S6E2 – From Impossible to Inevitable: How to Create Predictable Revenue for your SaaS with Aaron Ross

In this episode, we explore How to Create Predictable Revenue for your SaaS with Aaron Ross, a top sales expert and author of books like Predictable Revenue and From Impossible to Inevitable. He breaks down why having a steady flow of sales is a game-changer for B2B SaaS founders and how today’s fast-changing world impacts it. Even when things feel uncertain, the core rules of growing revenue never change.

Aaron shares powerful insights to help founders tackle challenges and grab new opportunities. He reveals how experimenting, building strong relationships, and staying flexible can set businesses up for long-term success. If you want to unlock the secrets of predictable revenue, you won’t want to miss this episode!

The Challenge of Predictable Revenue in Today’s World

Joran and Aaron talk about the difficulties B2B SaaS companies face when trying to create predictable revenue. Aaron explains that past strategies have changed. There are now more options, but it is harder to know which ones will work. Each company must experiment with different strategies to find what suits them best. There is no single solution that works for everyone.

Misconceptions About Predictable Revenue

Aaron talks about common misunderstandings about predictable revenue. Some people think that one strategy will always guarantee success. He explains that while templates can help, businesses must adjust them to fit their own needs. The most important thing is to understand the basic principles and apply them in a way that works for their company.

The Importance of Specialization

A key part of predictable revenue is specialization. Aaron explains that dividing roles within the sales team helps people focus on fewer tasks and perform better. He compares this to different types of lead generation:

• Seeds (word of mouth)
• Nets (marketing)
• Spears (outbound prospecting) Each method requires a different approach for success.

The Role of Principles and Adaptation

Aaron explains that while strategies change, the basic principles of revenue generation stay the same. Companies should focus on understanding their ideal customers, improving their products, and building strong relationships. The ability to adapt and learn from experiences is key to long-term success.

Experimentation and Following Hunches

Aaron encourages SaaS founders to trust their instincts and test different lead generation methods. He suggests picking an approach that matches their interests and excitement. When founders enjoy the process, they are more likely to stay committed. Learning from each method helps businesses improve and adjust their strategies over time.

The Growing Importance of Relationships

As technology changes, Aaron highlights the lasting value of relationships in business. Whether with customers, partners, or team members, strong relationships provide stability and growth opportunities. He explains that relationships can last beyond a single company and help businesses stand out in a competitive market.

Overcoming Challenges and Managing Expectations

Aaron acknowledges that creating predictable revenue is not easy. Companies often struggle with defining their niche, building the right team, and managing executive expectations. He advises founders to be patient and understand that results take time, especially when setting up new lead generation programs.

The Future of B2B SaaS

Looking ahead, Aaron believes the business world will become even more unpredictable due to fast technological changes and global connections. While the future is uncertain, he suggests that companies should be flexible and open to change. Strong relationships will continue to be a key factor in handling these challenges.

Final Thoughts and Advice for SaaS Founders

Aaron advises founders to focus on customer satisfaction and creating real value. He warns against focusing too much on revenue goals. Instead, he suggests understanding customer needs and providing helpful solutions. Founders should align their work with their passions and build a strong team to support long-term growth.

Key Timecode

• (27:58) – Future of B2B SaaS: Aaron shares his thoughts on the future of the industry and the impact of AI.
• (0:00) – Introduction: Aaron discusses the limitations of following a template for success in business.
• (0:37) – Guest Intro: Joran introduces Aaron Ross and his achievements.
• (1:25) – Importance of Predictable Revenue: Aaron explains its significance for B2B SaaS founders.
• (2:04) – Challenges in Predictable Revenue: Aaron talks about the changing dynamics of playbooks in the SaaS industry.
• (4:08) – Misconceptions in SaaS: Aaron addresses common misconceptions about predictable revenue.
• (5:38) – Evolution of Sales: Discussion on the specialization in sales roles and its impact.
• (8:50) – Principles of Predictable Revenue: Aaron outlines key principles like specialization and understanding different leads.
• (14:36) – Importance of Relationships: Aaron emphasizes the role of relationships in business success.
• (25:03) – Common Obstacles: Challenges companies face in achieving predictable revenue.

Transcription

[00:00:00.000] – Aaron

You can’t just pick up someone’s book and follow it to a T and it’ll work 100%. You have to find your own way with it. Starting tends to be someone who’s giving you a template. The days of copy paste generally are done. Cold calling is alive and referral emails are alive and direct mail is alive. Everything’s alive in some way. On LinkedIn, lots of people love to say, Predictable revenue is dead. Nothing really does. People love, they’re like, Just tell me the answer. You’re not telling me the answer, I’ll go to look for it someplace else. Just tell me what to do with this email template. Just tell me how to hire the right person. Just tell me how to build a SaaS company.

