288: Ways to Overcome the Ups and Downs of the Software World - with Will Robinson

EPISODE SUMMARY

In the fast-paced world of software sales, adaptability is the name of the game. 

In this week’s episode of Scale Your SaaS with host and B2B SaaS sales coach Matt Wolach, we're delving into today's insights from a seasoned industry leader, Encapture’s CEO, Will Robinson. He offers a glimpse into the dynamic world of selling software to banks and lenders. 

From adapting to changing market conditions to transforming the company's focus, this discussion unveils the challenges and successes of a thriving software business. Let's explore the key takeaways and the journey of Encapture, a company at the forefront of innovation in the SaaS industry.

PODCAST-AT-A-GLANCE

Podcast: Scale Your SaaS with Matt Wolach

Episode: Episode No. 288, "Ways to Overcome the Ups and Downs of the Software World - with Will Robinson"

Host: Matt Wolach, a B2B SaaS Sales Coach, Entrepreneur, and Investor

Guest: Will Robinson, CEO at Encapture

TOP TIPS FROM THIS EPISODE

• Adapt To Market Changes
• Learn To Shift Focus
• Be Open To Embrace Change
• Innovate with Caution

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

• Take the Lessons From Past Mistakes as Catalyst for Change

TOP QUOTES

Will Robinson

[5:11] “It's hard to get a legacy group of folks to change their mindset.”

[14:43] “Having a growth mindset is essential, and it's easier to backfill and replicate knowledge than I thought.”

Matt Wolach

[18:59] “Process is huge.”

[19:03] “I love that you narrowed your niche, and you said we've got to focus on these particular prospects and customers because it just makes everything within the business run so much easier. It makes your marketing more focused and tight and makes the buyers realize that you are perfect for them specifically, which is amazing.”

LEARN MORE

To learn more about Encapture, visit: https://encapture.com/platform/ 

You can also find Will Robinson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/will-robinson-encapture/ 

For more about how host Matt Wolach helps software companies achieve maximum growth, visit https://mattwolach.com.

Get even more tips by following Matt elsewhere:

• Sales Tips
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Instagram

Transcript

Matt Wolach: 0:10

As leaders, we can become very isolated. We feel like we're kind of on our own trying to figure this out. But it's always good to know that other people are going through some of the same struggles we are in even though a company looks amazing from the outside, which often it is, overall, it's successful. Every company has challenges. And it's good to know that it's good to realize that and it's very refreshing to have a leader like Will Robinson from Encapture, come on the show and share it. They're very successful. He's doing great. He's an amazing leader. But of course, there's always challenges and for him to come in and share these challenges is great to hear. So if you're facing some of these ups and downs, roller coasters, definitely give this a listen, because we'll give some advice on what he did that helped him get past some early challenges and some things that he's doing currently that are getting him to the next level. So great stuff here. Definitely listen to this one.

Intro/ Outro: 0:57

Welcome to Scale Your SaaS, the podcast that gives you proven techniques and formulas for boosting your revenue and achieving your dream exit brought to you by a guy who's done just that multiple times. Here's your host, Matt Wolach,

Matt Wolach: 1:13

and welcome to Scale Your SaaS. Thank you very much for joining us today. Really happy to have you here. I want to make sure if you are new to the show, we are here to help you understand how to grow your business, get to those amazing goals that you've set, and scale your SaaS just like it says. So if that's something you want, hit the subscribe button right now subscribe to this show. So you get notified of any new updates. We talk to amazing leaders from around the world of SaaS every single week, and you do not want to miss out. And one of those amazing leaders we have with us today. And I'm super pumped about it. I've got Will Robinson with me. Well, how you doing?

Will Robinson: 1:46

Hey, Matt doing great. Thanks so much for having me.

Matt Wolach: 1:49

Absolutely. Really glad that you're here. Let me make sure everybody knows who you are. Well, so will is the CEO at and Capture. And capture is a SaaS platform that helps banks automatically extract important information from documents. He has assembled a strong team of individuals who share his passion for FinTech and AI banking, ensuring sustainable growth and innovation. He leads in capture with emphasis and passion for company culture, and setting a high standard of excellence for a team that is constantly learning and excelling. He's absolutely a dynamic, great leader. And I'm loving that he's here with us. So well. Thanks again for coming on the show.

Will Robinson: 2:23

Absolutely, Matt, I appreciate the intro. Man. I wish I could hear that every morning when I will get that.

Matt Wolach: 2:31

Awesome, nice way to get you pumped up. Well, that's great. I'm glad that that helps. So tell me a little bit about what you've been doing lately. And what's coming up?

