Cost efficient successful international expansion

Andreas (00:00.342)
I'm sitting here with a customer called App Farm. I help them with sales and marketing for international sales. So it's fun.

W (00:05.366)
Cool.

W (00:13.798)
That was fun. I will introduce you a little bit. There are so many things involved. Is there anyone you want me to address or how should I do?

Andreas (00:29.375)
I haven't seen your questions until now when I looked at the calendar. I'll have to take them a little bit on the spot here.

W (00:36.92)
It's perfect. Wally. That's good. I can go through a little bit, so we can get back to that. So I'll first have a little monologue. Good or bad, but that's how it is. And then I'll tell you a little bit about you and why I like you here. And then I'll tell you a little bit about... I was going to address Quinix a little bit, but then I can also really like to mention...

Andreas (00:41.129)
Exactly.

Andreas (00:45.474)
Yeah.

W (01:01.562)
All the crap you want to say. It's better that I say it than you. So, start with that. And then I'll say, it's so cool that you're here. Tell me about yourself and your company. Then you have to choose what you want to say. That's first. And then I'll ask about the favorite AV-drink. And then the funniest job-related fuck-up. It can be high and low. We've had boring ones. And the only one I really find boring is the wrong customer address. We've all done it.

Andreas (01:05.677)
Yeah, yeah.

Andreas (01:15.955)
I was...

Andreas (01:20.673)
Hmm?

Yeah.

W (01:30.915)
It's unfortunate, but it's not a big deal. But, it's fun. And when I say fun, I mean, you're a guy, so you might not get that.

Andreas (01:31.006)
Oh yeah.

Andreas (01:34.874)
Uh.

Andreas (01:38.858)
Yeah

W (01:41.302)
And then we'll talk about something like operational excellence related. And Sofia mentioned that she really looked up to what you had worked on. And I have no idea if you usually talk OPEC with each other. It doesn't have to be OPEC. It can be something that has to do with

Andreas (01:56.396)
Bye.

Andreas (01:59.682)
Yes, sir.

Andreas (02:03.723)
No.

Andreas (02:07.882)
I don't know exactly. But it's...

W (02:08.198)
Yeah.

Andreas (02:13.926)
I was thinking about the company, it's great to have some background with Quinux and one of those crazy things is that it was put to the top 40 zeros to watch by Pavilion quite recently Yes, it was. Okay.

W (02:16.83)
Hmm?

W (02:29.09)
Cool. Much cooler than PowerPlayer Insas I would just say.

Andreas (02:36.15)
Yeah, that's awesome to hear that you mentioned it. But, no, but, and then, about the companies I work for now, I run from my own company, Ocean's Valley, and help with Senior Advisory and Fractional Zero, and also do a part in Angel Investments through

W (02:36.894)
Bye.

Andreas (03:04.706)
through my company. The company I will work with most in the future, where I also discuss 100% of the role right now, is Ingrid. They are in for a very exciting journey and I have worked with them for three months now. So that's a bit strange, what can you say about that? I will probably, as I said, continue to be...

advisor for other companies as well, but they want me to go 100% there.

W (03:42.346)
Maybe you want to address that a bit, Ingrid. Maybe you want to talk a bit about Ingrid.

Andreas (03:43.796)
And then it's about operations.

Andreas (03:49.245)
Um, episode 6.

Andreas (03:53.718)
Yes, that could be good. I help them travel money now and I meet them with battery. We were in Berlin last week at a marketplace conference and met a lot of investors and they seem very interested. We have Verdein and we have Chipstet and Black who invest in them and now we're looking at another round. So that could be good. Yes, very fun.

W (04:17.393)
soon.

Andreas (04:23.849)
So that's good to know.

W (04:23.894)
But you heard it, I'll say a little about the script and just a few different parts. And then we'll do Ingrid. And it feels like I'm interrupting you all the time, so now I'll be quiet. Then when it comes to the subject, maybe I'll try to say that I'm quiet.

Andreas (04:36.086)
No, no, I'm the one who talks too much. When I thought about the corporate operations excellence, it was clear that with my companies I work close to the CFO and the CEO often. Something that we followed even more in Ascension Zero at Quinex was Kaka and CIV, so customer acquisition cost shared with annual contract value. So that, I don't know if...

It might not say much about your product, but it's something that we... No, but... So that's it. And then it's as usual, pipeline and forecast on ARR, so to work with that kind of key words, but it's pretty straightforward. But if you're going to connect to costs, we look a lot at customer acquisition costs.

W (05:09.054)
No, that doesn't matter. That's not why you're here.

Andreas (05:36.288)
Ahem.

W (05:39.193)
Then I will say if it's okay for you, Opix and the importance to work with KPIs. Then you can go down a bit in different places, if you don't want to address just CAC ACV.

Andreas (05:47.224)
Mm, absolutely.

Andreas (05:54.094)
Well, if you say so, I might be able to get you involved in some way. Or talk about it. Because that's pretty much it. Or is it not? You're more of an expert than I am at that.

W (06:10.514)
Yes, that's great. I think that everyone listening to it doesn't work with SAS. If I only say that, maybe I won't listen to the episode. At the same time, maybe I won't do anything. It's better that those who are really interested listen to the episode. I have to suck at that for 30 seconds. I'm not an analytical person, but I'm going to suck at that for 30 seconds. Then I will ask you...

