Startup Lesson #1—Steal the CEO’s Scorecard

Blogging about venture capital and startups is trendy so I’m going to get in on that.

Every CEO/COO/etc. has a scorecard/dashboard/placemat—the name isn’t important. It’s usually in the form of a presentation slide, a one-page document, or something similar, and is full of charts and short on words. She pulls it out at least quarterly, possibly monthly, and maybe more frequently and it is an agenda item when she meets with her team. It reflects the business matters that are so important to the CxO that she wants to see them in pictures and she wants those pictures to tell her a story about change over time. Before you try to sell to this customer; before you even conceive of a product to sell this customer…

…steal this document!

You will learn—if you haven’t already—that there are only two things people buy.

1. They buy things that they already know they need, have already allocated the money for, but haven’t yet bought (or decided on a vendor for). This includes everything from EMRs to paperclips.
2. Or they buy things that make one of their top three nightmares go away. And when I say “top three nightmares” I mean one of the three things that literally keeps them awake at night.

Their nightmares show up directly and indirectly in their scorecards. They may be around customer satisfaction. They may be around sales or revenue. They may be around stock price. Find their nightmares. Steal their dashboard. Because, if what your selling doesn’t drop down and hit one of these items, you’re not going to sell it—or you’re going to work very very very hard for that sale.

- Bandit