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Brandon Bruce. He\\u2019s the COO and co-founder of Cirrus Insights, the sales plugin for Gmail and Outlook. The company is number 41 on the Inc. 5000 and the fastest growing company in Tennessee. Brandon once raced his bicycle 508 miles across Death Valley in 35 hours and 7 minutes.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? \\u2013 The Energy Bus
• What CEO do you follow? \\u2013 Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos
• Favorite online tool? \\u2014 Google Drive and Slack
• How many hours of sleep do you get?\\u2014 6
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? \\u2013 \\u201cI would\\u2019ve tried to start a full-fledged company earlier\\u201d

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Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:50 \\u2013 Nathan introduces Brandon to the show
• 02:25 \\u2013 Brandon was in Episode 226 of The Top
  • 02:38 \\u2013 They had $550K in funding
• 02:48 \\u2013 The team back then was 55-60 and now it\\u2019s 70
• 02:59 \\u2013 No additional funding has been raised
• 03:16 \\u2013 Cirrus Insights is a fast-growing company that didn\\u2019t rely too much on VC
• 03:35 \\u2013 5 years ago, Cirrus Insights wanted to solve the problem of going back and forth between Gmail and Salesforce
• 03:53 \\u2013 Cirrus Insights brings Salesforce into the inbox
  • 04:05 \\u2013 They also help sales reps to seamlessly update Salesforce from the back end
  • 04:13 \\u2013 Salesforce isn\\u2019t actually a CRM
• 04:38 \\u2013 Cirrus Insights just launched Flight Plans, which is an extension of their philosophy
  • 04:42 \\u2013 It is fully built-in to Outlook and Gmail
  • 04:44 \\u2013 It allows people to setup a sequence of sales touches
  • 04:58 \\u2013 It\\u2019s personalized and low scale
• 05:51 \\u2013 Cirrus Insights\\u2019 growth is mostly from the Salesforce app exchange
  • 06:00 \\u2013 Continued growth is still from word-of-mouth
• 06:31 \\u2013 Cirrus Insights has passed 100K seats with an average seat price of $6
  • 06:53 \\u2013 The average seat price has gone up now
• 07:19 \\u2013 Flight Plans is a new tier
  • 07:24 \\u2013 Cirrus Insights is the product name and Flight Plans is going to be an addition
  • 07:27 \\u2013 There are now 3 additions to the product
• 08:18 \\u2013 Cirrus Insights has just passed $1M in MRR
• 09:00 \\u2013 Customers are choosing Cirrus Insights over others because some are overpaying and underutilizing marketing operations
• 09:29 \\u2013 Marketing and sales are now working as a team with Cirrus Insights
• 09:58 \\u2013 Cirrus Insights now charges $8 per seat
• 10:32 \\u2013 Marketing operation has 4 big, unicorn companies
• 10:49 \\u2013 There are now hundreds of tools in marketing operation and it will be interesting to see a consolidation
• 11:04 \\u2013 Brandon is thinking customers will just utilize the best tools for the job
• 11:33 \\u2013 Cirrus Insights is trying to position themselves to be the best at what they do
  • 11:43 \\u2013 They\\u2019re also continuing to offer more in the future
• 13:00 \\u2013 Gross customer churn: 15-20% annually, but they\\u2019re targeting to lower it down to 10%
  • 13:30 \\u2013 There\\u2019s a lot less churn in the enterprise
• 14:17 \\u2013 Net annual revenue churn is still negative and net seat churn is below 10%
• 15:16 \\u2013 Most of the new leads are from word-of-mouth, with some small scale paid acquisition
  • 15:22 \\u2013 They\\u2019re more focused on the content that can drive more people
  • 15:25 \\u2013 Brandon has read The Slow Sale which is about how slowing down can win more deals
• 16:30 \\u2013 Budget for paid marketing is $25-50K
  • 16:43 \\u2013 They\\u2019ve done sponsorship for conferences, but the ROI is getting low
  • 17:25 \\u2013 Check out their podcast: Our Love Hate Relationship with Sales, which drives sales as well
• 18:22 \\u2013 The Famous Five

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3 Key Points:

1. As saturated as the market is, there\\u2019s still a way for your business to stand out.
2. Marketing and sales teams are looking for tools that will not just help them with their workload, but encourage them to work together.
3. If your company constantly adds value, word-of-mouth will be your driver of sales.

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Resources Mentioned:

• Simplero \\u2013 The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
• The Top Inbox \\u2013 The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
• GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
• Klipfolio \\u2013 Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
• Hotjar \\u2013 Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you\\u2019re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
• Acuity Scheduling \\u2013 Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
• Host Gator\\u2013 The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
• Audible\\u2013 Nathan uses Audible when he\\u2019s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books

Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives