In this entrepreneurial episode, Charles Gerencser, Partner of RELENTLESS Venture Studio and Founder of linkedVAnow.com, shares how he has taken his background in enterprise sales and put it to work helping founders and SaaS entrepreneurs go from startup to success with over $5M in annual recurring revenue.
You will discover:
– Why LinkedIn may be the best place for you to generate your next wave of new sales
– How to avoid the complacency that often accompanies the early wins of SaaS companies
– Why a few big losses may be just the thing you need to break through and scale up
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again to the secrets of the high demand coach podcast. And I am here with yet another high demand coach we have with us today, the one and only Charles Gerencser, who is partner at relentless venture studio focused on sales initiatives, new business acquisitions and exits. He’s also the founder of several current relentless portfolio companies, including linked VA now.com a full service managed LinkedIn lead generation system. He’s also an accomplished expert in sales and marketing and has held executive and director positions at various media and technology companies, including gannet, the McClatchy company and iHeartMedia. Charles graduated cum laude from the Anderson School of Business at the University of California Riverside, and he’s here with us today. Charles, welcome to the show. So excited to have you here. It’s one thing to create $5 million in annual recurring revenue from nothing, but it’s another thing altogether to do it over and over and over again. Tell me what have you guys figured out at relentless this created so much success for you and the founders that you work with.
Charles Gerencser
Hey, Scott, thanks for having me. Well, in terms of replicating success, let’s just be clear, we don’t always succeed. That is just the reality of entrepreneurship and the startup environment. I think the if there, if there is something that entrepreneurs need to know going in is that they do need to stay true to their vision. They need to believe wholeheartedly in their path and in their product and service they provide. But there is inevitably going to be a time where they might reach that inflection point where they just overshot the mark, and it’s time to cut bait and move on to the next project. So our recipe for success involves this constant state of evaluation, you know, not letting complacency seep into the stack, be it on the development side, be it on the sales and marketing side, but there are always going to be opportunities for significant growth and development in the in the organization.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, so it’s fascinating to me, because most folks wouldn’t necessarily connect the startup world and complacency, but I’ve had similar experiences as well as kind of this undertone that happens. What do you think causes complacency, especially in such a fast moving environment?
Charles Gerencser
I think if you’re in an environment where you’re selling a monthly subscription product, that’s a big part of what we do at relentless most of our platforms involve subscription type services, and you’re not seeing heavy churn. You’re not losing customers at any type of level of an alarming rate, then the sense is that the product, the service, the way it’s delivered, the customers use of that product, that everything is okay. And it’s in that space that you find, you find complacency. You know, why do we need to create a new model for a particular industry, we don’t necessarily need to do that. Let’s just focus on, you know, the you know, our initial core market and product that serves that market. And so success, meaning customer acquisition and low churn, can breed that complacency fairly easily. Necessity is the mother of invention, of course. And so necessity in the SaaS monthly recurring revenue world comes from, oh gosh, we just had our, you know, biggest loss. We lost our biggest customer. Or, you know, we’ve lost tons of customers in the eastern hemisphere. For what? For that whatever reason, and why is that, and figuring that out, and it’s those bumps in the road that actually are the innovation that oftentimes will advance the cause for a company.
Scott Ritzheimer
Wow, yeah, yeah, that’s remarkable, because a lot of folks would see, they just see the setback in that. But I think you’re right in the sense that it is those setbacks and the learning is a key point there, the learning that we gain from that that allows us to become better, and it’s especially important early on. So a lot of investors will run, you know, like there is no tomorrow away from that first $5 million in revenue. Why is it that you guys find yourselves focusing there?
Charles Gerencser
Well, earlier in my career, I worked for very large companies, companies that were publicly traded, you know, definitely very far away from the front line in terms of breaking into new markets and new revenue opportunities. And so later in my career. So for the better part of the last decade, I’ve, I’ve had the opportunity, through previous success, to be able to be early, an early stage investor in companies and the firm that I’m with, relentless. I mean, that’s that’s basically been our space is to work in this, the primordial. If you will, of business creation with entrepreneurs, and what we really love about it, as far as being investors, is that every single day, we are coming across new and novel solutions for in some cases, just massive global problems facing different industries, be it hospitality, automotive, market, social media, marketing and management, which is a big focus for us these days, there are just these massive problems in those industries. And there are these tinkerers, these entrepreneurs working at it every day to find the better way. And it is the better way that is exciting and motivated and is really sort of my my engine for moving forward on a daily basis, the better way finding that better way.
