Bobby Martin

Successful startup founders have a certain way of looking at the world that increases chances for success. These fundamentals can be applied to corporate sales strategy and help salespeople learn to think more like founders.

Bobby outlines lessons learned from his research of 172 successful founders and the growth-oriented leadership mindset among them, to teach audiences:

• The fine line of entrepreneurial grit and how to get more sales through patience and tenacity
• How to listen more and talk less. Founders understand the importance of truly listening to needs and providing the right answer at the right time.
• When to cut your losses and move on to the next target.
• How to Improvise, improvise, improvise. True entrepreneurs try different ways to hook fish and that extra effort is often what makes them successful.

Startups and their founders are getting a lot of press these days, typically depicted as energy-drinking 20-somethings with a lot of time, technology and ideas at their disposal. Bobby Martin, a 20-year veteran of the startup world takes the lessons he’s learned building and selling profitable companies as well as his extensive research of 172 successful startups and drills down to what key leadership traits define a successful startup founder and how to bring those lessons into the corporate world to influence a more agile, growth-oriented culture.

In this presentation, Bobby outlines some of the key findings from his years of experience and research including:

• How to build your own luck by staying the course and finding success
• How to recognize and create opportunity, and what to do when it comes knocking
• The key to nurturing skill, talent and fostering with tenacity to create opportunity.
• Knowing when (and how) to make small tweaks versus large pivots, and when it’s time to change direction entirely.

Using his own experience taking a project from idea to successful company, Bobby wrote his book, The Hockey Stick Principles: The 4 Key Stages to Entrepreneurial Success to help others navigate the growth stages of a startup. So many people have a great idea for a business and then have no idea how to make that business happen.

In this presentation, Bobby teaches the 4 key stages to success and the lessons to be learned within each stage:

• Tinkering
• The Blade Years
• The Growth Inflection Point
• Surging Growth

How can businesses escape what Martin terms “the Blade Years” – the first few years of a business with very little growth – and discover a repeatable business model that results in hockey stick revenue takeoff?

Based upon his experience as a successful entrepreneur and his research on the revenue growth of 172 successful startups, Martin shares:

• How long should you expect “the Blade Years” to last before turning the corner toward significant revenue growth
• What signs should you look for to help you know you’re on the right path
• Key ways to improve your business model to achieve takeoff growth