Scott Sambucci - Stop Hustling, Start Scaling: Ramp Up Your B2B Startup’s Repeatable Revenue with The Q Framework

Stop Hustling, Start Scaling:

Ramp Up Your Startups Repeatable Revenue with The Q Framework

Scott Sambucci

Copyright 2019 Scott Sambucci

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in any form, in whole or in part (beyond the copying permitted by US Copyright Law, Section 107, fair use in teaching or research, Section 108, certain library copying, or in published media by reviewers in limited excerpts), without written permission from the author.

Disclaimer

This book is licensed for your personal education. While best efforts have been used, the author and publisher are not offering legal, accounting, medical, or any other professional services advice and make no representations or warranties of any kind and assume no liabilities of any kind with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness of use for a particular purpose, nor shall they be held liable or responsible to any person or entity with respect to any loss or incidental or consequential damages caused, or alleged to have been caused, directly or indirectly, by the information or programs contained herein. Stories, characters, and entities are fictional. Any likeness to actual persons, either living or dead, is coincidental.

You are my best friend. When I have questions, frustrations, and doubts, or Im just plain stuck, you always help me see whats happening and what I have to do next.

Thank you. For everything.

Every day, I watch you grow and learn. Just in the past few weeks, I watched you start first grade, set up a table outside the house to sell your kid books to save money for Pokmon cards, graduate to Level 2 gymnastics, and lose your first tooth. I well up in tears when I think that we have less than 12 years together before you leave for college.

You teach me so much about myself, and I want you to know that you neednt wait until your 40s to do your own thing. Its your life and your choices. Make them happen.

I know the sacrifices that you make every daylate nights, early mornings, and insomnia in between. Days and weeks away from your spouse and kids. Middle seats in coach, racing for connections through Denver, Dallas, and Phoenix. Forgoing the security and health insurance of that cushy office job you left behind. Enduring the frustration of problems you never knew could exist in running a company.

All because you know that you must.

All for the expectation that these sacrifices will bring you and your family a better future, so you can make the impact that you want to make in the world.

Im there with you every day.

Most sales books spend hundreds of pages describing a sales process that worked at one company, and why all companies should use it as their sales process.

This book is different. In this book, Im going to teach you your sales process.

Most founders hear advice every day like this.

Do this, and youll get more leads...

Make sure you always blah, blah, blah with every prospect...

Do this in your demos, and youll convert more deals...

Heres how to write proposals to close more business...

Sometimes the advice works for that one opportunity or even for a few months. But in the end, that nifty sales tip that works today for one company doesnt work for the next. While every startup needs to generate and qualify leads, give product demos, answer objections, and convert prospects, the path to those outcomes is different for each one.

Ive grown three startups in three different markets to their first million dollars in revenue. With each startup, the day-to-day sales work and selling strategies deployed changed each time. What remained the same across those three startups was the core framework used to build and implement each companys own sales processthe Q Framework. Together, using the Q Framework, you and I are going to build your sales process for your startup.

You started your company with an ideaan idea of how to solve a problem, an idea of how to build a product, an idea about the future, and most important, an idea about the impact that you want to make in your market with your customers.

In my workshops and conversations with startup CEOs, I like to ask, What is the 10-year impact you want to make with your company? Why are you doing this?

Here are just a few of the answers Ive gotten.

Reduce energy consumption.

Save the oceans from overfishing and depopulation.

Develop drugs faster and cheaper.

Help companies be AI-driven.

Create better customer experiences.

Change the face of mobile app testing.

Create the future of work.

Create better global citizens and increase the global competence.

Be a leader.

Fundamentally change how consumers buy products online.

Give consumers control of their choices.

Help students reach their college and career potential.

Change peoples lives.

Remember every persons life.

Eradicate cancer.

Provide access to credit to people who deserve it.

Recognize employees for manifesting their companys core values.

Financial independence on my own terms.

Enjoy personal freedom.

These are life-changing and world-changing outcomes. Just like the entrepreneurs in my workshops, you know what kind of impact you can make, so you begin the journey.

The works begins from the kitchen table or the shared workspace in that up and coming part of town. You chop down your expensesmaybe commuting by bike and public transportation arent all that bad. The opportunity of what can be done, what should be done, and what must be done wakes you every morning and keeps you up late at night.

Whats ahead for you is a journey that you are willing to take because you want to grow from just an idea to the impact you want to make.

Then... no sooner do you start to work than you start to feel the four forces of the entrepreneurs journey pushing against you.

Like the natural forces of friction and gravity, the four forces are constant and inescapablepushing against you as you move forward, pulling you down just as you make some progress, or dropping you back to the starting line after an epic mistake.

The first force working against you is your customers and your marketthe same people you set out to help when you started your company!

Think about the conversations youre having with customers and the interactions youre having with your market. What are they telling you?

Maybe a few of these phrases sound familiar.

Our apps-dev team can build this.

If you just add these features, then well buy.

When is that feature going to be ready?

Can you support a locally hosted version?

Can we get a test account for six months and then let you know?

Well use it for free to give you product feedback.

We need quick results and ROI. This looks like it would take a while to implement.

We dont have the bandwidth for new projects right now.

Why is the button blue?

We just dont think youll be able to support our use case.

I really like what youre doing, but I think its a better fit for companies that are a little smaller than us.