In the 5th episode of the second season of Frog’s How to Scale podcast, Operating Partner James Bagan speaks with John Lord, serial chair, investor and advisor to scale up businesses, about structuring processes to enable successful sales scale-up.

John is currently chair at Red Flag Alert, Tred and Engage PSG Search, focusing on steering these companies through their scale-up journeys. He previously founded TruNarrative in 2016 until their successful acquisition in 2021. Prior to that he was Group Managing Director at GBG Plc, helping to take the business from a valuation of £18M to a listing on AIM of £1Billion.

In our conversation we cover:

• The importance and value of process
• Understanding the difference between KPIs and Standard Operating Procedures
• Implementing Minimum Standard Operating Procedures to enable effective sales
• Adopting a sales playbook to deliver Minimum Standard Operating Procedures
• The criticality of discovery in the sales process
• Utilising high gain and low gain questions to get closer to the customer
• Nature versus nurture in sales people

We cover these topics and many others extensively in How to Scale, Frog’s library of Scale-Up insights, including further episodes of the podcast and Scale-Up toolkits from our Frog Operating Partners. Subscribe to our podcast or follow us on Linkedin to ensure you never miss a new episode. We welcome all feedback, questions or topic suggestions for us to cover in future episodes, so please email us. We’d love to hear from you.

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In the 4th episode of the second season of Frog’s How to Scale podcast, Senior Partner Mike Reid speaks with Dawn Marriott, Partner at Hg Capital, about effectively developing the leadership team as you progress through the different stages of scale-up.

Dawn focuses on the CEO community at Hg Capital, driving growth and operational effectiveness within their portfolio. She acts as a serial Exec Chair with a particular emphasis on driving change, growth and C suite succession. Previously she headed up Hg’s Portfolio team and was CEO in Hg investments Kinapse and Azets. Prior to that she was Group COO at Capita plc; where she was part of the team for almost 20 years who grew the business to being one of the largest companies in the UK at that time.

In our conversation we cover:

• The right skillsets for different stages of growth
• Confident leadership through difficult conversations
• The Scars and Stripes Brigade - Building an experienced network you can trust for guidance
• Building out the right team by identifying blind spots
• Asking for feedback to grow self-awareness in your team
• Authenticity and kindness when exiting people
• The chair as a tool to help the CEO be successful
• Communicating your purpose effectively to find the right fit when recruiting

We cover these topics and many others extensively in How to Scale, Frog’s library of Scale-Up insights, including further episodes of the podcast and Scale-Up toolkits from our Frog Operating Partners. Subscribe to our podcast or follow us on Linkedin to ensure you never miss a new episode. We welcome all feedback, questions or topic suggestions for us to cover in future episodes, so please email us. We’d love to hear from you.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the 3rd episode of the second season of Frog’s How to Scale podcast, Senior Partner Steven Dunne speaks with Matthew Elson, CEO of Evotix, about how entrepreneurs can create a purposeful business that builds sustainable profitability through the scaling journey.

Matthew has been CEO at Evotix since buying the business for £1 in 2011 and has continuously grown 30-40% year-on-year under Matthew’s leadership, transforming how companies manage Health, Safety & Risk, and engaging with their employees to deliver safe, nurturing and compliant workplaces. Frog invested in Evotix in January 2020 when they had reached £6m ARR and were acquired in May 2023 by which time they had reached profitability and passed £20m ARR.

In our conversation we cover:

• The use of unit economics and the ‘Rule of 40’ to monitor performance
• Tracking gross retention to ensure you are building a profitable customer base
• Splitting the business in two, where the margins from the profitable customer base funds the growth of the loss-making part acquiring new customers
• Using recurring revenue per full time employee as a key metric for driving long term sustainable profitability
• Entering new markets as a value creation strategy
• Investing in operational capability to avoid bottlenecks and add value
• Fulfilling purpose in the business to drive long-term growth
• Selecting an acquisition partner with aligned values

We cover these topics and many others extensively in How to Scale, Frog’s library of Scale-Up insights, including further episodes of the podcast and Scale-Up toolkits from our Frog Operating Partners. Subscribe to our podcast or follow us on Linkedin to ensure you never miss a new episode. We welcome all feedback, questions or topic suggestions for us to cover in future episodes, so please email us. We’d love to hear from you.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.