[00:00:37.380] – Joran

It’s easy and fun to dream about success. Making it happen and keeping it going is a lot tougher and far more rewarding. This is a quote coming from Aaron Ross, who is my guest today. With Aaron, I’m going to talk about going from impossible to inevitable. How to create predictable revenue. Aaron is a sales adviser, speaker, board member at multiple and he’s the author of Three Books, Predictable Revenue: From Impossible to Inevitable, and CEO Flow. He recently became a book coach, as he wrote Three Books himself, of course. Happy to have him on the show. Welcome, Aaron.

[00:01:13.340] – Aaron

Thanks, Joran. Happy to be here.

[00:01:16.640] – Joran

Cool. We always just dive right in. We’re going to talk about-Let’s go. Predicable revenue. Why is predictable revenue so important for BDB SaaS founders today?

[00:01:25.770] – Aaron

Yeah, and is it even possible anymore with the way the world is going? Chaos everywhere you look. It’ll be some other pandemic right around the corner. The goal of it has always been so people feel like they’ve got some stability, whether it’s for cash flow, for growth, for investors. There’s a talk I’m working on. The new title is creating predictable revenue in an unpredictable world, because I think that the world has changed the last few years, post-COVID, post-AI, and it’s very different than in the prior 20 years of the technology in the SaaS world.

[00:02:00.150] – Joran

Yeah, and it’s really different, but is it still, in your opinion, possible?

[00:02:04.820] – Aaron

How should people do it? I think what’s happening is, and lots of companies will do it, is that there used to be a smaller number of playbooks that B2B SaaS companies would run. There’s a lot more confidence in running certain playbooks. If you could get a great product and have people pay for it, you could pretty much create predictable revenue. Now, with the variety of just the way the world is, the overwhelming technology, noise, the The feeling of instability that’s been created from COVID and now AI. An ever-expanding number of playbooks that could work, there’s a lot less certainty about the classic ones that will work. I think it is possible to do it, but everyone’s doing it their own way. Nowadays, there are lots of people. It’s like they don’t even know. They have to go out and really sort a lot of the options before they can figure out what works for them. I think the way the world is going with all these different spectrums, whether it’s from working at home 100% to the office 100% and something in between, Growth playbooks are the same. There’s so many ways to grow, and no one knows what’s going to work and create that growth in a predictable way until you get in there and figure it out yourself.

[00:03:12.920] – Joran

It’s really interesting. Last week at our conversation, we’re product and customer success with Christie, who created a lot of frameworks, a lot of things. The one thing she said, it most likely won’t work for you or you need to adjust it to your own company. This is exactly what you’re saying as well. Predictable review is still possible. You could look at the framework, look at how people are doing it, but do it your own way and adjust it to your own company and to market at that time.

[00:03:37.400] – Aaron

Yeah, exactly. I always find examples, whether it’s gendered or even in eating systems. There’s so many types of diet. It’s just There’s so many ways you could eat, and there’s just infinite variety on that physical health front. You can’t just pick up someone’s book and follow it to a T and it’ll work 100%. You have to find your own way with it. Starting potentially with someone who’s giving you a template. The days of copy and paste, generally, are done. You can copy and paste a starting point, but you still have to make it your own.

[00:04:08.980] – Joran

I think this is already one big misconception that there’s just a template for predictable revenue. Do you have any other misconceptions when you look at SaaS founders who are trying to implement it and they say certain things and you’re like, This is not true or this is not going to work for you?

[00:04:26.520] – Aaron

If people have read the book Predictable Revenue or about it, I think the biggest misconception is associated with the whole idea of doing outbound prospecting. It’s about how to do outbound prospecting and create predictable growth that way. Separate the idea of lead generation from salespeople and selling, because if you’re younger, you wouldn’t realize this, but in the past, you would double growth by hiring twice as many salespeople. The salespeople were there to generate their own pipeline and to close and so on. Disconnecting the number of salespeople growth, lead generation and predictable lead generation can create growth Sales is separate. So let’s say specialization. Different jobs and sales so that there’s inbound lead response, outbound prospecting, signing new customers, and host sales, onboarding, customer success, account management, account renewals. The jobs can be very different. That’s really more about having more jobs so the people in the team can do fewer things better. That’s the fundamental idea behind predictable revenue and what it takes to create a scalable mobile sales team. Not that anything ever dies because cold calling is alive and referral emails are alive and direct mail is alive, and everything’s alive in some way.