Andreas (06:22.238)
Okay

Hmm.

Andreas (06:30.698)
Hmm

Andreas (06:35.829)
Oh, namelo.

W (06:41.591)
Like, who you're most inspired by, and that's when Sofia mentioned you. And then you'll have to answer a question that someone has asked. And then some outro questions, like that. And then I'll ask you a question, that you'll give to someone else.

Andreas (06:53.709)
Hmm?

W (06:57.434)
to do.

Andreas (06:57.774)
Okay, that's exciting. Yes. Yes, well... Absolutely, that's really fun. I felt myself that I should have read the question here a little before, but I'll take it on the spot. The good thing is that it's not live, so we can take it if it's needed.

W (07:01.366)
I think it's fun to be part of that.

W (07:07.214)
All right. Nice.

W (07:17.926)
Exactly. I think it's better when people haven't prepared themselves. Because often, there are girls who have prepared themselves. And then it's almost like you're writing or writing a script. I want you to just chat. This is a conversation. You can ask questions back to me. It's like sitting on an A.V. and talking.

Andreas (07:25.463)
Uh.

Andreas (07:29.09)
Oh yeah.

W (07:42.818)
Laggar mitt ljud, eller är det bra?

Andreas (07:43.039)
Yeah. Yeah, well, then I might ask you if you speak English or... Yeah, but that's good. The video is a bit... ..a bit messy. But maybe that's me too. But...

I'll close the door.

W (07:56.244)
It's me surfing on my phone. Is it? It could be. I'm actually in Skåne with my parents, who are dealing with the young.

Andreas (08:04.507)
But... Ah! Ah, wonderful! Well, what I was thinking was... Are we going in English or Swedish?

W (08:16.81)
We'll do it in English. You're guaranteed to be a thousand times better at English than I am. So the one who says wrong will be me. 100%. If you think something feels weird and you're like, oh we'll have to do that again, then we'll just do that. If you want to listen to the podcast before and cut something, then feel free.

Andreas (08:25.619)
Oh yeah.

Andreas (08:35.683)
Yeah.

Andreas (08:42.366)
Right. I was thinking about that one. My Funniest Work, Rated Fuckup. I have to think about that one, because it was a sort of staving thing. It might be weird to buy it in English, because it was in Swedish. But I'll think about that one. If I can see that.

W (08:57.492)
Mmm.

W (09:03.895)
It's just to translate, otherwise... I mean, explain it fun.

Andreas (09:08.094)
Yes, exactly. It might have been a little... a little... a little... ..sneaky. I was going to write... Or I was going to write KUL in a message on Koenigs and then write KUL instead. But... It... Well, it was a live demo for Swedish trade.

W (09:15.894)
Hahaha

W (09:23.639)
I mean, she sent it out to the whole organization, right?

W (09:31.286)
MWAH

Andreas (09:34.034)
I noticed that they started laughing. So I was thinking, okay... How do you write... I was thinking, okay, what would I write in English that was... Okay, maybe...

W (09:34.678)
I can't demonstrate!

W (09:38.867)
It's super fun!

W (09:44.179)
Eh, but take it.

W (09:58.312)
It's like in Swedish, these words are very similar. It's just the last letter that separates them. It's extremely fun if it's a live demo. What a fucking anxiety. I actually managed to say that at a meeting not long ago. It was super embarrassing. I'd say, ''Chef, I say this word that I can't say.'' And I just keep going in the same tone. I hope no one heard it. Yes.

Andreas (10:03.918)
Guys...

Andreas (10:09.979)
uh

Andreas (10:18.067)
Uh... Hahahaha Ah, don't do that.

W (10:24.935)
Ehm... Fucking crazy. But I think, like, we'll do it. Ehm... The Importance... Ehm... I'll do CAC to ACV. CAC to ACV, is that how you say it in English? CAC.

Andreas (10:30.039)
Yeah.

W (10:40.511)
I'm going to say the wrong thing.

Andreas (10:41.014)
I think so, but what I thought was that it could be clear, customer acquisition cost, because that's maybe understandable even if you don't... because there are a lot of shortcomings in the SaaS industry at all, but that you can just say it out, simply put.

W (10:48.616)
Mm.

W (10:56.394)
Sure.

W (11:04.726)
And that is already annual or average contract value.

Andreas (11:12.941)
Ah, precisely.

W (11:16.446)
I'd rather say the questions are wrong. Okay, let's say Custom Acquisition Cost.

W (11:23.634)
average contract value.

Andreas (11:29.343)
Yep.

Andreas (11:36.254)
And it's not on video, it's only sound.

W (11:41.805)
But that's in itself a video. I save all the material but I don't use it today. But you have nice hair and you look pretty, so that will be good.

Andreas (11:49.09)
Hmm. Hahaha. Okay. Uh. Am I done with things?

W (11:53.697)
Okay then. Let's do this!

Andreas (11:58.632)
Yes, sir.

W (12:01.071)
I'll start the monologue and you'll probably understand when I finish talking and introduce you.

W (12:10.567)
Excuse me.

Hi, you have tuned in to Fail and Grow, an OPEX operational excellent podcast. Fail and Grow is for you who want to increase your revenue and become more profitable. This is a place for you who want to learn from the really experienced OPEX professionals out there, who are not just full of knowledge, but also humble enough to share their fuck-ups and what they've learned from it. Today's guest is someone I look up to and the co-founder to a company I really admire. Your host is me, Vilma, and one of the co-founders to VLOOKs Q.

