ways to drive customer success so they can share their stories with the team as well.

3. The Market Isn’t Fair

When you’re the leader of the market you understand why customers choose you: you invented the space, you’re the biggest, you have the best reputation, the most revenue, and so on.

But, you’re not really focused on the customer in those talks; you lose sight of how to give your customers solutions to their problems.

When that happens, your win rate will drop and you won’t be able to continue to gain revenue and grow, thus losing your spot at the top.

If you are facing challenges in growth, you can implement a structured and consistent loss review. You’ll need to begin by exhibiting patience when observing your wins and losses every quarter.

A longer trend in doing so will allow you to understand why you’re losing deals and realize that people need time to buy into the process.

4. Focus on the Bright Spots

A startups fast-growing nature makes it easy to focus on everything that’s going wrong. Instead, focus on what is working, why it’s working, and how to implement that throughout the company.

Focus on the customers that are “bright spots” in a specific industry and rally the company around them. Then, drive new products and solutions into those markets.

Focusing on the bright spots can lead to more growth opportunities than focusing on all of the problems, and is absolutely critical when it comes to scaling a business for long-term growth.

5. Get it Done, Do it Right

Two things you need to do in sales are getting it done and doing it right.

It’s crucial to understand where your employee is in their role:

Are they a rock star (getting it done and doing it right)? Up and coming (doing it right but not getting it done)? In need of coaching (getting it done and not doing it right)? Or, do they need to retire (continually not doing it right)?

Understanding where your employees are in customer focused service will show you if they are getting it done and getting it done right.