From Impossible to Inevitable, 2nd Edition

From Impossible to Inevitable, 2nd Edition

by Aaron Ross, Jason Lemkin
Released June 2019
Publisher(s): Wiley
ISBN: 9781119531692

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Book description

Break your revenue records with Silicon Valley’s “growth bible”
“This book makes very clear how to get to hyper-growth and the work needed to actually get there”

Why are you struggling to grow your business when everyone else seems to be crushing their goals? If you needed to triple revenue within the next three years, would you know exactly how to do it? Doubling the size of your business, tripling it, even growing ten times larger isn't about magic. It's not about privileges, luck, or working harder. There's a template that the world's fastest growing companies follow to achieve and sustain much, much faster growth.

From Impossible to Inevitable details the hypergrowth playbook of companies like Hubspot, Salesforce.com (the fastest growing multibillion dollar software company), and EchoSign—aka Adobe Document Services (which catapulted from $0 to $144 million in seven years). Whether you have a $1 billion or a $100,000 business, you can use the same insights as these notable companies to learn what it really takes to break your own revenue records.

  • Pinpoint why you aren’t growing faster
  • Understand what it takes to get to hypergrowth
  • Nail a niche (the #1 missing growth ingredient)
  • What every revenue leader needs to know about building a scalable sales team

There’s no time like the present to surpass plateaus and get off of the up-and-down revenue rollercoaster. Find out how now!