Will Robinson: 2:38

Yeah, you know, so as you mentioned, in Capture sales into banks and lenders, and we, as you can imagine selling into banking, right now, it's a whole different ballgame than it was a year or two ago, we're coming off a period where interest rates were super low. There were a lot of people getting loans, whether those were mortgages, or commercial loans, or auto loans. And banks were super, super busy, and they needed ways to be more efficient. And that's what our software does, it helps them be a lot more efficient in the back office, in process paperwork. So you know, we're coming off a period where interest rates are now higher, people are not moving or selling their houses, they're not buying new houses, they're not buying as many cars and banks are struggling. I mean, you you've seen kind of the issues with Silicon Valley Bank and some of the flight of deposit. So it's a really interesting time to be selling into banks. And I think it's it's forced us as a company to say, Hey, how can we still create a message that resonates? These banks still spend money, but it's what are they spending money on? And what's their focus and their priority? And these challenging times? And how can we how can we help them solve their problems in a way that, you know, allows us to continue to grow like we want to, through maybe a tougher market?

Matt Wolach: 3:52

Yeah, definitely, I can see that that change is happening right now even be on the outside seeing it all go down. But I want to ask you, so banks, there's a lot of different kinds of banks, you've got the local community banks, you've got big international organizations, have you set up a process within your sales that kind of differentiates on how you sell to those different types of different sizes of organization?

Will Robinson: 4:13

Yeah, it's a great question. Banks. And, you know, banks are a unique industry, it's it's an enterprise motion, whether they're at your small local community bank, or it's a Wells Fargo. There's, you know, typically, buying software is a committee process. There's, there's your line of business champion, that's usually owning a specific part of the branch that they're responsible for where your software is going to help. But then there's an IT group that's responsible for helping to implement it, making sure it's hooked up to the other systems within the bank. And so, you know, whether you're selling to big bank, medium sized regional bank or even a community bank, there's a lot of similarities and what we've really tried to focus on is, you know, certain banks are maybe more apt to use ours. offer, then others, and we've kind of figured out a sweet spot the type of products that banks offers the size of the bank to really narrow in on our ICP. But then once you, you know, once you have a prospect, it's running them through a fairly stringent process to where we can qualify, qualify them, you know, early as early as we can, and making sure that as they're putting us through their bank process, you know, we're we're being diligent as well. So we don't waste time, and we're fairly efficient. So, you know, we have tried somebody early on, I would say, a few years ago, we tried a bunch of different ways to sell into banks, do we go with a more product lead strategy, is there kind of a kind of an SMB type angle where it's a bit more transactional. And given given the way banks work, kind of their culture and the type of software we sell in the in the deal sizes that we're doing? You know, which are five or six figure a CVS, it's still very much an enterprise motion. So we figured out how to, you know, how do you how do you get get as efficient and focused as possible in that?

Matt Wolach: 6:02

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Even with the smaller players, I don't see banks as being that type of a group that would want to move quickly on much anything. So I totally get where you're coming from there. I want to know, for your company and capture, how did it come to be? Where did this come from?

Will Robinson: 6:17

Yeah, it's a funny story, the company has been around, actually 25 years. And as you look at me, and people are like, you don't even look like you're 25 years old? Well. So I joined the company, about four and a half years ago, we started selling other automation software into banks and lenders, really into a bunch of different industries, we were a big partner, for a large software company. And we would help them sell and implement their software, kind of in a professional services role. And then, over time, our company built our own product in capture, that really made the document collection, upfront collection and processing of documents, getting the important data out, made that a lot more efficient. And so we would kind of reactively sell that alongside our big partner. When I joined four and a half years ago, we had a pretty dramatic shift in our strategy where we wanted to take our little product and capture and make that the focus of the company and say, Hey, there's a lot of opportunity, using AI using machine learning to read documents, extract important data, validate that data. And given we have this expertise in banking, let's see how we can go solve problems for banks. And so the journey over the last four and a half years has been really transitioning away from our legacy partners, and turning kind of a legacy professional services model into a more pure play software as a service. Business model. So it's been a, it's, you know, people ask, Well, did you found the company, I did not find the company, I will never take credit for that. But almost every single thing is new, over the last five years, including the name of our company, so we hit a hard reset. And, you know, it's been a, it's been a really fun journey, it's been really hard, really challenging. I think that's something that a lot of CEOs or founders are starting to talk about more. But but there's kind of this, sometimes the social media facade that it's, you know, that everybody's loving every minute of it, and like there are days, weeks, months that are just really hard. And we've had, we've had those moments. But overall, it's been a fantastic journey. It's been a ton of fun. I've got a great group of about 50 employees here. And, you know, we get to solve some really kind of hairy thorny issues for these for these banks and lenders, that that bring a lot of value and help them be a lot more efficient internally.