[00:05:38.560] – Aaron

On LinkedIn, lots of people love to say, Predictable revenue is dead. Nothing really dies. Whatever the book is you read, it could be predictable revenue, it could read any other book, our thing about hard things and saying, Look, there’s lessons in here. It’s not about following the exact steps around how to set this dashboard up or how to execute this conversation, but what are the principles behind the success in this story Those principles really tend to be timeless. Good book, whether it’s mine or others. Again, the case studies and stories may change, but the principles can work. How do you reinterpret those principles, the things you liked and insights into your life today, your business today? The world is going to be changing faster than ever. The nature of our anxious society is that people, it’s not just founders, it’s every level, people love. They’re like, Just tell me the answer. You’re not telling me the answer? I’ll look for it someplace else. Just tell me what to do with this email template. Just tell me how to hire the right person. Just tell me how to build a SaaS company. Just tell me this anxiety, this tell me the answer.

[00:06:35.490] – Aaron

You’re just being to figure it out. Or maybe it’s awareness because every founder is figuring it out. Even your big breakthroughs, looking back, all my big breakthroughs in life were not from things people gave me or told me. It was always from when I didn’t have an answer and I figured something out myself. I don’t know anyone who’s copying and pasting their way to success these days. I do know in the past, I’ve had so many, I don’t know if it’s thousands, but at least hundreds of people say they read my book, pretty much used the ideas, and I’m not copying it, and they were successful.

[00:07:07.090] – Joran

Yeah. Interesting. I guess maybe it’s super irrelevant or relevant question. It depends on how you look at it. All the books you have are related to predictable revenue, right?

[00:07:16.520] – Aaron

So far, yeah. Ceo of Flow is not. That was different. That was my first book about management and people, working with people.

[00:07:24.240] – Joran

But they all have something in common, though. For a family of 10, you have to have predictable revenue to make sure that you have them feeding at the end of the month. Managing people also almost relates to having a big family. Is that where the inspiration comes from?

[00:07:38.050] – Aaron

You’d like to hope that I have predictable revenue to support a family of 10. But ironically, it’s never been the case between the eat, shit, and grow book and income operating system. I can’t tell if all the money lessons or some will be in one or the other, both. But living a life… A lot of people say, Hey, I have X money, so it means we can have kids. My wife and I feel strongly I was really like, this is something we need to do, like having kids or we’ve adopted five. We got married, Charity has two. Then we had more kids and made the money work afterwards. I had a choice I could make. I’ve been consulting for 15 years, and I’ve made more than 10 million. The books drove more than 50 million in revenue towards my companies. Most of that was mostly through consulting and other kinds of lumpy income. I had made a conscious choice. I could make less in some more salary-predictable way, or I could make more in the unpredictable ways.

[00:08:32.070] – Joran

If we go back to the book you mentioned regarding predictable revenue, like you mentioned how bad tactics have changed, but the principles are still alive. Could you walk me through the principles which are still working today? If somebody now wants to implement to breakable revenue, what would be the approach and the principles that follow?

[00:08:50.170] – Aaron

Sure. First principle, specialization. More jobs defines people can do fewer things better because if you’re juggling everything, then it’s just to be harder to do everything. Now, if you’re one person, you’re a founder, what that might look like is specializing some time on your calendar. There are things you’re just not getting to that are really important. It could be customer success, it could be sales, prospecting for partnerships or clients. There’s ways to take that and implement. If you’re a founder plus one salesperson, that’s the beginning of specialization. The other seeds, nets, and spears, which is just understanding different kinds of leads have different aspects and qualities. Seeds would be the best word of mouth My fastest sales cycles, highest win rates, but they’re hard to generate. Nets would be through marketing, casting a wide net. You might generate, hopefully, lots of leads, but only a small number or a good fit. Typically, they average to be smaller. Then are outbound prospecting or outbound business development. It’s just knowing between these, what’s the best fit for where you are. I think the mistake I see, companies who are small do not spend enough time nailing their product and customer success because they’re eager to grow, which is That’s the exciting point part.