CPQ stands for configure price quote. So Willys Q is the place for you who want to secure a sales organization and do costly wrongs when they create quotes and proposals. Of course, is everything seamless integrated to your serum, blah, a lot of things there, but not to the interesting stuff. Andreas Skjellund is the co-founder and previous CEO of the success saga Quenix. He's also selected as a top 40 CEO to watch by Pavilion.

And now you're both an angel investor, you are a senior advisor and you're a fractional CRO. Very curious about that. But nevertheless, warmly welcome here and it's an honor to have you here, Andreas.

Andreas (13:22.446)
Thank you so much. An honor to be here too.

W (13:25.814)
Great. I was so happy when you just said, yes, of course, I want to join your podcast. Thank you for asking me. I was like, yeah, think about everyone could be that easy to book the ones you really want to have in your podcast. So I'm almost impressed that I didn't ask you earlier on. But now you're here and we are super curious to know more about you and also the companies that you are presenting. Among them is Ingelit, who I think you want to share a bit more about, correct?

Andreas (13:53.034)
Yeah, I would love to.

W (13:56.566)
So, yeah, go, go for it. It's your show.

Andreas (13:57.378)
So should I explain it right now? No?

Andreas (14:04.687)
Yeah, cool. No, so first of all, it's an honor to be here on the show today. One of my companies that I started after leaving Quinix is called Oceans Valley. So from Oceans Valley, I helped startups and scale ups that has raised a series seed or series are about to raise in series A or B to scale international. So I'm taking all the mistakes I did during my time.

at Quinex to really help new scale ups and startups avoiding those mistakes and grow even faster than Quinex did. So through that, I've come across a lot of very interesting companies that I work with to really have set the foundation to be able to scale. And one of them that I met is Ingrid, which is a Swedish company with a very Swedish name. It's a Philem name if you don't know.

But what they do is they, people get a better life by being more flexible with their deliveries. So deliveries that fit people's lives basically. So it's an e-commerce, they sell to e-commerce companies, retailers, and they plug in. So when you buy something online and you check out, you know, the old way of buying was that you only get one choice. And it's like,

it's going to take one to seven days. You'd be happy when it shows up pretty much. But through Ingrid, they've integrated to over 400 different delivery ways so that you as a customer have more flexibility and you can choose the way you want to get your stuff delivered. So do you want to pick it up at your local store or do you want to get sent home? What will the price be and so on? And also for the retailer, they can really optimize

the deliveries so they don't lose too much money on the deliveries and also make, most importantly, make the customer journey better. So that's a short pitch, maybe a little bit long for Ingrid, but that's one company that I'm helping now growing international.

W (16:06.41)
Hahaha

W (16:12.778)
Wow, seems like an interesting challenge to help them out and also very good services. We all have been there. Want to have something home maybe faster. We maybe should have ordered it earlier. And then you're stuck with one choice. So I'm sure that will bring a lot of customer value out there.

W (16:33.786)
Okay, great. And what does fractional CRO mean? Maybe this is a common term, but I don't really understand it and maybe there's someone else out there feeling like me. So would you mind telling us a little bit more? What does it stand for?

Andreas (16:33.942)
Yeah, that's okay.

Andreas (16:49.99)
Yeah, definitely. So yeah, so among a lot of other English words, this one comes from the US and the US software as a service world, I think. But it's, it's when you go in and you work a fractional time, so you don't work as a full time, you work, you know, three days a week, or four days per week, or two days per week, you know, to help setting up the business, because in the beginning, you know, it might be too expensive to hire, like a real estate agent.

CRO and it's also a lot of risk, you know, if you, if you hire someone more junior that hasn't done the job before. So it's something that is growing very much in the US and now it's starting to grow here in Europe as well.

W (17:35.062)
It feels like I should have known this, but now I know. So thank you for educating me. We all live and learn, right?

Andreas (17:39.95)
Yeah.

Andreas (17:44.306)
Yeah, every day.

W (17:47.234)
Moving on to your favorite after work drink. When time for celebrations, life or something work related. What do you prefer to pour in your glass?

Andreas (17:59.306)
Yeah, great question. I would say Moscow Mule. Maybe, no, let's take that over. I was thinking about that one. I just read it before here. But yeah, let's maybe take that question again, because I actually think it's gin and tonic. It may be a bit boring, but I'll...

W (18:03.185)
Uh oh.

W (18:06.942)
Hahaha

W (18:18.25)
I love it. No worries. Okay, so we'll do it again. Here it comes. So when you want to celebrate life or something work related and you want me to pour something in your glass, what would you prefer?

Andreas (18:35.858)
Yeah, I'm a mix between a modern guy and an old-fashioned guy, but I think in this case I would say gin and tonic. Maybe a boring choice, but it's not too sweet and not too sour and it feels a bit healthy even though I know it isn't. So I would say a good gin and tonic is good to celebrate with after a good day's work.

W (18:59.722)
I totally agree. I actually think I just agree with everything you said. And I also feel it's a little bit healthy. And of course it isn't healthy. And one of my favorite choices for an after-workout would be a gin and tonic too. I mean, why complicate life? It's already complicated as it is. And on top of that, it feels like a healthy choice. So we can fool ourselves with that.

