10x
Reflections on a 10x advisor
Hi all —
This week, I had a meeting with an advisor who is an absolute boss.
He’s the Chief Revenue Officer for a young software company, and has taken them from less than $1M in annual recurring revenue (ARR) to over $10M in about 3 years.
In a competitive market. Where they weren’t the first-movers. Legendary.
Whenever I meet with him, I get thinking about 10x performers - the people who create an insane amount of value for companies.
So this week, I want to share four qualities I’ve seen in 10x performers. What would you add? And how do you screen for this in your hiring process?
The four qualities:
Maniacal focus on what matters for the business
Extreme ownership of results and execution
Clarity in problem-solving
Motivational communication
Maniacal focus on what matters for the business
In the startup game, losing focus means death.
But focusing on the right things isn’t easy. Every day you’re confronted with thousands of things you could do, and it’s often hard to figure out which is most important.
And what’s most important changes based on your stage and situation.
Then when you figure out what’s most important, you have to make it happen while also putting out fires everywhere. And while everyone around you gets caught up chasing shiny objects.
Extreme ownership of results and execution
Results matter. Execution matters. The 10x people I’ve worked with have dug deep into how to achieve the results, figured out how to execute, held themselves to extremely high standards, and “owned” the results - whether good or bad.
Perhaps it’s our education system, perhaps it’s something innately human - but I’ve noticed a few tendencies that pull us away from ownership:
Assuming “other people will handle it”
Letting our quality bar drop over time
Blaming others when things go wrong
Mistaking effort for results
Believing “we couldn’t have predicted this or known this in advance”
With all these forces tugging you in the opposite direction, it’s not easy to practice extreme ownership. But some people do, and they’re inspiring to be around.
Two good reads on ownership: Extreme Ownership and Leadership and Self-Deception
Clarity in problem-solving
Even when you’re focused on the right things, when you fully own results & execution… problems arise. For example:
You don’t know how to get from “what matters” to “what to do about it”
Execution isn’t getting the results you expected
New information makes you rethink “what matters”
The world will always throw a wrench in your plans. So what do you do about it?
You can push forward without changing, ignoring the problem. You can get demotivated and assume the problem is unsolvable. You can attack the problem emotionally and come up with a half-baked, ineffective solution.
Or, you can take your emotions out of it and solve the problem thoughtfully. Understand what the problem actually is, what your options are, and how to adjust course.
Motivational communication
This is the X-factor - how do you motivate other people to be their best, every single day? How do you hold people to high standards without being a total asshole? How do you make huge goals feel like they’re within reach?
I’ll leave you with one quote from our advisor, who does this better than anyone I’ve ever met. When I asked him what his goals were, his reply was:
“There’s a Mount Rushmore of SaaS. For sales leaders who’ve taken a company from $1M revenue to $100M+ revenue. And there’s just one more spot on that mountain, and that’s where my face is going.”