Vista Equity: Value Creation Playbook

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At a high level, how much of Vista's value creation strategy focuses on optimizing costs versus accelerating growth? How do you approach that balance?

I would say 75% to 80% of the thesis in most Vista investments is focused on growth. That was a different time, and it might be different now, which I can discuss. In their first 20 to 25 years, Vista was always focused on coming in and really changing the organization and strategy to focus on growth. Growth activities included improving the efficiency of the sales organization by bringing in the right talent and having the right training programs. The sales team needed to be properly trained, focusing on the fundamentals of what makes a good sales organization and sales training. They invested a lot in that, which fueled growth.

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How do you manage the shift from SMB to enterprise effectively and quickly?

Vista's success comes from going back to the basics. Many companies might decide to hire 10 sales reps and send them out. Vista focuses on foundational steps first. We identify our ideal customer profile. Surprisingly, many companies don't do this, but we have a methodology to pinpoint the right customers. Out of a thousand customers, we focus on 300 with a higher propensity to buy, ignoring the other 700. Defining this is basic but crucial, and Vista has a methodology to achieve it.

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How do you do that? That's a good question because we also sell products. I was actually thinking about it yesterday when someone mentioned ICP. I wondered, do we actually know who our ICP is? How do we determine that?

The approach to identifying the ICP, like many companies, involves looking at the industry and size to define an ideal customer profile. I think that's what everyone does, right? However, it goes deeper than that. This is part of the white paper they have. They identify five characteristics that truly define an ideal customer profile. Beyond industry and size, we excel when the customer uses a specific type of ERP system. For example, if they have SAP, we perform better. I'm making this up, but if they have SAP, they're more likely to buy from us than if they have Oracle. So, we prioritize SAP customers. If they have specific resources within the organization, such as procurement resources for a warehouse application software, it makes them a better fit for us. They go on LinkedIn to check if these roles exist within the company, which increases the likelihood of purchase. One example I can give is from the marketing organization. If they spend a certain amount on insights and advertising, anything below that is not our focus. It's more about tactical characteristics rather than just demographics.

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