Fredericton Sales Accelerator Pilot Sees 190 Per Cent Increase In Participants’ Monthly Revenue
FREDERICTON – Planet Hatch, the Fredericton-based entrepreneurship hub, is seeing strong results from its pilot sales accelerator program and plans to take it to the next level.
On average, the five companies in the first cohort of Planet Hatch’s Sales Accelerator Program posted a 32 per cent increase in total customers, a 190 per cent boost in monthly recurring revenue, and a 267 percent rise in projected revenue over the coming year.
“Going into it, it was a pilot program. We obviously hoped to have some good results but we expected to have to make some tweaks along the way. We’re over the moon about the results that the clients achieved through this initial cohort,” said Planet Hatch director Adam Peabody.
He says there are other sales accelerators for startups in the region, but most target specific sectors.
“What makes our accelerator unique in the region is that it is multi-sector and doesn’t necessarily have an eye towards [venture capital]. It’s specifically looking at growing the earned revenue of the companies that we’re working with,” he said.
Peabody says an accelerator like this is needed in a region where there’s a lack of sales expertise and talent.
“Typically in the startup ecosystem, this is true in Atlantic Canada in particular and more broadly speaking across North America, there’s a whole lot of focus on innovation and product development, there’s a lot of focus on how to raise a round,” he said.
“But there’s not a whole lot of options for companies to actually get access to expertise that will help them develop a sales process, a playbook that their entire team can use and then the actual tactics of how you engage customers, how you close the deal, how do you overcome initial ‘no’s. These are the type of things we really focused on in our sales accelerator.”
The six-week program launched in April. HomeWurk, Educated Beards, ET Mechanical, Parill & Co., and Simptek Technologies made up the first cohort. They were chosen from a pool of more than 30 applicants.
The sales training was facilitated by Atlantic Growth Solutions (AGS), a business development and lead generation company based in Fredericton.
The program also assigned a full-time student intern from the University of New Brunswick or St. Thomas University to each company, funded by the FutureReadyNB initiative.
Peabody says this addition helps startups, which often work with a lean budget but need additional help. Theses students also become trained in a skill that the province needs, he says.
“We see this as an opportunity to grow the overall talent pool of trained sales professionals in the region whether they continue to work with the startups they’re assigned to or they go on to work with other companies, they have that additional skillset,” he said.
Participants expressed satisfaction in a follow-up survey, with all of them finding it “very valuable” and saying they would recommend it to other entrepreneurs. All participants also said they “have a better understanding of how to build and use a defined sales process” and now have an end-to-end sales playbook in place.
Amy Parrill, CEO of Parrill & Co., said the program her revenue to grow “significantly.”
“[The sales course from AGS] was really key in getting me focused on my message and driving revenue for growth within my company, and creatng that repeatable process that I can implement,” she said.
Parrill, whose three-year-old business offers leadership development and coaching as a licensee of LMI Canada, was also paired with an international student who is studying business and marketing at UNB.
“This was such an amazing experience for her to really apply what she was learning to an actual business,” she said. “She helped me with sales support, research, and also, I had her working on helping me with developing my business and marketing plan – all these stuff that get put on the back-burner.”
As part of the program, the companies also have access to a loan of up to $25,000. Parrill said that helped her business get to the next level.
“I do have to pay it back, but it enabled me to move [forward],” she said.
Moving forward, Peabody says things like length of the sessions may be adjusted based on feedback from participants. But the pilot showed that the core programming “really hit the target,” he said.
Planet Hatch plans to open the application process for the second cohort around February next year, so the program can start again in April.
The organization also wants to work with its counterparts around Atlantic Canada to share the lessons learned or implement the same program outside of Fredericton.
“I really think that across the region, we really need to boost our overall sales expertise and talent,” Peabody said.