Matt Wolach: 8:33

Yeah, that's awesome. I'm glad you shared that. It's hard, because we're all going through, it's very difficult to grow a company and to scale a company and get it to where we want it to be. And we've all been there, the ups and downs are real. And everybody on this show that's listening right now, I'm sure has felt that same sort of thing. So I appreciate you letting us know that that happens. And it looks great from the outside sometimes, but you're really down deep kind of pushing and trying to make things happen. So that's so cool that you're, you're in the teeth of it making it happen. Well, so you mentioned also, you know, you've taken over this company after a long time, you know, it's been around for quite a while. Tell me about what that was like taking over and it sounds like you came up with some new ideas. You've you said everything's new. What was that shift like? And was it received really well? Or did it take some effort to make sure the team was bought in?

Will Robinson: 9:19

Yeah, no, it was it was tough. It was tough. You know, when I started that the existing team at the company had been around kind of been here a long time. It was very comfortable with the way things were being done. You know, when I came in, it was a very different it was a different direction for the company. It was a different strategy. It was a different focus. And, you know, what I asked folks to do was, hey, can you buy into this idea of maybe suspending the way you've done things in the past and think about how we do it differently? You know, candidly, we were we were not successful making that happen with the people we had out of the First, I don't have 35 or 37 employees we had we have like two or three left. Original team. Yeah. And you know, it's really hard to come in and change an organization, especially one that's been around for a while. It's hard for people to kind of think differently about, about how they're going to approach their job and, and do things differently. So, you know, we it started with setting a very clear direction for the company, something that, you know, wasn't really there when I started, like, who do we want to be? Who are we today? Who do we want to be? Where are we trying to go? And then, you know, how we get there mostly was a function of just, I would say, it was a, it was a mindset and a buy into a culture. And that's what was hard for some folks, I had, you know, I had a lot of folks that I would have loved to have kept working here and be part of our team today. And they had the technical skill sets to do that. But they, they just weren't bought in to the strategy. And you know, that's okay. Like, they have the choice to do that. But ultimately, it was a lot better healthier for us to just bring in fresh folks who didn't have the legacy, history, baggage assumptions and just say, hey, here's who we are did that, you know, here's who we're trying to be buy into that, and let's go figure it out. So, you know, I guess that would be my word of encouragement. If you're running a business and you feel like you have maybe a legacy employee base, and you're struggling to really affect change. It's very hard to get a legacy group of folks to kind of, to change. And so, you know, one thing I was really worried about, when I first got here, and even my first year or two is, I felt like a lot of these folks had kind of this institutional knowledge and this tribal knowledge of, of our business of our industry. And I was really fearful that if they left, we wouldn't be able to replicate it, or we wouldn't be able to, to go backfill for that, what I've learned is, it's so much, it's a lot easier to backfill and replicate that information, that knowledge base, that skill set, then then I thought it would be. And it's so much more refreshing to get in people that have the right mindset, buy into the culture, and really lean in to the challenges that you're facing, every business has so many problems, I mean, so many problems. And so really, I think, especially if you're a fast growing business, or you want to be growing quickly, by nature, you will have a there will just be a lot of things that need to get solved. And so if you have people on your team, who who kind of embrace that, and they say, Hey, look, I'm gonna show up today and try to figure out something new and do the very best I can and, and not get overwhelmed by all the problems or struggles, those people do really, really well. And, and it was surprising how quickly we could push through some of that stuff. So it's definitely been a journey. I do think setting a very clear vision for the company up front was important. I also think defining culture, like what type of organization do you want to run? Do you want to have, we had to set up core values? You know, what are our core values at the company? We set up kind of a list of of attributes around being a high performing workplace environment, what does that mean to be a high performing workplace, we have eight or 10 kind of attributes that that we we used to characterize that we went through some training, some formal training, where we hired a moderator to come in for a couple days and actually walk us through that. And again, this was all about laying the foundation so that as you go about your day making decisions, making choices, how do I deal with this angry customer? I feel like I have too much on my plate. How do I prioritize? If there's friction internally with a colleague, maybe on a different team? How do I handle that? Because we have this base foundation of core values and, and kind of characteristics of a high performing workplace environment. We were able to point back to that. And that was a great way for people to either learn how to be part of this organization, or for later for people to look at that and say, You know what, I don't think I can do that or I don't think I want to and it was time for them to move on.