Andreas (19:22.568)
Exactly.

Yeah, I actually heard the story about that. I'm not sure if it's true, but it was invented by a doctor who had a patient that drank so much beer that the doctor wanted to give something that was more healthy. And instead of beer, you know, even if they were mixed together, gin and tonic, so the patient will still get the alcohol, but not all the calories in the beer. So maybe it is a little bit of truth behind it, but I'm not sure.

W (19:54.178)
Well, I choose to believe so. In my early days, in my early 20s, I was working as a personal trainer and my clients preferred wine and beer. I recommended them, this sounds really stupid, but I recommended them if they want to cut calories to choose a skinny bitch which is like, I think it's like soda water and vodka or gin and tonic. So maybe we have something here.

Andreas (20:19.85)
Yeah. That's good. Very good.

W (20:26.448)
Okay, now I'm super curious about your funniest work.

Andreas (20:34.95)
Yes, I'm going to blush when I tell you the story because it was when I did a demo a long time ago of Quenix and it was for kind of the Swedish Chamber of Commerce and we had a function in the live demo where you could send a message from your...siding as an employee on your phone and you want to send a message to your boss. So I went through the demo and you know...

might be a little bit nervous, you know, it's in the beginning of my career. It was a lot of people. So, uh, I wrote, do you want to come to the, to the after work on, on Friday? And, uh, if you translate this wasn't Swedish, but if you translate it, I was answering, yeah, that would be sick. But I thought I wrote that would be really, really fun, but that would be dick. So, uh, I saw the people, you know, start starting to laugh a little bit. And, and, uh,

When I went back and looked at the demo I had, like, who wrote this? Oh no, I mixed up the S and the D. So that was a little bit embarrassing. But yeah, hopefully they remembered us at least.

W (21:32.918)
Hahaha!

W (21:42.239)
Yeah

W (21:48.717)
Well, you didn't, you noticed first yourself afterwards. You just heard them giggling or...

Andreas (21:58.535)
Yeah, exactly. Which maybe was a good thing, because otherwise I would be even more embarrassed. I wonder what was so funny when they were laughing. So yeah, that was probably it.

W (22:07.222)
I'm gonna go to bed.

W (22:11.503)
It's so simple but so very funny. I hope you managed to close the deal nevertheless. Thank you for sharing. It was really super funny.

Andreas (22:18.964)
Yeah.

Andreas (22:23.983)
No worries.

W (22:27.598)
It's always tricky to go from this laughing to something serious, but I'll try. I'll try her. Connected to Operation Excellence, Sofia Busk, the CEO of Worldfavor, she told us in a previous podcast that you are a great source of inspiration for her. And when we were supposed to decide upon which subject or topic we were going to set for this episode.

Andreas (22:31.177)
Hahaha.

Yes.

W (22:54.034)
We talked a lot about the importance to work with CAC to ACV and stands for Customer Acquisition Cost and Average Contract Value. And you also told me that you worked very closely with the CFO and CEO. And to you, Andreas, could you just give us an intro? Why is this specific so important for you?

Andreas (23:20.33)
Yeah, I mean, especially when you have taken some investment and you're growing internationally, especially these times when money is more expensive than before, but it has always been important to have control of your costs compared to your growth. So that's why when we grew into different countries, we always looked at the customer acquisition cost divided by ACV per

Andreas (23:50.202)
We had to invest in the beginning. So the customer acquisition cost was a bit higher. You know, it takes time to build pipeline, takes time to close deals. Uh, and you need to hire people that does this in the beginning. Right. So we always, when we did the budget and also follow that on the budget, we looked at that very narrowly. So both for the whole company, but also per country. So then we could see, okay, the U S seems to go good right now. It's, you know, starting to sell more. And.

you want to come to at least one so that your customer acquisition cost is the same as your annual contract value or average contract value. So that's something that was really important for me. And I think it's very important for, for new companies and scale-ups when they're, when they're growing internationally to keep track on that KPI.

W (24:41.822)
I personally love this KPI balance, but I feel it's very, very tricky. But now I run a startup, so of course, maybe it's trickier. I don't know, but I'm very curious to have your point of view of this. If you were to guide a startup trying to be a scale up, what should you connect to these costs? Because what I feel is tricky is that everything is a cost for this. But where am I going wrong here? And how would you guide and correct me?

Andreas (25:13.778)
Yeah, no, I would say all the costs that is connected to marketing and sales. I wouldn't, as I would obviously take, you know, the salary costs for the marketing and sales team, I would take all the costs, you know, connected to, to doing advertising and, you know, optimization of Google search and things like that, and also commissions.

these things. I would not take into consideration actually rent. I think that's more, you know, another finance cost or overhead cost. And I would take costs for programs like the CRM system and, you know, different solutions. So everything that has to do with how much it costs to acquire the...

the client but not like the overhead costs and other costs I would say.

W (26:12.082)
And where would you draw the line to say, product need to develop this feature? Of course, it did never happen to Quinix, but in case it happens to VLuxQ, the product needs to develop a new feature to acquire a new customer. Should that be included or shouldn't it?

Andreas (26:32.394)
I don't think it should actually. I think that that's R and D costs. That's, you know, the costs for, for building the product. So it's a good question, but my spontaneous answer is we haven't done that in the companies I worked with in the past. Um, so it's, it's a part of growing the, the software, I would say. So it's separate from, from the actual sales and marketing costs.