Scott Ritzheimer
I love that you you bring that up in my book when I’m talking about the early stage for founders, the defining question is, isn’t there a better way? So I genuinely couldn’t agree more. I think it’s so important so, and it really is the fuel for founders. It’s not just a bigger paycheck, it’s not just a lot of these other things, although those are all great, it really is that better way. I love that. So on this path from startup to 5 million in annual recurring revenues. Do you find, from a sales perspective, that there are distinct stages or distinct phases that are happening? Or is it kind of one strategy and we just push, push, push and go?
Charles Gerencser
Yeah. I mean, oftentimes, the fuel that funds new client acquisition is going to come in the form of some type of paid marketing, right? And be it, you know, digital ads, be it an aggressive affiliate marketing strategy, oftentimes you’ll find early success rather rapidly. And so the inflection point comes at when your cost per sales start to creep up, which they inevitably will, and understanding why that’s happening. Is it an internal problem? Is your sales team unnecessarily protracting the sales cycle, or is it something that you have less control over, like a platform like Tiktok, just summarily increasing your CPA, your cost per acquisition, because that’s their business model, right? Is to get you hooked on low cost, high quality leads as early as possible, so that you start pumping more budget. But are you keeping an eye on the KPIs, like cost per acquisition and adjusting your campaigns accordingly so companies can have real trouble. The one, the 1 million is the toughest, right? The first million, but that two to five, that oftentimes is even more difficult.
Scott Ritzheimer
Wow. I love the use of KPIs in there, and keeping an eye on it, you bring up a point which a lot of folks wrestle with in and outside of the software space, and that is just, how much should it cost for acquisition? You know, what is too much? When do we start getting concerned? When we start making changes? How do you assess, okay, it’s ticking up, but it’s still the right thing for us to do, or when is it time to start pivoting or complimenting that approach?
Charles Gerencser
I think yeah, for early stage startup, and again, most of our platforms at relentless focus on software. So you have to get a handle on your lifetime value of a customer. How long are your customers hanging around? And at the beginning, when you’re building your initial budgets, it’s going to be a guess. And so one of the things you can do, you’re not always gonna be successful at this, particularly if you’re really in a novel space where you have no complimentary or competing software titles, but to try to understand the market. You know if you’re going to compete against QuickBooks, and you know that a QuickBooks customer lasts three and a half years, then, okay, we’re new that people don’t know is maybe our LTV is half of that number. We have just some basis for budgeting initially. And then as you close quarters every three months, are you taking a hard look at that LTV, and how long are these customers lasting? And if they’re not lasting as long as you thought they would, why aren’t they? I mean, if they’re sticking around longer, are there other things you can sell these customers? Can you stack additional products and services in order to make that relationship, as we like to say in the tech world, more sticky?
Scott Ritzheimer
Love it. The software industry, I feel like, has done a pretty remarkable job to where they’ve changed to almost exclusively be built on the AAS, the SaaS model, not exclusively, but it’s a huge, huge part, whereas 1015, 20 years ago, it was a much smaller fraction. How do you see. Other industries being able to benefit from adopting a similar approach.
Charles Gerencser
Oh, I mean, it’s a everything you buy nowadays seems to be on a monthly subscription model. I mean, you can buy laundry detergent right on a monthly subscription model. Now you can, you can get almost all consumer packaged goods now on some type of of recurring shipment. So in a lot of ways, the the Amazons and the Walmart dot coms have basically adapted the SaaS modeling by creating automated shipping and a recurring revenue model and then services. You know, if you’re if, if you’re in the consulting and coaching space. I mean the idea of being a ready utility to your clients speaks very specifically to that recurring model that that there’s an ongoing relationship, ongoing retainer, consulting fee that’s paid because you’re going to be not only just a periodic asset to your client, but you’re going to be somebody who is going to be potentially an on demand resource if they need additional insights and direction.
Scott Ritzheimer
So good, so good. I know from some of the research I was doing before the episode that you’ve you’ve got quite a history working on the platform LinkedIn, in particular, and to what extent would you ascribe some of the success that you and the companies you’ve worked with to that platform and and what do you How does it fit in your overall strategy?
Charles Gerencser
Right? So I hopped on LinkedIn. The you know, on the platform around 2007 so pretty, quite a way, quite a long time ago. And one of the things that is interesting when you study what LinkedIn is today versus what it was then, for one now, they’re owned by Microsoft, so that’s important to understand, and know I mean certain titan of overall business out there, but it is a environment that has remained pure to the idea of doing business career advancement, whereas other social channels, from meta to Tiktok to snap and the like, they really are about sort of the general Media, sort of distracting the feed the scrolling LinkedIn is less so about that, and more about doing really deliberate and career and business focused actions, and that’s, in my opinion, a very pure environment and the ideal place to do business. So my company, relentless, has always had an internal marketing division, a team of professionals focused on LinkedIn as a place to do business development and lead generation. And we’ve taken that internal SOP, and for the first time, over the last year, we’ve made it a product and a service that we are offering to to outsiders. And that actually is what LinkVA now is.
Scott Ritzheimer
And there’s a lot of different ways to use LinkedIn, particularly from a business development standpoint, what have you and your team founder, are some of the most the kind of core strategies?
Charles Gerencser
Yeah. So there’s push and pull on the LinkedIn platform, if you are creating newsletters, posting regularly, just being a general good steward of your digital profile on that platform, you are pushing your content out to the masses and then hoping you you know, get some relevance or go viral particular post or particular, you know, piece of creative in our methodology, we’re using a poll strategy, and we do that by harnessing the power of the first connection network of the profile user, and we do that with direct messaging on the platform to new connections as we build the network, and then channel those relationships off of the LinkedIn platform into the native CRM or system that the profile owner has in place, and then create real opportunities and relationships through that app, through those series of actions.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. Fantastic, fantastic. Well, Charles, we’ve covered a lot of ground. I’m wondering if we could kind of put a bow on on some things here. There’s a question that I have. I asked all my guests, I’m going to fire it your way. What would you say is the biggest secret that you wish wasn’t a secret at all? What’s that one thing you wish everybody watching or listening today knew?
Charles Gerencser
Yeah, I’ve been thinking about this. I There’s a saying that I like, and that is that a rising tide raises all ships. And I think people hear it. It might even resonate with them, but I don’t, I don’t think they always believe it. And the secret is, it is absolutely true, and it. Doesn’t matter if that rising tide comes from your fiercest, maybe even hated competitor, or the rising tide comes from a major advancement in AI, which you may not think affects you, but ultimately it does. And so it’s important to remain humble and understand that the rising tide doesn’t just raise all ships, but it raises your ship. And so having the humility to take the data in, to understand that and learn from it, and then, and being just a good human, offer up advancements and and continue to push the ball forward for for others, because we all benefit when we all win.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, so true. There’s a this Greek proverb that says society grows great when old men plant trees under whose shade they’ll never sit. And it captures one of the purest versions of that, that same sentiment, it’s so important. It’s so true. I think we have the benefit of society growing great and being able to sit under the shade of our trees. You know, if we do this right, we do it long enough you don’t have to wait until the end of your career to really be able to contribute in that way. This is great reminder, great encouragement, Charles. There’s some folks listening, and they’re right there in the thick of it. They’re in startup mode. They’re thinking about using LinkedIn to generate more consistent business. How can they reach out to you? How can they find more out about the work that you guys do?
Charles Gerencser
Yeah. So Scott, for your audience specifically, we actually have created, really a free introductory service, which is my team at linked VA now will actually do a audit of your your audience’s individual LinkedIn profile, we will review 10 distinct aspects of their profile on LinkedIn and score it for them, and then provide them with a guide to LinkedIn profile optimization, totally free of charge, just something we’d like to do for folks. And then they can learn more about our service and our opportunity and see if it’s right for them. And, and so we’ll provide you with that unique link, which is basically linkedvanow.com/audit and, and that will be something we will be able to provide here in the notes and and happy to provide that to your audience. And if you’ve been thinking about LinkedIn and you you’re worried that it might be a liability, you’re probably right. And our team is adept at managing, really, 1000s of profiles, and so we know the we know the way we go the way, and we’re happy to show the way in this case.
Scott Ritzheimer
Awesome Head on over linkedvanow.com/audit again. We’ll get that in the show notes for you, so you can just click or tap there. Highly recommend that you check it out. It’s fantastic. Thanks for offering that for our guest, Charles. Really appreciate it. Thanks for being on the show. Just loved every bit of this that the depth on the sales side of things, the practicality on the LinkedIn side of things, is fantastic. So thanks for being on for those of you watching listening, you know that your time and attention mean the world to us. I hope you got as much out of this conversation. As I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Contact Charles Gerencser
Charles Gerencser is a Partner at RELENTLESS Venture Studio, focused on sales initiatives, new business, acquisitions, and exits. He is also the Founder of several current RELENTLESS portfolio companies, including LinkedVAnow.com, a full-service managed LinkedIn lead generation system. An accomplished expert in sales and marketing, Mr. Gerencser has held executive and director positions at various media and technology companies, including GANNETT, The McClatchy Company, and iHeartMedia. Mr. Gerencser graduated Cum Laude from The Anderson School of Business at The University of California, Riverside.
To learn more about Charles and his work, and to get your free 10-point LinkedIn Profil Audit, visit https://www.linkedvanow.com/audit/
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