[00:10:01.410] – Aaron

The boring part is refining your product to the end of the degree because it just gets so sick of it. Takes way longer than you want. But if you can get word of mouth case studies or testimonials, that is the key towards being able to grow later. I think that’s five times as true or 20 times as true of host AI. Those are the two main principles. There’s a million ways to generate leads, but looking for ways you can do that in some repeatable way. Sometimes you can, sometimes you can’t. It’s a goal These days, whatever is working, the half life is shrinking. Founder-led content, inbound marketing, outbound prospecting. It might work for a month or a year, but at some point it’s going to get harder and you have to continually reinvent that. And I think there’s other ones, but one more is to working in a collaborative way with your team. One of the examples in predictable revenue, and I’m proud of, is the sales team involving them in the redesign of their comp plan, which happened at Salesforce. There’d be committees. It’s an example of having trust and communication with your It doesn’t have to look like that.

[00:11:02.170] – Aaron

I think it’s even more true when you have remote work, it has its own challenges. Those are some of the principles. The way you do it varies so much these days. There’s so much around technology and outbound, on inbound. It’s overwhelming.

[00:11:15.480] – Joran

I think a lot of people probably focus on principle two, seeds, nets, and spares. They want to get new clients in, get them to sign up. Because you mentioned it’s always hard to define where you need to focus on, which I always recommend trying out different things in parallel.

[00:11:31.440] – Aaron

What I’d say is, let’s assume that you don’t have the capacity to do things in parallel. You have limited time, money, energy, budget. Let’s pick one thing. The first thing is always customer success, which is getting enough customers. I can’t tell you if that’s five or 10 or 50, but some number of customers where you’re able to continue to get good feedback for the product and they’re paying for it, you’re getting a picture of these types of customers are ideal and these customers are okay and these are not a good fit. So You’re getting smart about where you are really needed and your best fit. That’s because somewhere in those first 10 to a couple of dozen customers, you can probably get that sample set. You just really nail there. Then I would say To follow whoever’s leading legion, I would start by whatever you’re most interested in, enthusiastic about. If you’re really drawn towards outbound, lots of people say outbound doesn’t work, and it’s harder than ever. Go there. If you’re really drawn to inbound, everything will take be challenging to get up and get running and to get results. So pick something that you feel like you really want to do, that has the best chance of success that you’ll have the energy and enthusiasm for.

[00:12:43.160] – Aaron

It could be founder-like content, it could be a CEO, it could be outbound, it could be events. There’s so many. There’s no way to know what’s going to work. So either if it’s you or the person next to you, that’s where I would start as whatever you’re most drawn to. And let’s realize, no matter of what you do, you can always build skills you can learn along the way and use that either to get it working and double down on that channel, whatever that is. Founder-like content is a popular one, but there’s a lot. Youtube, there’s so many types. Even if it doesn’t work, you’ll still learn things to make you smarter on the next type of channel if you have to switch or if you add a second one. Because if you’re doing outbound, it only works if you get really specific on the target customer and messaging. But that specificity is useful in marketing. So no matter what you do, make sure that you take the learnings to make the next channel better, too. There’s no silver bullet.

[00:13:37.460] – Joran

Exactly. That’s what you’re really saying here, right? Experiment with different channels. If something works, it doesn’t mean it keeps on working. But if you start experimenting with different channels and double down on it, you start creating predictable revenue because you have these channels which are working. You can experiment with new ones along the way. You can build on top of that.

[00:13:56.060] – Aaron

Yeah, I know how unsatisfying that answer is, which is experiment. I see in a Follow your hunches. Sometimes we overanalyze things. Again, going back to when I’ve had hunches, going to learn sales at Salesforce when it was a small company and I took a lowest-level job or having all these kids or wanting to write a book. So many things that I didn’t see some path be like, Oh, am I going to do that to be successful. I’ll do this thing. That’s cool. That feels important. I don’t know where this is going, but I need to do this. That’s all what’s helped me stand out from the crowd and to my own path and create my own success, whether it’s in family or money and career, all around.

[00:14:36.150] – Joran

Are you struggling to find people and companies which have access to your ideal customer profile? At Reditus, we just launched the second side of the marketplace, which allows you to search, filter, and contact B2B SaaS affiliates which have access to the audience you’re looking for. We do this by leveraging first-party data sources. Want to learn more? Go to getReditus. Com. When we look at SaaS companies, do Do you have any best practices examples of companies who were able to create real predictable revenue?

