SentryOne
Evolving the Sales and Marketing Strategy for a Product-Driven Software Company
“We’ve all heard horror stories of investors emphasizing growth at the risk of deteriorating service levels and product quality. Our top priority when partnering with Mainsail was to ensure this would not happen at SentryOne. We have a special team and culture, and many amazing clients and partners that depend on us; we were not about to mess that up. The best part was that Mainsail was on the same page. They didn’t reinvent our company; they optimized it, allowing us to remain a product-first, customer-centric organization that was suddenly empowered to do more."– Greg Gonzalez, Chief Technology Officer, Co-founder, Microsoft MVP
At a Glance
- Grew sales and marketing team by more than 5x
- Increased average deal size by 82%
- Accelerated YOY revenue growth rate
- Introduced Account Based Marketing to engage enterprise customers more effectively
- Helped recruit key executive team members (CEO, VP of Customer Success, VP of Sales)
the company
SentryOne is a software company with award-winning solutions that empower Microsoft data professionals to achieve breakthrough performance across physical, virtual and cloud environments. Over the years, SentryOne has developed cutting-edge capabilities to optimize the Microsoft Data Platform. The company was founded in 2004 by Greg Gonzalez and Ken Teeter and now employs more than 150 individuals, including eight Microsoft MVPs.
the story
From 2004–2015, SentryOne was a bootstrapped company with strong organic growth that did not necessitate massive investments in sales and marketing. In time, however, it became evident that approach was not allowing SentryOne to realize its full potential. Mainsail helped the company implement a proactive and scalable growth strategy, all while preserving product leadership in the market and the unique culture of the company. The result: accelerated growth and expansion to new market segments.
Mainsail’s value
Talent: When founder and CEO Greg Gonzalez decided he wanted to focus more of his time on technology and product, Mainsail helped recruit Bob Potter as the new CEO. Bob’s experience and focus on go-to-market strategy was the perfect complement to Greg’s technical focus. Additionally, Mainsail helped recruit two key executives (Scott Allison, VP of Sales and Scott Brooks, VP of Customer Success) who have been integral to driving SentryOne’s growth while staying hyper-focused on customer service.
Technology: While SentryOne’s product technology has always been a strength, the company itself was underutilizing third-party technology in its own operations. Mainsail helped the company transition to a modern sales and marketing tech stack, including Salesforce.com as its CRM, Hubspot for its marketing campaigns and DiscoverOrg for building its database to engage enterprise customers.
Organization: With the right leadership and infrastructure in place, Mainsail focused on building out the company’s sales processes. In under three years, the sales team grew by more than 5X, introduced commission plans that leveraged Mainsail’s best practices and created a market development team to increase sales productivity. Additionally, Mainsail helped the company bifurcate the sales organization between enterprise and inside sales to better align the sales and buyer process.
Focus: SentryOne had a product that served multiple segments of the market, but had a single go-to-market strategy which wasn’t taking into account the specific needs of different segments. Mainsail helped the company with several initiatives to optimize its approach. First, Mainsail helped the company develop an Account Based Marketing program to more effectively market to complex organizations. Second, the company relaunched its brand and product packaging to better align its position in the market. Finally, Mainsail helped the company reorganize its Customer Success organization to identify and realize expansion opportunities within large enterprises.
SentryOne is currently a Mainsail portfolio company. The information above represents the timeframe from investment to May 2018.
Server optimization software for physical, virtual and cloud environments
- LOCATION: Charlotte, North Carolina
- SECTOR: Infrastructure Software
- CEO: Bob Potter
- FOUNDED IN: 2004
- INVESTED IN: 2015
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