W (26:57.654)
Thank you. Now I'm going to move on from my startup related questions. I was too curious not to ask you about a real life example. But OK, looking back at the time at QNX and you were entering a lot of different markets. Could you see trends here? Could you give us some more? I mean, what were you following? Why did you discover or set up on this specific API? Was it the trends that set it or? I don't know.

Andreas (27:03.473)
No, no, that's great.

Andreas (27:28.862)
Yeah, no, good question. So I think it was, we learned a lot, obviously, like I mentioned at the beginning of the show. And one of the mistakes we did was we tried to make it work from Sweden internationally. So selling a quite complex B2B SaaS solution. One of my biggest learnings was that you have to get your face in the place to be successful, right? So and this means you also have to invest and you really have to go all in.

both from the leadership team and the board. If you're going international, you can't just dip your toe in and hope that it works. It might work in some, you know, products that are maybe easier to sell and easier to adapt. But from what I've seen with the companies I've worked with, you really have to get there and you have to invest. And that's, I think the main reason why the customer acquisition cost is so important because then you can also clearly define this as a cost that is connected to this.

country, it's not somebody in Sweden or elsewhere that is sitting to try this, then it makes it more difficult. Right. So when we looked at the customer acquisition costs per country, we looked at that particular cost.

W (28:44.726)
Okay. You are so humble. You say you did a lot of mistakes. I'm sure you did a lot of things right too. If we were to start with them, the things that you felt that this really worked, and when coaching all the other companies you are involved with, and now today in our show here, what would you say that this was very successful? This is something one should...

implement as soon as possible.

Andreas (29:18.27)
Yeah, good question. It actually came from a mistake, but I focus on what did good afterwards. So what we learned from that mistake, but I would say going more account based marketing, so going more narrow on ICP and ideal customer profile. So in the beginning we were selling to everyone in Sweden, you know, everybody that had employees and needed a schedule. We were basically trying to sell to. And that were.

quite well, but then if you go outside the borders of, especially outside the Nordics, you need to be more precise. You need to have your marketing team focusing on one or two specific ICPs, ideal customer profiles. And because it really helps, you know, spending the marketing on the right money, having the sales team focusing on the right market, learning the vocabulary of that specific market.

And then also from the product perspective as well, you develop a product that is, you know, really strong for one, one niche. I think that's something we, we didn't do good in the beginning, but we learned along the way, and that's something now in the U S and Germany and the Netherlands that we're much more focused on, on our target group to sell to.

W (30:38.45)
Was it the same target group in all these countries or was it different depending on other competitors or I don't know, country specific things.

Andreas (30:48.866)
Yeah, no, it was the same. So we, we narrowed it down, I think, even more for each country we went into. So we went into the UK, we still had, for example, retail hospitality, and warehouse logistics and healthcare, then we went into Germany, and we took out healthcare. And then into the US, we only focus on retail and warehouse logistics. And then we looked at sub industries within these areas. So

Trying to go too wide there didn't work. But when we started being really much more focused, I think we started to grow faster.

W (31:30.134)
Could you see that this directly impact the CAC ACV ratio?

Andreas (31:37.61)
Oh yeah, for sure. It increased our win ratio, it increased our average deal size, and it actually lowered our, our sales cycle as well. So it, it was a very, very good outcome. And something I can also add to that is we, we also added something called another short word or something, but med-pick. We, we added a qualification method.

uh, called MedPic that probably takes a one or two full podcast to discuss just in detail, but that's something I can recommend as well to have the sales team really, uh, qualifying the deal. So it is, you know, in the beginning of the sales process, there is in the right ICP and, and you can find pains that your product will solve. And you also find metrics and value that, that your, your solution can give. So that's.

something we maybe can dive into another time, but that's something that I really can recommend, which is part of a good ISP and working with account-based marketing.

W (32:46.474)
Definitely. I also note here one more podcast show together with you. Makes me very happy. But okay, good to know. And back to the fact that you did, is there something else that you feel is very important to keep this CAC-SV ratio, if I understood correctly, at least a one-to-one? Was that correct?

Andreas (32:52.21)
Hahaha.

W (33:14.95)
Actually, maybe we should divide this into several questions.

Andreas (33:16.618)
Yeah, yeah, it's, yeah, no, but so yeah, it's, when you get the customer acquisition cost divided by the average deal size to one, then, you know, it should be good because then, you know, of course you have costs for product and, you know, overhead costs and things like that. But then at least, you know, acquiring the customer is, you know, the same as one and, you know, in your home market, it should probably be lower.

the one, but when you're expanding into new markets, it's usually higher. But that's usually the target to get one to one. But another thing, of course, to look at, to get there is the pricing. So there's different ways to package the product, to make it more understandable for the customer and also easier for the salespeople to

to put together an offer so you can keep the best price point that you can and really have a goal to increase the average deal size as well. So I think that's probably something to add to your question there on to have a good customer acquisition cost if you can. It sounds very simple, but there are ways that you can work to.

to increase the pricing and if you package it the right way and making it easy to understand. And also, of course, connect that to the value that your product can bring.