[00:15:07.800] – Aaron

The trick is these days, I don’t follow them closely enough. But the best place for current examples and case studies that I know of is The SASTER. Jason Lemkin started it. He’s the co-author on the From Impossible to Inevitable Book. There’s some examples in there. The principles in that book are the same. The case studies and current examples always change. He’s always highlighting some new company that’s growing in some way. I know there’s a lot of SaaS communities, like SASE in the Nordics is another one in Europe, which is where I am now. There’s different companies I work with that are a bit smaller. Different things work for different companies. There’s no commonality, honestly, except companies that are focused on how do they find the right customer and have a great product. Something that they’ve tried is starting to click, whether that’s word of mouth. I wish I could give you some other answer. Everybody’s just doing it differently these days. Yeah. These are all more like sub 10 million that I know more of talking to and helping out. Linkedin is bigger than ever. It still works. If you can keep up the founder-led content grind, which is hard, but not everyone can do that.

[00:16:13.320] – Aaron

My thing is books. Some people have a thing. If you really get a video, leverage that. If you really get a podcast, lots of people do podcasts. If it’s like your thing and you put the extra effort in, it can be great at it. That’s the way to stand out. You can be successful at anything. If you worked hard, you could pretty much do anything and do well if you want to be a lawyer even if you hated it. It’s just not true anymore. Rather than being successful at anything, you can be successful at your thing, even as a company, especially as a person, because more than ever, I think it’s going to take people who are leading in initiatives. It could be lead gen here. They find their way to make it successful because it’s their thing. They’re into content or AI or events or dinners or building relationships, which is the thing I’m most interested in now.

[00:16:58.030] – Joran

Yeah, because what you’re basically saying hard work is not going to cut it anymore. You really need to be interested in something to really make it work for yourself.

[00:17:07.240] – Aaron

Correct. Or else you’re just not going to be able to take it far enough to stand out from the crowd, especially with AI, because these days, AI just have instant copy-catting of pretty much anything. You do something great and copy that, like Amazon. If you notice on Amazon, most products that do well make money just get copied by companies in China or Asia. And just how do they stand out and maintain some brand premium stuff. That’s why I think it’s not just mechanical motions and lead gen AI efforts. You have to really combine still the human element of reputation or brand or relationships or connection or empathy with technology to be able to now just grow, maintain your pricing and stand out from this sea of copycatting that is already here and will only grow.

[00:18:00.110] – Joran

You just mentioned relationships. You’re super interested in it right now. What can we learn? What can the audience learn, B2B SaaS founders, learn from your knowledge regarding relationships? What are you’re focusing on right now and what are you learning here?

[00:18:16.790] – Aaron

Yeah, 53. I’ve been through at least three tech crashes or sessions. I remember 15 years ago as an adventure firm saying, Hey, look, lead generation, whether it’s outbound or inbound, all the channels keep getting noisier. More tech, more channels, more messages, less attention per channel per message. To me, it’s just exhilarating. To me, the thing that will always stand out through the noise, because I’m like, Is there some durable solution that’s going to work for at least a few years? Relationships can transcend companies. They can transcend a lot of things. If you have a good one, it could be one-to-one. The relationship with the market. I’ve written a book. People know me or you do social media. You can do one-to-many relationships as well. No matter what happens with technology, the world, or AI, relationships are going to serve any company or person well, whether it’s for an individual career or for a company. I believe, for example, with COVID, when everything was changing, companies that had a good relationship with their customers and partners would get more leeway to figure things out, then companies were bad relationship and people couldn’t wait to get off of their platform or away from them.

[00:19:23.880] – Aaron

That’s where I’m focused. That could take a lot of forms. That could be, again, your relationship with your team, if you’re an executive, because It’s how you treat the team is going to affect how they treat customers, or a relationship between sales people to customers, or it could be, again, your audience, like if you’re creating content, or it could also mean there’s lots of companies reinvesting in communities or partners or ecosystems There’s lots of ways to take that idea and translate it to amplifying what you’re currently doing. Makes sense.

[00:19:51.230] – Joran

That is something we see as well. My platform is regarding affiliate marketing purely for B2B SaaS companies, so you’re leveraging somebody else to do the marketing for you. We see growing fast within B2B SaaS because it’s super hard to stand out. Asking somebody else to do the marketing for you will give you that advantage and edge because they already have a relationship with their audience.

[00:20:12.920] – Aaron

Yeah. And I mentioned space I’m really looking at closely lately because referrals and getting customer referrals, it’s interesting because it’s great. How do you do that in a way that people want to help you? If you ask them too much, then they get sick of you. Over some amount of time, that little battery recharges or there may be some things you could do to recharge the relationship. Yeah.

[00:20:35.330] – Joran

Any insights or best practices here? When, in your opinion, is it the right time to ask for a referral? Has it be on the wow moment, on the value moment?

