Dan Johnson - Founder, Revvy
ABOUT
I have done this job, not just advised on it
Sixteen years in sales. I ran full cycle roles myself, then led sales teams across a range of industries from startup to enterprise. I have built sales from zero and I have sold complex B2B into organisations where six people had to agree.
What I learned in all of it is that the difference between founders who scale past themselves and founders who stay the bottleneck is almost never talent. It is whether anything is written down.
Revvy is how I pass that on. I work alongside founders and small sales teams to put the frameworks underneath them that turn inconsistent sales into consistent results.
WHY YOU WOULD TRUST ME WITH THIS
Sixteen years, and the two things I have done most often are build outbound from nothing and put in a CRM that people actually use.
Built sales functions from nothing
At Kiasma Health I owned sales from the first customer onwards, including pricing, packaging and positioning, while the product was still working out who it was for.
Put in CRMs that produce reporting people trust
HubSpot across every sales team at Powershop with marketing integrated. The CRM and financial tracking that Mediamine had been running without. Salesforce daily at Canon.
Grew a customer base from 400 to over 4,000
At Powershop, starting on the phones and finishing as National Sales Manager. I personally brought in a quarter of the business customers in a team of eight.
Led and rebuilt sales teams
Head of Sales at Smartly, running inbound, outbound and business development, and restructuring a team of five around lead generation, processing and closing.
Ran complex sales cycles
Large enterprise and government at Canon New Zealand. Long cycles, many stakeholders, and full ownership from first contact through to implementation.
Still selling every week
Contract roles with Trees That Count, glimp and HeyPenny. I am in a live pipeline constantly, which is the only reason any of the above stays useful to you.
FIT
Honest about who this is not for
Turning down work I cannot help with is cheaper for both of us than six months of finding out.
The last one on that list catches people out. I do not take over the selling. I work alongside whoever is doing it so they get better at it, and so the business ends up owning a system rather than renting me.
THIS IS PROBABLY YOU IF
PROBABLY NOT IF
- You are doing most of the selling yourself, and it is starting to cap what the business can do
- You have one or two salespeople and cannot tell whether the problem is them or the process
- Almost everything you win comes through people you already know
- You are about to make your first sales hire and want something for them to step into
- Revenue is growing and you cannot really explain why, which means you cannot repeat it
- You are still working out whether anyone wants the product
- You want to pay on results only
- You cannot give ninety minutes a week to the work
- You want someone to do the selling for you
Thirty minutes, no pitch
Tell me where you are. I will tell you what I would do first.