W (34:54.462)
This is super interesting and of course, since I provide with a CPQ solution, which the P stands for price, of course, this is close to my heart. And I'm of course very happy that you addressed it. And would you mind sharing a bit how you work with this? Because from my point of view, it's tricky for a company to do this. It's tricky to work with it. You don't really have an owner for it. It's often up to the sales rep to build the value.

Andreas (35:03.854)
I'm going to go ahead and turn

W (35:23.518)
And of course that is very knowledge dependent. And then it comes back to the customer didn't want to pay for this. Or this customer can pay for this. So it's no really logic behind it. In general, the companies that we meet. What is your point of view of this and how did you work at Qwinnix with this?

Andreas (35:44.746)
Yeah, I mean, that's, that's how we got to know each other, I think. So we were struggling with our CRM system. No, but that was, that was good. So because we had we had a big pain with, you know, the CRM systems, definitely not a like, and, you know, price solution and offering solution, right. So we were struggling with having, you know, many different products, we were we acquired two companies that made our product portfolio, even

W (35:51.822)
I stalked you.

Andreas (36:14.494)
even bigger and when we were going to present this for the customer, it was cumbersome to put it together in the CRM system. It was also hard to follow up on how much have we sold of this product and this product and so on. And some salespeople are sometimes lazy and you know, they just put in one number and then give all the other modules for free. And that's what we wanted to get away from. So yeah, so I think the struggle with the CRM systems and

That's where you need to add solutions like the one you're working for and co-founded, which helped us a lot. So I think that's something, you know, everything you can do to make it easy for the customer to buy and understand what you're selling and also for the salespeople to spend less time on administration and manual work. I think that's what you need to look at when you're scaling as well.

W (37:11.734)
Thank you for beautiful words. I just love that you're being so insightful at this. Was it you and the CFO who worked with the pricing mainly? My question is, who owned the pricing? And who do you think should own the pricing? Because it's quite complex and it's also rapidly changing with the world that's happening out there and the customers and changing and everything.

Andreas (37:37.642)
Yeah, no great question. I personally think the CRO should own the pricing. I know there's different and at Quenix we agreed to that. But what I also got really good help from was product marketing. So I think when you're growing as a company you have a product marketing team. I think the product marketing team together with the CRO and of course the CFO's input as well is important. I think that works in tandem but

since you are overall responsible for the revenues as a chief revenue officer, I think the CRO should own it, but definitely support also from RevOps as well. So revenue operations need to help out. But I think when you come to certain sites and you can afford a good product marketer, I think that can bring some great insights. But the CRO should have the last say, I would say.

W (38:31.974)
I agree with you and very interesting to hear. Okay, we have talked a bit about fuck-ups or mistakes, if you will. If you try to keep this ratio that we have talked about and addressed a couple of times low. So we talked about the ACP, we talked about the pricing. We have talked about trying to summarize both for myself and the listeners. And also that it's super important to have someone running it from the country itself.

Is there something else you would like to add to this list?

Andreas (39:05.494)
Yeah. Great summary there. What I would like to add is actually the reporting side. I think that's especially now when I work with companies that are starting to grow outside the Nordics. They go from maybe founder led sales to creating this sales machine, you know, with maybe BDRs or marketing coordinators and AEs and sales engineers.

It's also important to follow up on your targets and have good reporting. And I think that's, I love the CRM systems I'm working with. I'm not trying to put blame on them, but you can't be good on everything. Right. And I think the reporting side is something where I see, you know, coming from a sports background, we're setting goals and really measuring it, the following it up, I think is so important, but that's been lacking in the CRM systems I've been working with historically with like HubSpot, you know, Salesforce.

and, you know, up sales, pipe drive and so on. So, something that I think is important is to have a reporting system that also can help you following these targets, even on a daily basis. How many meetings have you booked? How much pipeline have you built? How much pipeline have you lost? And also, you know, setting up the targets on accumulated levels so you can see each month what does the commit and forecast look like.

W (40:16.49)
Mm.

Andreas (40:31.89)
And how are you tracking against that? So, so there I could actually recommend another solution that I have been recommending to, to all the customers I've been working with, which we use the clinics, which are called the dear Lucy. So it's kind of a funny, funny name, but, uh, they're Lucy.co. If you want to check it out, you can do go in there and have a free trial. Uh, but it's a really great way of, of displaying really simple way of displaying.

W (40:46.155)
Mm-hmm. Mm.

Andreas (41:01.77)
all these numbers and also very simple to set targets. So that's something I would add to the other list of important things that you just mentioned.

W (41:11.422)
Very interesting to hear. You are actually the second one who are addressing this for the SIRAM system. I could only agree. You would like these maybe, I don't know, specific reporting packages or something like that for different verticals or something. And Taina Sipilä, I had to look at LinkedIn. She's the co-founder of Simpa, one of our customers, but also the founder of Dear Lucy.

Great to hear that you're using it and that you're also recommending it. And I've never heard someone talking really, I mean, how does this work and how does this implement an effect in your business? So great, great word, Tena too.

Andreas (41:53.782)
Yeah, no worries. And one thing to add there, also the board just love that, you know, the board want to get the information and you don't have time when you grow in a company to spend, you know, hours for every board meeting. So just having a dashboard that you can just send to the board. That's also another addition that is helpful.