[00:20:44.160] – Aaron

I think for SaaS companies, referrals are hard for, let’s say, the sales and marketing executives or CEOs saying, Okay, for 2025, list out your top five or 10, maybe five ways you’re going to generate pipeline this year. This is our referrals are not on that list. As it became seen as they’re not scalable or repeatable. It’s all word of mouth, which I get. In the past, in 20 years, of the other, whether it’s outbound, inbound, there’s a lot of other ways to drive growth that would be a lot faster than referrals. But things are changing. I feel like there’s a playbook. I’m looking at creating with a company called Connect the Dots and the Map Networks. But I know the CEO, we worked at Salesforce together. If you have a SaaS company, there’s salespeople who have the motivation to get meetings, and then there’s customer success people or whatever who own most of the customer relationships. That’s already a fragmentation. They need to work together. If there’s a wow moment, it’s probably the excitement right when they’re signing is one time. Then a few months or six months later, once they have success, it’s actually been proven, which is even more powerful for the ones that are getting success.

[00:21:56.630] – Aaron

You can document it and turn it into a case study or testimonial or reference. They’re not just excited, they actually have the experience of doing it. To me, it involves not just sending emails. It’s not totally theory because I know people who do this in different pieces, but it hasn’t been put together into a system yet, which is what I’m looking to to having a live call with the customer and verifying or confirming that they’re up for introducing you to one or two or three people. Here’s the people we got helping them do that. Then having different sets of metrics to track that as a system. For example, you might have direct referrals, which is you actually ask for the referral or indirect, which is when people just send someone to you. It usually happens people come to you through word of mouth. There’s this metric. Referrals are as old as time, but they haven’t really been sassified that I’ve seen.

[00:22:48.200] – Joran

It depends on what referrals we’re talking about. If it’s for PLG motion, there’s definitely platforms already. We do it as well. But if it’s more for sale-led motions, then it’s a lot more complicated.

[00:23:00.370] – Aaron

I’m thinking a bit more on not so much small business transactional, but could be, remains to be seen. My sweet spot has always been where there’s some intersection between go-to-market or sales in humans, not so much on e-commerce, which is more automated, because humans are tricky. That’s something I’m good at as well. It’s like mirroring the humans and the tech. When you think about it, go-to-market, the whole thing is about how do people meet people? Whether it’s through marketing, when they don’t know you, but they start to know you a little bit, or word of mouth, referrals are outbound, where they don’t know you at all. You just have, how do people get to meet other people and see if there’s a fit or not? I’m sure people can make all kinds of dating comparisons, but to me, it’s like a big psychological exercise.

[00:23:40.800] – Joran

Yeah, nice. We took a bit of a detour. If I bring the topic back to predictable revenue, you helped a lot of companies try to achieve this. We always make it sound super simple in a podcast, just follow the principles, experiment. What are the challenges, obstacles people are going to face, and maybe even how How can they overcome them?

[00:24:01.340] – Aaron

I think the most common obstacles with companies, and it’s not even about predictable revenue of the book, but the idea of how do you create that is first, most companies haven’t really nailed the niche to the specificity that they need. It’s also why first section of the From Impossible to Inevitable Book is called Nail a Nish because that’s the most common problem. Really what that means is who’s your ideal customer or customers? How are they different from the customers that’s and nice to have? Then do you understand their pain, problems, language, feelings? Those could be different than three or six months ago. Do you know how then to speak to them in their language? It’s like, how do you find them and be able to connect with them in a messaging or pain level? That’s the biggest problem. Companies that tend to want to grow, they’re just like, Let’s go. They haven’t really figured out who that is. They just end up wasting a lot of time and energy on things that aren’t effective. The second one is, you don’t have the right people doing the right things, just team, execution. The third one is executive expectations, which are often unrealistic because they want things to happen now.

[00:25:03.780] – Aaron

If you’re creating a whole new lead generation program, it might take six months to really get things working with a good pipeline. This can vary a lot based on if it’s very transactional or a very long sales cycle, but it’s not six weeks, it’s more like six months. If you have a six month sales cycle, that might mean you might have 12 to 18 months before you’re seeing a lot of actual revenue growth. You have a more enterprisey mid-market-y sales cycle.

[00:25:27.900] – Joran

I think this is maybe already one thing a lot of companies probably think if we wanted to grow fast, predictable revenue, it can happen quickly. You already said that you disagree with that. What is one other popular belief people have regarding predictable revenue that you completely disagree with?