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Preface: Systematizing Success
    1. LESSONS FROM THE WORLD'S FASTEST-GROWING COMPANIES
  3. PART I: Nail a Niche
    1. CHAPTER 1: “Niche” Doesn't Mean Small
      1. ARE YOU SURE YOU'RE READY TO GROW FASTER?
      2. HOW TO KNOW IF YOU'VE NAILED A NICHE
      3. ACHIEVE WORLD DOMINATION ONE NICHE AT A TIME
      4. THE ARC OF ATTENTION
    2. CHAPTER 2: Signs of Slogging
      1. ARE YOU A NICE-TO-HAVE?
      2. BIG COMPANIES SUFFER, TOO
      3. CASE STUDY: WHERE AARON WENT WRONG
      4. YOUR CURRENT STRENGTH CAN BE A FUTURE WEAKNESS
    3. CHAPTER 3: How to Nail It
      1. WHERE CAN YOU BE A BIG FISH IN A SMALL POND?
      2. WORK THROUGH THE NICHE MATRIX
      3. CASE STUDY: HOW TWILIO NAILED A BILLION-DOLLAR NICHE BY WALKING IN ITS CUSTOMERS’ SHOES
      4. THE 20-INTERVIEW RULE
    4. CHAPTER 4: Your Pitch
      1. IF YOU WERE A RADIO STATION, WOULD ANYONE TUNE IN?
      2. ELEVATOR PITCHES ARE ALWAYS FRUSTRATING
      3. THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT “YOU”: THREE SIMPLE QUESTIONS
  4. PART II: Create Predictable Pipeline
    1. INTRODUCTION: LEAD GENERATION ABSOLVES MANY SINS
    2. CHAPTER 5: Seeds—Customer Success
      1. HOW TO GROW SEEDS PREDICTABLY
      2. CASE STUDY: HOW GILD DROPPED MONTHLY CHURN FROM 4 TO 1
      3. CASE STUDY: CUSTOMER SERVICE EXCELLENCE AT TOPCON
    3. CHAPTER 6: Nets—Marketing
      1. THREE UNCOMMON APPROACHES OF HYPERGROWTH CMOs
      2. THE FORCING FUNCTION YOUR MARKETING LEADER NEEDS: A “SALES QUALIFIED LEAD COMMIT”
      3. CORPORATE MARKETING VERSUS DEMAND GENERATION
      4. HOW INBOUND CHANGED IN 10 YEARS BETWEEN SCALING MARKETO TO $100M+ AND FOUNDING ENGAGIO
      5. HEROIC MARKETING: WHEN YOU HAVE NO MONEY AND LITTLE TIME
      6. NOTE
    4. CHAPTER 7: Spears—Outbound Prospecting
      1. WHERE OUTBOUND WORKS BEST—AND WHERE IT FAILS
      2. OUTBOUND LESSONS LEARNED SINCE PREDICTABLE REVENUE WAS PUBLISHED
      3. CASE STUDY: OUTBOUND'S ROLE IN ACQUIA'S $100 MILLION TRAJECTORY
      4. CASE STUDY: HOW SAGEMOUNT TRIPLES THE VALUE OF A COMPANY IN THREE YEARS
      5. CASE STUDY: HOW ZUORA DRIVES 60%-PLUS OF ITS GROWTH BY OUTBOUND, EVEN WHEN ACCOUNTS NEED NURTURING FOR YEARS
      6. BUILD AN OUTBOUND PROGRAM RIGHT THE FIRST TIME
      7. HAVE YOU BEEN TOO SUCCESSFUL AT INBOUND?
    5. CHAPTER 8: What Executives Miss
      1. PIPELINE CREATION RATE: YOUR #1 LEADING METRIC
      2. THE 15/85 RULE: EARLY ADOPTERS AND MAINSTREAM BUYERS
      3. WHY YOU'RE UNDERESTIMATING CUSTOMER LIFETIME VALUE
  5. PART III: Make Sales Scalable
    1. CHAPTER 9: Learn from Our Mistakes
      1. GROWTH CREATES MORE PROBLEMS THAN IT SOLVES—BUT THEY ARE BETTER PROBLEMS
      2. TOP 12 MISTAKES IN BUILDING SALES TEAMS
      3. ADVICE FROM THE VP SALES BEHIND LinkedIn AND EchoSign
    2. CHAPTER 10: Specialization: Your #1 Sales Multiplier
      1. WHY SALESPEOPLE SHOULDN'T PROSPECT
      2. CASE STUDY: HOW CLIO RESTRUCTURED SALES IN THREE MONTHS
      3. CAN YOU BE TOO SMALL, OR TOO BIG, TO SPECIALIZE?
      4. SPECIALIZATION: TWO COMMON OBJECTIONS
      5. SPECIALIZATION SNAPSHOT AT ACQUIA
    3. CHAPTER 11: Sales Leaders
      1. THE #1 MIS-HIRE IS THE VP/HEAD OF SALES
      2. THE RIGHT VP SALES FOR YOUR STAGE
      3. TEN FAVORITE INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
    4. CHAPTER 12: Hiring Best Practices for Sales
      1. IF YOU'RE A STARTUP: FOUR PHASES OF HIRING YOUR FIRST SALES TEAM
