An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Defining company culture from the outset is critical. While that may seem obvious, it’s only become de rigueur in company creation relatively recently. It used to be that culture was merely an extension of the founders’ attitudes, created through a penchant for hiring those that thought alike… Now companies are defining their governing values and overall culture from the outset and publishing those for jobseekers to see upfront, as a way of attracting the right people. That’s proven to be the best way of preserving a meaningful company culture and ethos.
Startups usually start with a small cohort of close colleagues. But what happens when you add a bunch of new people into this close cohort? How do you maintain the company culture? In addition, what is needed to successfully scale a business to increase market share or to increase offerings? How can a small startup grow successfully to a midsize and then large company? To address these questions, we are talking to successful business leaders who can share stories and insights from their experiences about the “5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Scale Your Business”. As a part of this series, we had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Steve Colberg.
Steve Colberg is Head of Growth at Rocketlane, a world leader in customer onboarding software.
He has a wide range of experience and an impressive track record of results in all forms of marketing and growth for both startups (a number of which were funded or sold) and billion-dollar companies. His specialty is accelerating growth by concentrating on a specific set of metrics for sales enablement and conversion, coupled with a marketing strategy of combining multichannel efforts with an omnichannel focus to create a seamless customer journey in the B2B space.
Thank you for joining us in this interview series. Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’?
I started my career with creative assignments in media, mainly writing and editing. I’ve been really fortunate in joining some great companies that had both vision and product market fit. My career style has always been to join a company when it was still early. I help create both a demand-gen process and a marketing/content engine. I stay on past initial success, such as funding rounds or sales, before moving on and doing it all over again.
You’ve had a remarkable career journey. Can you highlight a key decision in your career that helped you get to where you are today?
Early on as a marketer I realized that to be effective I’d have to really understand the product I’m selling, in addition to understanding the market and staying up to date on effective marketing strategies. Since then, I’ve made a point to do deep dives into the product(s) we’re selling in order to understand and better communicate the value to prospects and customers.
What’s the most impactful initiative you’ve led that you’re particularly proud of?
At several different organizations, I’ve set up initiatives for “continuous improvement” on some key marketing metrics that moved the needle on sales. That’s not a new or original idea, but it’s sometimes absent in marketing, where processes can be seen as antagonistic to creativity. Keeping everyone on the marketing team focused on experimenting and tweaking the levers that produce better leads does a lot for maintaining a healthy partnership with sales and in measurable results, generally pipeline generation.
Sometimes our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a mistake you’ve made and the lesson you took away from it?
That’s a tough question because there are so many. I’m an inveterate tinkerer and I encourage everyone I work with to be the same, because spending a bit of money and effort to learn what doesn’t work can lead to efficiencies in the long run. Some of the most interesting examples haven’t been mistakes I made but are instances where I’ve been mistaken — where an idea or initiative I thought would never work ended up being highly successful. Those are welcome instances where being proven wrong has great benefits.
How has mentorship played a role in your career, whether receiving mentorship or offering it to others?
I believe in the value of mentorship but haven’t really had that type of relationship, in either direction, in my career. There are colleagues that I stay in touch with and exchange ideas with, but those are peer relationships more than mentorships.
Developing your leadership style takes time and practice. Who do you model your leadership style after? What are some key character traits you try to emulate?
My leadership style is delegative — I have no desire to be a micromanager and I think everyone wins when everyone is empowered. I don’t say “no” a lot, and when I do it’s based on policies rather than opinion. There are a lot of leaders that have led with a delegative style, though I tend to look more to politicians and social leaders rather than business leaders for inspiration.
Thank you for sharing that with us. Let’s talk about scaling a business from a small startup to a midsize and then large company. Based on your experience, can you share with our readers the “5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Scale Your Business”? Please give a story or example for each.
Many of the basic processes for scaling from a startup to a large company remain constant at every stage, and that understanding brings discipline, methodology, and desirable stability through the growth process. The main changes come when processes and programs are added at each growth stage, as funding and bandwidth allow.
A few examples (it’s both difficult and rewarding to limit to just five) are below.
1) Realistically assess where your company and your product are in the current ecosystem.
Founders can default to the idea that their product is a disruptive, brand-new technology worthy of creating a new product category in one or more industries. Is that really accurate? It’s an important distinction because the tactics for “category creation” are different from the tactics for entering an established market. If your product has great new capabilities that move an established category forward, you may want to position yourself as a disruptive newcomer rather than a completely new, category-creating technology. A lot of initial planning depends on how you define yourself at this stage.
A good rule of thumb: If another company has been around for more than two years that does most of what you do — even if you do it better — you’re not creating a new category, you’re entering the market with a better offering and you should approach the market with that positioning.
2) If you haven’t verified product market fit, then… wait.