[00:25:43.360] – Aaron

First, everyone’s, Oh, predictable revenue is dead. That’s silly. Nothing’s dead. Nothing ever dies. Just other things have become maybe more effective. I think it’s extra hard now because everyone online is trying to market to you. Follow me, click me, buy me. What they use, and everyone does this to some extent, which is the best stories, best case studies, best messages. Sometimes they’re often real, a lot of times they’re not. Not only is it harder to find things that you feel like will actually work, you’re surrounded by this reality distortion field, social media-ish, which is when you start to just see all these people who are crushing it around you, whether they’re marketing to you by, buy my course because make a million dollars in 30 days, or found a lot of stories. Here’s how I got to 20 million. You have this extra you just start to feel like you’re struggling. Why are you struggling in everything else isn’t? It’s like going on a hike, rather than taking just your lunch and some water, taking this 50-pound rucksack. This social media, compare and despair, not overwhelmed, but just this extra level of soul The whole sucking energy is there.

[00:26:46.910] – Aaron

Just the drain. Hopefully, you might be able to turn into a bit more of a motivation, but I think for most people, it’s just creating a needed anxiety. It’s like a leaky balloon. Yeah.

[00:26:58.450] – Joran

I guess if we take it into advice, try to turn it off, stop looking at all these success stories.

[00:27:03.670] – Aaron

You just catch it in yourself. If you see jealousy, the worst thing is keeping up with the Johnson’s. If you want to imitate someone. Someone else raised a lot of money, so I got to raise a lot of money. A lot of founders don’t even see that because they see raising money as a brass. It’s a golden ticket, which is not. Then it’s just a whole another roller coaster. How do you step back and decide what’s actually good for my business? Do I want to grow? Am I trying to double my company’s here because other people I want to look good? Am I actually ready for that or not? Because we actually are ready. We’ve been growing and can ramp it up, and there’s a path to that. Is it ego-based business decisions and growth goals, team decisions and funding decisions, or is it more of an aligned… The vibe is the right thing or it’s the right thing to do for the company? How swayed are you by how you want to look to others, yourself and the team, into the market?

[00:27:58.920] – Joran

I I know you look a lot into the future. How do you see the future of B2B SaaS?

[00:28:05.760] – Aaron

No one has any idea. People don’t know because we’re also passing some tipping points with AI. Everyone’s going to have their predictions. They’re all going to be wrong. It’s like a forecast. The only thing you know about a forecast is going to be wrong. It might be too high, might be too low. I believe it will continue to be more and more chaotic. As the more connected the world gets, that’s one ripple issue in one part of the world just affects everything else. Not chaos in a bad way, but more of an instability Opportunity, which is another word for opportunity. I’m not trying to put a negative slant. A few years ago before COVID, people were thinking, Okay, you can have a general sense. You can feel like the next few years will be like… I don’t think people have that anymore. I think people are just like, I don’t even know what’s happening next month, especially with AI. People can be less attached to knowing what’s in the future because nobody knows. It was always an illusion, but now it’s been stripped away. More instability, which is flash opportunity. There’s always more technology, more people have to be able to adapt faster, be less attached to your goals because they could change at any time.

[00:29:04.590] – Aaron

When something happens with the world, the next pandemic, the next AI thing, and that’s okay. To me, the relationships I see, I’m not going to be on the train of studying every technology, AI thing, and just being current, it’s just not me. Some people are in it, great. But I feel like relationships, whether they’re family, personal or business, to your personal goals, business goals, those are going to help you no matter what. They’ll help you have more company, emotional stability, team stability, enjoyment, help you make more money. I feel like those are first… I’m focused on those for myself as well as I think they’re part of the future. That’s what I’m interested in. Of course, AI is, too. I’m just not into that.

[00:29:44.790] – Joran

Makes sense. Technology has changed a lot, but relationships take a long time to build and will remain no matter which technology comes around.

[00:29:53.070] – Aaron

What’s interesting in this keynote I’ve got, one of the slides is people are really stressed. It’s instability, compare and despair. There’s all this extra stress as people are dealing with. And so people’s, in executives, processing power is smaller. When people are more anxious and stressed, they tend to want quick fixes. If you have the spectrum of fleeting solutions to durable solutions, everybody wants, just show me the marketing template, the landing page, the outbound email to fix this. Really what the durable solutions are, it’s more relationships because they can transcend companies. I know people change companies back and forth. It’s just a more durable solution. It’s not that tactics aren’t bad, but it’s the difference between taking a tactic is going to save you versus we’ll have to continue to reinvent tactics, the landing pages, the community messages, the webinar, the other. Those will just have to keep reinventing those every few months. But if we’re doing that with long term partners, it’ll be a lot easier than trying to find new partners every few months and recreating our funnel every few months, which is impossible. So building good relationship with your market, your customers, partners, your team, yourself.