Matt Wolach: 14:03

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Will Robinson: 16:59

Yeah, it's been night and day, you know, and, you know, there's a, there's a concept of kind of having a, you know, a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset. You know, fixed mindset is, hey, you know, this is just the way things are, I can't do anything to change it. I'm comfortable where I am, I don't want to learn anything new. And then a growth mindset is, look, I'm always learning, I'm always getting better, I have room to improve, I'm humble enough to admit that I don't have it all figured out. And that's something we really look for here, when we go and hire and recruit is, you know, do these do folks have a growth mindset, and that looks different for different people, you know, we've got, you know, call it developers that are more intellectually hungry, right, they like learning and solving new big heart problems, you know, we've got sales reps that are that are more traditionally kind of, you know, just had, they have the the mentality and mindset of just waking up every day and kind of go into battle and saying, Hey, I'm gonna make my calls. And now my notes, follow up on this opportunity, I'm going to be meticulous about my process. And, you know, it's just like, it's just like, if you're, you know, if you're an athlete at a high level, you, you have to have, you know, strict training and discipline in the way that you approach your sport to be successful. And it's the same thing in a company, you have to have a plan, you have to be willing to discipline yourself and kind of put yourself under the plan and under the process that you're going through. And then through that, you start seeing the results you want to see. And you know, if you're doing that collectively across, across, you know, different functions of your business you look up in the business is doing really cool stuff.

Matt Wolach: 18:30

A lot of great analogy as a former athlete, and somebody who loves sports myself, I absolutely see the connection there. So I really love that you did that. But I want to know, looking back, what were some of the initiatives that you put in place that helped the company and were were things that really helped in Capture move forward?

Will Robinson: 18:47

Yeah, so the first thing was what we just talked about it was that culture and that set of kind of core values and saying, Who are we what type of person do we want to have here? How do we want our customers to perceive us? How do we relate to each other? You know, and again, that sounds kind of very squishy, but it's critical. I mean, if you're, if you're in a relationship, or you have a spouse or you like, it's the same, you kind of do the same thing, like what kind of relationship is is going to be what are the foundational principles upon which we, we have a relationship because if you don't have a foundation, or a set of principles, the relationship won't last. So that was really, really critical at first, to get the right type of person in here. The thing after that, that that we, that we really had to ideate on it was just process. I think, well, let me put it like this, as we were, you know, as we were setting the foundation and the culture and as we started building out process, candidly, we needed to really narrow our focus as a company in turn in terms of who we sell to what that what that buyer ICP looks like, what the process looks like. When I you know, four or five years ago, we were mostly selling to banks, but we were selling into insurance. We were selling in the state local government, we were selling to some fortune 500 company Is we got all sorts of random kind of, you know, we'd find these RFPs for random stuff that we could do with our technology. But it was maybe more of a one off type situation. And we, we decided to get really, really narrow and really thin and really focus. And so if you look at even our go to market today, we are, it's very, very narrow in terms of who we're trying to target the messaging we're using, even though our our platform can do 1000 different things and solve 1000 different use cases, we're really going to market with like two, two, you know, and so that allowed us to be a lot more focused, and then put a lot of process around, you know, whether that's our sales process, or sales methodology or delivery, you know, implementation of our software, or even from a product roadmap perspective, we had a lot more discipline within a process and we could, we can look at what's working, what's not, we can hold ourselves accountable to that we can hold our team accountable to that. And I think that allowed us to kind of innovate quicker, understand where we're not good quicker and have some insights into, like, how to help us help. How do we run this business better? If you don't have processors, or kind of a standard way of doing stuff? And you can't track it, it's gonna be really hard to measure to measure progress or to understand where you're doing well, or where you're falling short.

Matt Wolach: 21:21

Yeah, definitely. I mean, obviously, process is huge. Everybody listening knows that. That's a big focus for me. But I love that you narrowed your niche and you said, We've got to focus on these particular prospects and customers, because it just makes everything within the business run so much easier. It makes your marketing more focus more tight, makes the buyers realize that you are perfect for them specifically, which is amazing. So I love that that's a great success for you. I want to flip it and ask maybe a more uncomfortable question. What were some of the things you did that didn't go? Well, and you wish Oh, I wish that didn't happen?

Will Robinson: 21:54

Yeah, man, I've done so many things wrong. I mean, I'll be the first to admit, like, there's so many

Matt Wolach: 21:58

stupid admitting that.

