Research and working notes on how small technology firms find customers. No hype, no invented case studies.
Three of your own numbers tell you how many qualified meetings a pipeline service has to produce before it pays for itself. The arithmetic, a break-even table by deal size and close rate, and three adjustments before you trust it.
AI SDR software sends. This drafts and waits for your approval. Why sending is the part worth keeping in human hands, what Gmail and Outlook count as abuse, and four questions to ask any outbound vendor, including me.
Reps spend 28% of their week selling. Five things to have ready before a first sales hire starts, so the ramp goes to learning the buyer instead of building the list.
Kaseya asked more than a thousand MSPs what holds them back. 71% named acquiring new customers. Underneath that: 22% have no dedicated salesperson and 24% have no lead generation strategy at all. Why referral-led growth hits a ceiling.
Founder-led sales stalls between $1M and $15M in ARR. Four ways past it: hire a team, list on a marketplace, build a channel, or bring in an outside operator. How they compare.
Average sales ramp is now 6.2 months, the highest on record, and only 48% of reps hit quota. What that arithmetic means before you hire your first salesperson.
Managed-services revenue passed $595 billion, but 71% of MSPs still name customer acquisition as their biggest problem. Ten moves (profitability audit, value-based pricing, tool consolidation, lead-gen engine) that separate the providers pulling ahead.