[00:30:52.990] – Joran

We’re going to start closing off the conversation. These are the two questions I always ask at the end. When we talk about growing a SaaS company, what advice would you have for a SaaS founder who’s just starting out and trying to grow to 10K monthly recurring revenue?

[00:31:08.290] – Aaron

Stop obsessing over getting to 10K and start obsessing over how happy your customers are with your product and how much they would miss it if they lost it. That’s the important metric at this point. If you get that, the growth will come.

[00:31:25.630] – Joran

Nice. Let’s assume we stopped obsessing over the 10K, but we did reach it. We’re now going to to make a huge step towards 10 million ARR. What advice would you give here?

[00:31:36.100] – Aaron

I think working harder is not a great solution, despite what you think of Elon Musk. You’re not Elon Musk. It’s more important to figure out what your thing is and to get a team of people that can focus on what they do best. It’s really about the team at this point and helping people focus on what they’re really good at and offload what they’re not good at.

[00:31:57.000] – Joran

I think that’s really solid advice. Let me I’d like to summarize. If we talk about predictable revenue, it’s still possible, but you have to do it your own way. Outbound tactics have changed, but the principles are still alive, so it’s definitely still a great way to create predictable revenue. Principles, specialization, seeds, nets, and careers, focus on customer success, know your product, nail your niche, your ICP. Do you really understand their language and their pains? Experiment with different channels. Follow your hunches. Take learnings to the different channels you’re going to experiment after. Number three, working in a collaborative way. Hard work is not going to cut it anymore. Passion will be more important. Relationships become more important. It will either work for you individually or as a company, teams internally with your audience, clients, partners, In the end, they’re going to be great for customer referrals. The future AI has changed the game. There’s going to be more instability. You will need to adapt faster, and it could be an epidemic around the corner. But in the end, relationships will remain so focused focus on those. Thank you, Aaron, for coming on. Any final advice before we close off the conversation?

[00:33:07.450] – Aaron

There was one, follow your hunches, even when there’s no data and it doesn’t make sense. I think a lot of people say they’re data-driven because… It may be, but a lot of times it’s because they’re afraid to make a decision for themselves. They need the answer before they make the decision. They aren’t willing to take a step unless they know it’s going to be successful. It’s not a rest of people success in life or in technology.

[00:33:32.220] – Joran

I think that’s really solid advice to end with. If people want to get in contact with you, how can they do so?

[00:33:38.730] – Aaron

I’m on LinkedIn. You follow me from impossible. Com as a site for the latest book. There’ll be sometime this year, I think the next ones will start coming out.

[00:33:49.780] – Joran

Cool. We’ll add that link towards the show notes so people can find from impossible. Com. We’ll add a link to your LinkedIn profile. I think you also run a newsletter from your LinkedIn profile where people can subscribe.

[00:34:00.540] – Aaron

I’m on Substack. It’s called freshaire. Substack. Com, which I’m an intermittent writer. Never been a consistent writer. Not one that write every day. I say every once in a while, bang out a bunch, but I’m consistently inconsistent. But I get there.

[00:34:15.060] – Joran

That’s what I learned, writing three books at the same time or getting your review one time in.

[00:34:20.380] – Aaron

Good partners. It’s a lot of partners. If you have good partners in personal life, family, friends, business partners, that’s the biggest leverage you can get. Nice.

[00:34:28.990] – Joran

And relationship I’m all back at the end. For people listening, please leave us a review if you haven’t done so on the platform you’re listening right now. We’re going to add a poll to Spotify. Let me know what you thought of this episode. Thanks again for coming on, Aaron.

[00:34:43.800] – Aaron

Hi, Jordan. Thanks.

[00:34:44.810] – Joran

Thank you for watching this show of the Grow Your BDB SaaS podcast. You made it till the end, so I think we can assume you like this content. If you did, give us a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel. If you like this content, feel free to reach out if you want to sponsor the show. If you have a specific guest in mind, if you have a specific topic you want us to cover, reach out to me on LinkedIn. More than happy to take a look at it. If you want to know more about Reditus, feel free to reach out as well. But for now, have a great day and good luck growing your B2B SaaS.