Chapter 4: Lessons from a $5M Company’s Boardroom

Diary of A Coach

We’ve always known we hold an unfair advantage over most leaders out there – Something I shared in the first newsletter . The unfair advantage I was talking about is the breadth of high-performing leaders and teams that we at Co.labx get to interact through our work. It is a privilege that I am grateful for, as it allows me to learn from their wisdom, successes and sometimes mistakes too.

I got one such notable opportunity last month. We were invited to facilitate the 2024 Strategy Meet for a $5M company. Arhan and I had an exhilarating time holding a day-long dialogue with those thoughtful top leaders, my colleague Vimal on the side, took copious notes which turned out to be a treasure trove of organisational learnings for us. Here I am sharing two seemingly simple ideas that this leadership team has been able to put into practice effectively in their organisation. These have turned into a secret sauce for their success.

Before jumping into the chapter, remember those freshly harvested apricots I mentioned last time ?

Shruti turned them into delicious jams! We got a glimpse of these(not a taste!) on our team call. Thought I’ll share the same with you folks 😋.

Image 1: Apricot Jam

Lesson 1: How can you increase your chances of getting a new client say yes?

We all know how tough it is to convert—whether it’s a partnership, an investor/ funder or a client. You have a promising initial conversation, but then they stop responding, reject you or say it’s not a good time right now.

Ever been there?

It’s frustrating, right?

Something this team is exceptional at – getting potential partners to say YES!

Their philosophy?

Create a predictable Value Ramp that gets potential partners to say Yes. Let’s dive in to understand this Value Ramp.

Go back to a time when you landed that much desired meeting with one of your potential marquee partners. Revisit the moment and think about the mindset with which you prepared for this meeting? Most of us enter this conversation thinking this is my best opportunity to gain something big.

Hence we start BIG- We share the highest possible offering like pitching our premium product, submitting the highest value funding and investing proposal or a multi year, multi state, multi program partnership.

This is a mistake !

You are new.

They have not experienced your program, product or service.

If something goes wrong they end up losing big (Trust is low) .
This delays the conversion or the partnership falls through.

This is where the Value Ramp comes in.

Building a value ramp starts with small and not big. It demands less from them.
If something goes wrong they end up losing small.

Starting small looks like helping them experience your program, product or service with a basic offering.

At the end of it, you would have either added value to the other side or not. If there is enough evidence that your program or product has been successful, then make a clear offer that pushes them to the next level of the ramp.

The nuance here is to design the entire Value Ramp as one consolidated process. This means to design the entire proposition intentionally right at the start where you and your team is clear that A leads to B leads to C and what specific value is each of these adding to your user.

One of my favourite childhood brands used this strategy subtly and beautifully. One way to look at different Britannia products is that these cater to different target groups. Another way to look at this is they are pushing the same consumer up the value ramp, like this 👇👇👇

Image 2: Britannia value ramp

You would have consciously or subconsciously used the value ramp in the past. Now try doing it consciously 🤗.

Lesson 2: How can you leverage partnerships to achieve rapid growth ?

This team is in the process of launching a new service and post lunch their discussion veered towards growing this specific service quickly. At this stage the CEO shared counterintuitive advice for the team.

He started with a story,

About ten years ago when they were in their early stages of setting up this organisation, they got a chance to partner with one of the largest global players in the field. The obvious benefit of this partnership was that it brought massive visibility, built credibility for their brand in a very short period of time.

It also helped them in an unexpected way.
Something they had not anticipated.

This partnership helped them observe and learn the nuts and bolts of how a big player operates. They got a ringside view of the workings of their team, their processes, how they pitch, how they make decisions and every other nuance. This was an invaluable learning in the early stages. The CEO credited the steep growth the organisation had during this phase to this specific partnership. And since then, time and again this has been his go-to strategy.

I am sure you have guessed the advice by now.

It was simple – “Partner with someone bigger and better than you in terms of expertise and business”

Guess what?

Even Spotify benefited from this strategy at one point of time.

Spotify was launched in 2008. By 2011, it was looking to expand its user base and enhance its social features.  So they partnered with Facebook to integrate its music streaming service into the social media platform. This allowed users to share songs, playlists, and listening activities directly on their Facebook profiles.

Impact:

Spotify saw a significant increase in users, as Facebook’s vast network helped introduce the service to millions of potential customers. The integration made music sharing and discovery more social, increasing user engagement on both platforms. The partnership with a globally recognized brand like Facebook elevated Spotify’s profile and credibility.

And at this point of time, Spotify was just 3 years old and a very small player 😀

That’s it!  Those are the 2 lessons from the boardroom.

See you next time!