GE 252: How Will Anderson Uses Classic Inbound Marketing to Grow His SaaS Risk Management Business (podcast)

Download podcast transcript [PDF] here: How Will Anderson Uses Classic Inbound Marketing to Grow His SaaS Risk Management Business TRANSCRIPT PDF

Time-Stamped Show Notes:

• [00:46] Before we jump into today’s interview, please leave a review and rating and subscribe to the Growth Everywhere Podcast!
• [01:24] Resolver provides SaaS risk management, which ranges from compliance software, internal audit, business continuity, disaster recovery, incident management, and cyber incident management.
• [01:50] Resolver runs like a police system: when an issue arises, they send a team to assess the problem and follow through with potential changes in policy.
• [02:20] They also run workflow for compliance activities.
• [03:06] Will previously worked as an exec on the investment side.
• [03:41] Risk management in an organization today requires 10, 20, or even 30 software systems. Will aims to pull all of those together so they are under one platform (sort of like what an SAP did to bring together ERP).
• [04:10] The goal of resolver is to streamline risk management systems.
• [05:22] Essentially, Resolver pitches themselves, rather than having clients come to them.
• [06:05] They operate like old-school cold-calling sales pitches.
• [06:30] Sometimes, Will will call people out of the blue and tends to cut to the chase when he’s buying businesses.
• [06:59] Resolver is a typical SaaS business, so they sell to Fortune 100 companies.
• [07:14] They are at the “easier-to-work-with end of enterprise, because our technology is so new.”
• [07:45] Resolver likes to sell one product or service at a time.
• [07:55] Fortune 100 companies end up spending $100,000-$150,000 on Resolvers services.
• [08:24] Resolver released their newest products in beta over a year ago and only started aggressively selling in Q3 of this past year.
• [09:25] They use SEO, Pay Per Click, Capterra, blog posting, and social media posts to gain popularity, enhance searches, and bring in more business.
• [10:24] Their first deals were all closed by pounding the pavement and inbound marketing.
• [10:44] Since they bought the brand, they never had to start from zero.
• [11:25] Will thinks they are good at classic, inbound marketing, even though they are not innovating or trying new tactics; however, they will try any new tool.
• [13:40] Corporate finance is not something you learn overnight.
• [14:12] The challenge at Resolver is that they are going after a really big market.
• [14:30] They struggle with focus.
• [14:45] Instead of doing 10% of everything, try doing one thing 100%.
• [16:10] Will tends to bounce around a lot and his job seems very cyclical.
• [16:23] He tries to schedule his 1:1 meetings on Monday or Friday and in between is at the beck and call of customers.
• [16:41] Will uses his mornings to do any work that requires deep focus in the mornings, when he is fresh.
• [17:20] He only spends half a day per week on management issues.
• [17:35] He prefers to spend the most time dealing with customers.
• [18:02] Will’s favorite new tool is an app called Pocket. It stores tweets for later, so you can build up a reading list.
• [18:58] Will is selective in what he saves for later in Pocket, so he doesn’t get overwhelmed.
• [20:00] Will recommends the book The Effective Executive. He gives it to all of his new managers.

Resources From This Interview:

• Resolver
• Will on Twitter
• Pay Per Click
• Capterra
• Pocket
• Must-read book: The Effective Executive by Peter F. Drucker 

Leave Some Feedback:

• What should I talk about next? Who should I interview? Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments below.
• Did you enjoy this episode? If so, leave a short review here.
• Subscribe to Growth Everywhere on iTunes.
• Get the non-iTunes RSS feed

Connect with Eric Siu:

• Growth Everywhere
• Single Grain
• Twitter @EricSiu