      2. SIMPLE HIRING TRICKS
      3. WHEN DOING SOMETHING NEW, START WITH TWO
      4. THE $100 MILLION HubSpot SALES MACHINE: RECRUITING AND COACHING ESSENTIALS
      5. CASE STUDY: HOW TO CUT DOWN ON WASTED INTERVIEWING
    5. CHAPTER 13: Scaling the Sales Team
      1. IF YOU'RE CHURNING MORE THAN 10% OF YOUR SALESPEOPLE, THEY AREN'T THE PROBLEM
      2. THREE WAYS TO CUT CHURN AND INCREASE SALES MOTIVATION WHILE YOU SCALE
      3. ADVICE TO CEOS: PUT NONSALES LEADERS ON VARIABLE COMP PLANS, TOO
      4. ARE YOUR ENTERPRISE DEALS TAKING FOREVER?
      5. FIVE KEY SALES METRICS (WITH A TWIST)
    6. CHAPTER 14: For Startups Only
      1. EVERY TECH COMPANY SHOULD OFFER SERVICES
      2. WHAT JASON INVESTS IN, AND DO YOU NEED TO RAISE MONEY TO SCALE?
      3. WHAT THE HEADCOUNT OF A 100-PERSON SaaS COMPANY LOOKS LIKE
  6. PART IV: Double Your Deal Size
    1. CHAPTER 15: Deal Size Math
      1. YOU NEED 50 MILLION USERS TO MAKE FREEMIUM WORK
      2. SMALL DEALS GET YOU STARTED, BIG DEALS DRIVE GROWTH
    2. CHAPTER 16: Not Too Big, Not Too Small
      1. WHEN YOU CAN'T TURN SMALL DEALS INTO BIG ONES
      2. IF YOU HAVE CUSTOMERS OF ALL SIZES
    3. CHAPTER 17: Going Upmarket
      1. IF YOU DON'T WANT SALESPEOPLE …
      2. ADD ANOTHER TOP PRICING TIER
      3. PRICING IS ALWAYS A PAIN
      4. GOING FORTUNE 1000
  7. PART V: Do the Time
    1. CHAPTER 18: Embrace Frustration
      1. ARE YOU SURE YOU'RE READY FOR THIS?
      2. EVERYONE HAS A YEAR OF HELL
      3. COMFORT IS THE ENEMY OF GROWTH
      4. MOTIVATION: HOW AARON REACHED ESCAPE VELOCITY
    2. CHAPTER 19: Success Isn't a Straight Line
      1. THE ANXIETY ECONOMY AND ENTREPRENEUR DEPRESSION
      2. MARK SUSTER'S QUESTION: “SHOULD A PERSON LEARN OR EARN?”
      3. WHEN A STRAIGHT LINE ISN'T THE SHORTEST PATH TO SUCCESS
      4. CHANGE YOUR WORLD, NOT THE WORLD
  8. PART VI: Embrace Employee Ownership
    1. CHAPTER 20: A Reality Check
      1. DEAR EXECUTIVES (FROM AN EMPLOYEE)
      2. DEAR EMPLOYEE (FROM THE EXECUTIVES)
      3. P.S.: “DEAR SENIOR EXECUTIVES, DON’T GET LEFT BEHIND” (FROM THE CEO AND BOARD)
      4. ARE YOUR PEOPLE RENTING OR OWNING?
    2. CHAPTER 21: For Executives: Create Functional Ownership
      1. A SIMPLE SURVEY
      2. “NO SURPRISES”
      3. FUNCTIONAL OWNERSHIP
      4. CASE STUDY: HOW A STRUGGLING TEAM TURNED INTO A SELF-MANAGING SUCCESS
      5. TO TURN THINGS AROUND
    3. CHAPTER 22: Taking Ownership to the Next Level
      1. FINANCIAL OWNERSHIP
      2. MOVE PEOPLE AROUND
      3. THE FOUR TYPES OF EMPLOYEES
  9. PART VII: Define Your Destiny
    1. CHAPTER 23: Are You Abdicating Your Opportunity?
      1. YOUR OPPORTUNITY IS BIGGER THAN YOU REALIZE
      2. HOW TO EXPAND YOUR OPPORTUNITY AT WORK
      3. YOU NEED SOME HUMDRUM PASSIONS
      4. YOUR COMPANY ISN'T YOUR MOMMY OR DADDY
      5. FORCING FUNCTIONS: HOW TO MOTIVATE YOURSELF TO DO THINGS YOU DON'T FEEL LIKE DOING
      6. SALES IS A LIFE SKILL
      7. SALES IS A MULTISTEP PROCESS
    2. CHAPTER 24: Combining Money and Meaning
      1. MEANING GONE WRONG
      2. WHAT'S YOUR UNIQUE GENIUS?
      3. IGNORING REAL LIFE DOESN'T MAKE IT GO AWAY
      4. AARON, HOW THE HELL DO YOU JUGGLE 10 KIDS AND WORK?
  10. A Thank You …
  11. About the Authors
  12. Index
  13. End User License Agreement

Product information

  • Title: From Impossible to Inevitable, 2nd Edition
  • Author(s): Aaron Ross, Jason Lemkin
  • Release date: June 2019
  • Publisher(s): Wiley
  • ISBN: 9781119531692