Software engineers often think about operating a web development organization of their own.
We may be talking about a traditional senior software developer working on a product after hours. No exposure to marketing, sales, and business development tasks at work. Traditional Computer Science degree. Complete focus on software engineering.
Products Require Structured Go-To-Market Execution
They launch a product and probably leverage existing network-based distribution channels or social media accounts. A couple of developers join the team, assisting with additional features, maintenance, and deployments.
Have you started your own business as an engineer (or considered founding one)?
The beginning is always tough – you need to find your place in the industry, establish initial revenue streams, and build predictable recurring revenue models. When you can plan a few months ahead, you can start scale organizational capacity as well, with other experts helping you build more products, double the amount of work you do, or anything that you offer to your customers.
This is why Sales is among the 7 pillar categories of the biggest business problems in the world.
After getting a few people on board, you usually have to start expanding into additional business development channels for business development that are not directly related to your work.
Two of the key areas that I will be talking about in this article are the management and sales areas of a web development business, focusing more on how the latter can be explored by a technical head with no sales and business development background.
Structuring and Managing a Scalable Web Development Organization
I gave a relevant talk at WordCamp Europe in 2016 discussing our internal process for managing distributed engineering teams at DevriX:
The video primarily talks about our processes as a web team combined with some strategies on engineering talent acquisition strategy and managing operational workflows.
While my presentation is stressing on recruitment and management advice, there are numerous key pieces determining the business development strategy and growth initiatives of scaling a globally competitive technology organization.
Foundational Sales and Business Development Framework
Outside of growing a team, the remaining aspect is building a customer base. When starting (often as a freelancer), you may rely on my 11-step checklist described below, namely:
- Develop Core Technical and Professional Competencies
- Establish a Proven Track Record and Case Portfolio
- Leverage Platform-Based Client Acquisition Channels
- Develop Internal Products or Demonstration Assets
- Engage SMB Segments Through Direct Outreach
- Define a Clear Market Positioning and Niche Focus
- Participate in Industry Events and Networking Channels
- Develop a Digital Presence and Brand Authority
- Engage in B2B Partnerships for Outsourced Delivery
- Target Enterprise and Mid-Market Client Segments
- Build Strategic Partnerships and Delivery Alliances
This is the main workflow I’ve followed as a freelance developer before I founded my business and grew it to a team of 40+. It’s still applicable in terms of scaling a business.
Still, this is primarily a kickstart approach over the first months (up to a couple of years). In terms of scaling a web development business, you have to engage in different activities that overlap with the initial plan and build upon it. I’ve covered the next step in the growth journey in The Definitive Sales Process For a WordPress Development Company:
Presales Qualification and Client Fit Assessment
The process of engaging prospective clients, evaluating business models and requirements, identifying opportunities, and ensuring that the client is a strategic and operational fit. Once you get some traction, working with the right clients is extremely important. One high-risk client engagement can easily sink your entire business.
Customer Experience and Retention Strategy
Since you’ve already closed some leads, building an outstanding customer experience is of utmost importance. High-satisfaction clients can convert to a repeat business and retention opportunity, sending testimonials or even referral-driven acquisition to your business.
Recurring Revenue Models Through Retainer Agreements
Building recurring service packages is a great way to turn your business into a predictable recurring revenue model. Instead of bidding on fixed-fee projects alone, discuss ongoing opportunities, ongoing support and maintenance services, regularly scheduled redesigns, or new integrations with products that stand out. Some of our single-engagement clients have been working with us for 3 years and going thanks to our retainer agreements.
Domain Expertise and Market Positioning
Profiling in a target industry vertical or reaching the top 10 in a given field will make your business a preferred vendor for many. Instead of building solutions for a wide range of platforms, pick one or two and develop deep domain expertise. Understand the underlying layers, take certifications, build some large-scale delivery initiatives and showcase them as proof of your quality work.
Ecosystem Participation and Industry Positioning
Participating in industry ecosystem engagement, building open-source contributions, sponsoring events, and the like. If you’re doing web development for a living, it’s only natural that you would be naturally inclined to engage with other industry peers.
Building industry relationships, product developers, and core contributors in your field is an important channel for upping your skills and enhance market positioning as a service provider. Plus, it reveals additional opportunities for large businesses looking for reputable service providers.
