Creating a Customer Landscape with Dave Govan (Dynamic Yield)

Dave Govanjoined us in the Bowery Capital studio this week to record another episode of the Bowery Capital Startup Sales Podcast: “Creating An Effective ‘Total Universe Of Accounts.’” This topic is one that every early-stage startup has spent plenty of time working through: compiling that list of potential customers that your startup plans to target when it first goes out to market. While different founders take different tacks, Dave walked us through the importance of formalizing the process and building a strategy piece that he aptly calls a “Total Universe Of Accounts.” As we’ll learn, there’s a right way and a wrong way.Dave has a stellar background as a long time CRO in the SaaS and marketing technology spaces. Over the last decade or so, Dave has served as an SVP leading North American Enterprise sales at VeriSign, and as an EVP at Sailthru, where he led global sales and oversaw a period of rapid expansion into the company’s growth phase. Currently, Dave is the CRO of DynamicYield, a fast-growing provider of SaaS website revenue yield optimization solutions. Finally, Dave is a prolific speaker on sales best practices in marketing SaaS and has authored a book on the topic calledCrisis In The Enterprise.Creating a “Total Universe Of Accounts” seems—on first glance—like a relatively straightforward exercise. But there are clear pitfalls and common mistakes that can lead to a confused and unfocused sales team early on in the life of a startup. As the CRO of DynamicYield, and a longtime SaaS, head of sales, Dave draws out a number of points that we hope you can use as a guide to improve your sales org. While no Total Universe Of Account is—or can be determined—the same, we lay out a clear process to built a focused, data-driven strategy that can help ensure that your early-stage sales team hits the ground running.EndFragment