This concept goes with #1. It may appear to be completely obvious, but it’s worth stating because of the sheer number of entrepreneurs who skip this step. As a history buff and an idea person, I truly admire the person that invented (not just thought of, but actually invented) the wheel; but I also acknowledge the person that found a way to make a superior wheel in ancient Rome, where business was run by carts that crisscrossed the empire. In which situation would you rather be: a wheel-seller — where you have to explain the concept of a wheel and then explain what a cart might look like — or where you have to describe why your wheel is better for a cart that someone uses every day? It goes back to category creation vs. improvement in an existing market; knowing product fit is essential to making informed decisions about a company’s viability and approach to the market.
3) It really is all about ARR.
Again, it’s nothing new, but driving this concept home across every department means that everyone in the company is on the same page. It means marketing will research and go after high-growth customer segments; sales will push some deals based on growth potential rather than chasing whales; finance will see the value on long-term program spending beyond what’s working right now; and your success group will understand the true value of their accounts. Using ARR as the North Star goal is essential in startups, but because it’s revenue-based it stays relevant through all the stages of a company’s evolution.
4) Focus and discipline rule.
It’s an adage that persists because it’s applicable everywhere in the company. It’s especially important in startups because it prevents smaller teams from promising and trying too many things. Experimentation is desirable but data rules, and you should mainly focus on improving what’s working. That doesn’t contradict other statements here about the importance of trying new things; but if those “new things” are more than a third of what you’re doing, you’re gambling against the odds in a scenario where the house usually wins.
5) At the employee level, at all stages of a company’s evolution and across every department, there are two attitudes that are paramount: “it’s not if, but when;” and “yes, if.”
This involves aspects of company culture that are addressed in another question here, but the main takeaways are that every employee should understand and believe that your product must be on every prospect’s shortlist, and that internally, every employee’s response toward any task that contributes to growth should start with “yes” and ends with a “yes, if.” That ensures that everyone is open to new ideas but also that they’re measuring the right things, dropping initiatives that aren’t working, and doing it all based on data rather than on personal opinion.
Can you share a few of the mistakes that companies make when they try to scale a business? What would you suggest to address those errors?
A company can struggle by trying to do too much from the start. One example would be having a product plan that moves from MVP to one that does absolutely everything in just a few years; another example would be a belief from marketing that you have to be in all possible channels to reach every possible lead right from the start. In the marketing example, it’s a better strategy to put a laser focus on a few, well-performing channels and create SEO-driven content on just a few important topics rather than trying to become a thought leader on day one (and SEO strategy is a whole topic in and of itself).
Scaling includes bringing new people into the organization. How can a company preserve its company culture and ethos when new people are brought in?
Defining company culture from the outset is critical. While that may seem obvious, it’s only become de rigueur in company creation relatively recently. It used to be that culture was merely an extension of the founders’ attitudes, created through a penchant for hiring those that thought alike… Now companies are defining their governing values and overall culture from the outset and publishing those for jobseekers to see upfront, as a way of attracting the right people. That’s proven to be the best way of preserving a meaningful company culture and ethos.
Many times, a key aspect of scaling your business is scaling your team’s knowledge and internal procedures. What tools or techniques have helped your teams be successful at scaling internally?
There are so many good, extant project management and communication tools that I hesitate to call any out here. Rocketlane is in that space, so I see the value of that every day. That said, I encourage and always budget for training programs that team members feel would make them better and more efficient.
As for techniques, there’s no viable replacement for ongoing, scheduled 1:1 meetings and conversations among — and across — team members.
What software or tools do you recommend to help onboard new hires?
I really believe Rocketlane’s onboarding platform is the best available because of its scope, flexibility, and the people in the organization (full disclosure — I’m biased, but it’s an informed bias). There’s a burning desire at Rocketlane to be both customer-centric and to have the best available product on the market, and those two things don’t necessarily have to — and don’t always — go together.
Also, without calling out specific products or methodologies, I’m a proponent of using tools that identify a person’s overall personality structure, particularly how they like to communicate. Having an accurate personality profile and a description of a person’s preferred way of communicating can create a better working atmosphere for both managers and employees. At one of the most fun (and most successful) places I’ve worked, we all did a personality evaluation and created a personality profile that we posted by all our desks. That both created a shared experience and made people better and more effective communicators.
Because of your role, you are a person of significant influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most people, what would that be? You never know what your ideas can trigger.
I’ve always been interested in the cyclic nature of history. Samuel Clemens’ quote comes to mind: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” If we could examine our past and decide that our main responsibility as a society is to do better than those who have come before, to break the cycle and empower only those ideas that help us evolve, then we can collectively change the world for the better. Of course, what we mean by “better,” and how that’s defined, is what always seems to trip us up.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
I spend my working hours researching methodologies and ideas and putting them into practice in business, so I don’t really do a lot of writing or posting beyond what I do for wherever I’m working at the time. That said, I am always open to new relationships and conversations — reference that on LinkedIn and let’s connect.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevecolberg
This was truly meaningful! Thank you so much for your time and for sharing your expertise!
Steve Colberg Of Rocketlane On 5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Scale Your Business was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