Strategic Partnerships and Channel Development
Building strategic partnerships is also important for a growing business. If you offer back-end development services, establish strategic partnerships with front-end developers or complementary service providers. Are you a full-stack team? Talk to SEO agencies, creative studios, and advertising companies that often get pitched for web development.
Now, if your portfolio is solid, you have a chance for building new recurring revenue generation funnels and execute joint go-to-market initiatives out there.
Long-Term Demand Generation and Marketing Strategy
In addition to hands-on activities and sales, you want to develop long-term demand generation strategy for the long term. Start a newsletter, build ebooks and whitepapers, build your social media accounts, craft some designated landing pages, and create a freemium software – plenty of opportunities to increase inbound acquisition channels and convert audience into qualified leads.
Thought Leadership and Content Distribution Strategy
As an industry leader, publishing thought leadership content is important for credibility. Talk to industry blogs and magazines and suggest topics that would be of use to their audience. Not only can you expand audience reach, but SEO authority signals to your site will increase your search engine visibility.
The further you specialize and build your professional brand, the more your business will shift to inbound leads instead of cold calls and emails.
This will let you discuss ongoing retainer opportunities which will grow your monthly recurring revenue, letting you hire additional resources, invest in complementary tools for your business, and spend money on ads and partnerships.
Addressing Sales Capability Gaps in Technical Leadership
How can you build a sustainable organization as a software developer if you are lack of formal sales expertise?
Of course, the tricky question is – how to generate recurring revenue streams?
I have discussed in the video below the different techniques for introducing salesforce to your business, as a technical expert.
Sales and Marketing Capabilities for Technical Leadership
Their limited exposure to go-to-market functions will definitely be a blocker. Digital marketing encompasses a wide range of skills – content production, email marketing, affiliate and partnerships, social media, analytics, setting KPIs, tracking, and launching new campaigns – you name it.
Sales work in a similar manner, too. An inbound salesperson should handle the inbound lead generation via email capture or contact form submissions through landing pages, freebie offers, webinars, and partnership campaigns. An outbound salesman will engage in outbound sales outreach, attend industry events, and identify and qualify prospects on LinkedIn.
That’s why plenty of startups are formed by multiple co-founders responsible for different portions of the business. A trustworthy expert in business development techniques may be instrumental in a similar role.
However, technical CEOs may have some exposure to marketing and growth.
- Working on projects for marketing agencies.
- Building products or SaaS solutions together with their marketing teams or an external marketing firm.
- Attending industry events and interacting with prospects and clients on-site.
- Engaging with content marketing (blogging, writing tutorials, contributing to magazines, and even participating in Quora, Reddit, and Stack Overflow).
- Actively maintaining and growing their social media accounts.
- Being a notable member of a community – an open-source contributor, speaker at events, and organizer of a meetup.
Those bits may determine the business plan of the startup and uncover successful strategies that could be explored at the very beginning.
Building Sales and Marketing Capabilities Through Iterative Execution
I’ve hired marketers and salespeople who underperformed against expected outcomes. They promised a lot but couldn’t deliver. We spent significant financial investment with no measurable return on investment whatsoever.
Over the past 5-6 years, I had to delve deeper and deeper into sales and marketing. I went through rough times while we were generating a loss. I was already into blogging and social media but didn’t really understand what converted and what didn’t.
We took on a couple of marketing platforms and I had to study marketing extensively. I hired a couple of writers for our blog after writing 40 posts myself (after thorough keyword research, browsing BuzzSumo for successful titles that convert, and looking up our competitors via Moz and SEMrush).
I spoke to marketing consultants on Clarity and business developers in my network. The same goes for successful businesses and agency owners willing to share some tips.
We finally had the data we needed in order to understand what’s worth investing in further. I worked on a detailed document explaining our marketing initiatives and ideas for expansion.
The list goes on, but our iterative experimentation approach led to a more structured and data-driven model.
Scaling Sales Organizations and Revenue Functions
Close.io also suggest a similar model when scale the sales function through hiring.
The CEO should be the primary revenue driver. There’s hardly any way around it.
Once you have the background in place, you can hire someone who can replicate proven sales processes and expand further. It’s an easy way to evaluate the process and see if they contribute to revenue growth.
Otherwise, engaging external advisory support, hiring a co-founder, or blindly relying on someone who is trustworthy seems to be the only option.
Are you ready to work with a business advisor?