W (42:15.626)
That was actually the perspective that Jeanette Antla was the other one who asked for this. And she is really a board professional. So a lot of potential for the CRM suppliers out there. Or you can just use Dear Lucy. Great. There's just so many things I would like to address in this topic. We don't have time for everything, but of course, we have to talk about the customer perspective. Why is it important to have a great ratio?

Andreas (42:32.348)
Exactly.

W (42:45.126)
in the customer point of view. I have my ideas, but you are the expert here. So go.

Andreas (42:52.946)
Yeah, no, I mean, I think that's also something that, you know, is important as you grow, it's sometimes easy to forget. It sounds maybe bad, but you have so much to do, you can never forget about the customer rights. So really having, you know, good discoveries, it's all about, you know, building trust in the beginning of the sales process and even more important to have trust at the end of the sales process, right? So I think.

It's the biggest mistake I see salespeople do and companies do is that they focus too much on themselves when they're trying to sell their product. They, they have a problem putting themselves in the customer's shoes. Right? So that's why I think the sales processes I've been working with implementing, it's, it's all about the customer. In the beginning, you should not talk about yourself and when you were founded and all the great customers you have and all that you should start focusing on the customer and their problem and their situation.

And then you can continue the sales process built on that. So that's something I'm really passionate about and really trying to get to with the companies I'm working with, trying to help you. The best skill as a salesperson is you have to be curious and you have to be good at asking questions. And I think that's how you become a successful salesperson.

W (44:18.354)
Yeah, very interesting. Is there something you want to add to this topic that I forgot to ask about or we have not already mentioned that you feel is important to you? And of course for companies working and trying to succeed in this way.

Andreas (44:35.17)
Well, I think especially when you go international, the value, the ROI and the business case is much more important, I think, than in the Nordics. In the Nordics, you can sell a lot on relations and you can sell a lot on having a great product. But when you go international, you have to be good at showing the value and have your champion, if you speak Melpick language, being able to present the value to the economic buyer so that...

there is a buy-in from the organization. It's not a number that you make up yourself. It's a value and an ROI you do together with the customer so that you can get prioritized by the economic buyer that usually has, you know, probably 10 or 20 different systems to prioritize in the organization. Why should they choose your solution or your product? You really need to work with helping your champion with that. So I think that's something I want to...

stand with as well. The power of value is very important.

W (45:39.73)
Great, thank you so much for sharing your expertise and learnings and I would say success factors. I'm sure this will bring a lot of ideas to those who are listening today and I'm very curious who you get most inspired by regarding this topic, Operational Excellence, in Sofia Busk,

Andreas (46:05.694)
Yeah, great, great question. I mean, one guy is Sam Jacobs, who founded the Revenue Collective. And he also had a podcast I listened to a lot. I was in my youth, but when I lived in London, when I was younger, I listened to the sales hacker podcast. And Sam Jacobs is from New York. He's got a great story. He's got a book called, let's see if I remember it.

Um, it, yeah, I'll, I'll come back to that. Maybe we can post it in the, in the, in the, but it's, it has to do with, it has to do with, you don't have to be an asshole to become successful basically. Uh, and, uh, he has now taken the revenue collective and turned it into Pavilion, which is a sales network that is, is very good that we used a lot at Quinnix. I'm also recommended for other companies I'm working with.

W (46:41.942)
course.

Andreas (47:05.494)
That really is teach. I went there to their CRO school, for example, which taught me a lot of great things about being a CRO, but they also have schools for how to become a successful BDR and how to become successful. He, but Sam Jacobs is the guy I would recommend. He, he spoke at one of our sales kickoffs and, uh, was really inspiring and good. So that's someone I would definitely recommend. I can put you in touch with him if you don't know him.

He loves to do things like this as well.

W (47:36.342)
I follow him, but I'd love to be connected to him. So please do. And I've heard a lot about Pavilion. It seems like it's very good as well. So I'll definitely have a check into that network. Many people I know have been a part of it and really enjoyed it. So good to hear. And of course, congrats again to the nomination. Or how should you say it? Utnämning?

Andreas (48:02.485)
Yeah.

Yeah, it's a good question.

Andreas (48:10.887)
Yeah, it's...

Andreas (48:25.607)
Exactly.

W (48:28.804)
You can help me here in English.

W (48:33.846)
from an early podcast, guess that we'll have a random business-related question that you will wing an answer to. So keep your fingers crossed for me that I will manage this.

W (48:50.278)
and hopefully you will hear something as well. Now you see correctly.

W (48:57.886)
Give me a thumbs up if you are also here. So, one, two, three, let's go!

Andreas (49:35.846)
Oh, great question from Sophia there. So, so many learnings to choose from, I would say. But I think we touched upon it a little bit during the podcast, but to maybe rephrase it. So I think in the beginning, you have such a great chance to build a relationship with the customer in the discovery, to really earn their trust and.

W (49:45.43)
I'm sorry.

Andreas (50:04.278)
That's something you can't get back. If you're trying to speed things up too fast in the beginning, or if you're trying to talk too much about yourself and your product, you set yourself up for failure. So I would say in the customer journey, take time to spend time with the customer in the beginning, to really understand them, to research them and to understand, you know, what's their strategic points, you know, going into this year. What, what, what.

do they live for, what's their culture? And then you can use that in your messaging already from the marketing to your first sales presentation. So I would say, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. So I think, you know, really spending time in the beginning because people get more and more to do, they have less and less time for companies and for people like salespeople to speak to. So I think.

invest in that beginning of the relationship because it's going to make the end of the sales cycle much easier and also the continuing way because it doesn't end of course when you sign the deal that's actually when the real relationship starts so to say so you know and that will help you along the full bow tie of the customer journey.