Will Robinson: 22:00

Yeah, well, it's, it's, it's easy to remind myself of that sometimes, because we're still living with the consequences of those things. Hold, you know, I would say holding on to people too long that aren't that you just know, aren't a fit. Trying to kind of kind of, you know, from the goodwill in your heart, trying to make them fit here is just not are hoping that they are going to have a different attitude or mindset. It's just delaying the inevitable. So, you know, I think there's a few folks, I wish I had made some changes a bit earlier in the process, I think we just would have been able to move faster. And so that's one. Ah, early on, we as we were narrowing our ICP, we tried different things, which I'm which I'm not ashamed of trying like, like selling into different markets, or different ICPs, or going and trying to do a new, a new use case, like, again, because our software can can handle a lot of different use cases. Sometimes you hear something like, Oh, I think we could do that. And then you get into it, you can't. And so we've wasted some time and energy, trying out different stuff. And again, Do I regret that some of those decisions were probably well placed to bet. So I'm glad I made the bad, they just didn't turn out some of them, you know, I'm like, Well, I think I could have been a little bit smarter going into that, maybe just turn that type of business away. You know, those are probably those are probably the big two is like, you got to try stuff, especially as a CEO or leader, you have to, you know, if it's not working, you have to be able to try different things. But as long as it's kind of staying core to your your mission and the vision for your business, I think that's okay, I think if it starts veering outside of that, because maybe there's a big dollar amount tied to it, or it's a big deal, or it's a cool brand name. Or it's kind of like, oh, well, this could become maybe a secondary market for us to go after. I think that's where you, you can get yourself in trouble. So that kind of a couple of things that come to mind there.

Matt Wolach: 24:05

Yeah, I would agree with all of that, as we wrap up here. What advice would you have for other software leaders who are kind of following the same path and want to be able to grow and create this successful business? What would you share with them?

Will Robinson: 24:19

Just stick with it. You know, I think that's the I think that's the hard thing I've been, you know, in this role now, almost five years. And it's, it's hard, it's hard to treat it as a marathon. It's easy to sprint, right? You kind of see the next quarters goals or you see that that next big deal or you see that next kind of push and kind of put yourself into that. I would say you know, keep healthy perspective. It's so easy to get sucked in, as well and see, and just kind of let this become all consuming. So I would just I would say I would encourage people, you know, figure out a way in your life to I won't say half balanced because there's no such thing as balanced if you're a CEO or founder Under if like an actual real company that's growing and doing well, it will be all consuming. And that's just your personality is probably going to be like that way in the first place to even be in that type of role. And if if you're growing and you're doing well, there's just a lot to do. But figure out ways to create space away from work in your life, whether that's with family, friends, you know, your physical health and physical exercise is huge. It's something that I was really good about. And then in COVID, I stopped and I felt it very quickly. And then have kind of gotten back into, you know, taking care of myself physically, and it's made all the difference. So take care of yourself. Make sure and make sure you've got community it can be isolating to be a founder and CEO, make sure you've got community around you, that can support you and love you, and they don't care. They don't care anything about your business, or how successful you are or how much you fail. And thankfully, I've got three young kids at home that are like for two and a half, I've got an infant, like six months old, and they don't, they don't even know like they don't, they could not tell you what I do for a living and they don't care world. Yeah, but when I come home from work, you know, they are so excited to see me and, and, you know, so fine, things like that. But, you know, it's really it's hard to it's hard to build a business, it's hard to run a business. I love it. It's so much fun. It's so invigorating. But if you want to do well, and really, the folks I found have done really, really well in this, they figure out ways to sustain themselves over longer periods of time and not get burned out. And I think that's something I've had to learn myself over the last few years.

Matt Wolach: 26:29

Yeah, I would agree. Very, very cool advice. I hope everybody soaks it up and takes it to heart. Well, this has been awesome. How can our audience learn more about you? And Encapture?

Will Robinson: 26:38

Yeah, I appreciate that. Matt. You can head to encapture.com. You can check us out on LinkedIn. You know, we sell into big boring bank. So like there's no there's no Tiktok for us. Our buyers are not there. But yeah, we'd love to find you online. If you ever have questions or need help with anything. Let me know. I'd be happy to help.

Matt Wolach: 26:57

That's awesome. We'll put all that into the show notes. He's well Robinson will this has been awesome. Thanks so much for coming on the show. Yeah.

Unknown: 27:04

Thanks so much, man. I appreciate it.

Matt Wolach: 27:05

Absolutely. Everybody else out there. Thanks for coming. Thanks for listening and watching. Glad you're here. Make sure you're subscribed to the show and we are looking for reviews. So if you think this is helpful stuff, please give us a review showing others that this is something they can listen to as well. So thanks for being here and we will see you next time. Take care.

Intro/ Outro: 27:24

Thanks for listening to Scale Your SaaS for more help on finding great leads and closing more deals. Go to Mattwolach.com