W (51:24.63)
Wonderful. I love that you never get a second chance of a first impression. I will bear that with me. Thank you, Sofia, of course, for asking a great question. And thank you for the answer. And now I'm curious of your main challenges of your business right now. Problems that you are addressing and maybe in your own consultancy firm and or Ingrid, how you prefer to answer it.

Andreas (51:51.702)
Yeah, no great question. I think what's something that is a little bit touched upon earlier today and something I see with many companies I work with is pipeline. Like how do you mix the effort of selling and how much do you mix it with building pipeline? Because that's an ever ending challenge, I think. So I think that's where usually you spend too little.

investment on marketing and building pipeline and too much focus on, you know, just working with the customers you have. So finding that balance, I think is, is tricky and, and it needs investment. And I would say usually the marketing is actually under invested in. So I would say, look at that balance and see how much are you putting into building your pipeline because there is a year after this, there's a quarter after this, right? So.

If you only spend time on, on closing deal this quarter, it will mean that you won't grow as much next quarter. So as a CRO, I think that's something I learned along the way as well, that you need to find a balance and you need to be best friends with, with marketing and, and also the sales team also always need to build pipeline as well. Not only closing deals. So I think that's probably the biggest challenge in the businesses I'm working with right now.

W (53:18.614)
I can feel it. It's the same for us. We actually spoke about this morning. We have two main challenges. The one is closing deals and the other one is adding to the pipeline. I think we have all been there and we maybe all are there, or how one should say, because it's the two most focusing parts. But I love how you addressed the resource part of this. Who should do what and how can you contribute?

Andreas (53:22.209)
Hehehehe

Andreas (53:30.18)
Hahaha.

W (53:46.334)
That's another podcast show I feel, but very interesting. Who would you would like me to invite to this podcast? Someone you might listen to yourself? Sam Jacobs, maybe.

Andreas (53:51.076)
Yeah.

Andreas (54:00.506)
Yeah, I was going to say for sure Sam Jacobs and also another great guy is Jeremiah Zjansson, the guy who we hired to replace me at Quinex. He came from Unit 4. We knew each other from 10 years back, selling the first deal together when he was at Unit 4 and I was at Quinex. But he is a really charismatic, fun guy with lots of experience.

W (54:23.673)
Oh.

Andreas (54:28.718)
and lots to bring to the table as well. So that would be fun to have him on as well.

W (54:35.122)
Wonderful. It would be an honour both to have Jeremias here and also of course Sam Jacobs. And now we're going to wrap everything up with the gin and tonic in our hand. And these songs come up and this is your favourite afterword song. So you even might be starting dancing or something great like that. What are we listening to then?

Andreas (54:40.842)
Yes.

Andreas (54:54.078)
Yeah, I almost get goosebumps here. I'm getting the after work mood here. It's an old classic again. I might feel older than I already am, but I would say don't stop believing with the journey for sure. That's something I usually played the last couple of weeks of the quarter. Don't stop believing, we can still do it. And yeah, that's a great after work song I think.

W (55:05.909)
Hehehe

W (55:18.708)
Hehehe

Andreas (55:22.398)
I'm probably not good at it if it's karaoke, but if you have the music in the background and he's like, don't stop believing, then it's a good feeling for sure.

W (55:27.756)
Hehehehe

W (55:34.499)
Well, if I say I agree with you, I couldn't agree more with this because it's my song too and Mathias Thelunet got Accept Oxford as well and every single deal I closed working back at Upses for four to five years, we play this when I close the deal. So I love this song and when in doubt, just put it on, I would say. Okay, thank you so much.

Andreas (55:44.453)
Oh, really?

Andreas (55:54.368)
Love it.

Andreas (55:57.894)
Awesome. I love Matthias Killeen as well, by the way. Even more now. That's good to hear.

W (56:03.27)
Yeah, exactly, even more. He's a great source of inspiration too. But thank you so much for being a guest in Fail and Grow. I really appreciate you taking the time. Cheers. Have a great weekend.

Andreas (56:16.738)
Thank you, true pleasure to be here.

W (56:20.51)
Now you can breathe a little. Fasken, which is super interesting, I've been listening to it a hundred times. I've actually started another meeting, but it's an internal meeting, so you have to wait a little. I would love to hear it. Do you want to quickly record your question? You just say who you are, what title you have, and then you can ask the question.

Andreas (56:29.439)
Thank you.

Andreas (56:40.022)
Yes. Yes, Governor.

Andreas (56:45.098)
Hi, I'm Andreas Sjolund from Oceans Valley. I have a question for you. As a CRO, how do you balance between building pipeline and closing deals? That's something, you know, I don't think all CROs are struggling with, but what are your top three tips for other CROs to balance how much you spend on marketing and how much focus you put on sales? So hope to get a good answer from you and wish you the best.

W (57:13.034)
Great. And the last one, you can use it as a picture on the link. Just a still picture. Bye!

W (57:22.947)
Super, I'll edit that. Thanks a lot, I understand we have to run. See you, it was great to be here. Talk about you.

Andreas (57:27.082)
We are ready. Thank you.