Back in January after finishing up an amazing 2012, we decided to add fuel to the fire at QGenda by investing heavily into creating a repeatable sales process. In 2012 with only a few sales team members, we performed around 250 product demonstrations with a 41% close ratio yielding us 104 new customers without having a true sales process in place.

Since January we have grown the sales team at QGenda from a 2 people to currently having 14 rock-stars filling the roles of VP of Sales, Director of Sales, Account Executives, and Business Development Reps. We are excited about QGenda’s move into a new larger office in Atlanta’s Buckhead Tech Corridor where we plan on doubling the size of our sales team over the next year.

Here are some staggering growth metrics after just 6 months of sales efforts:

• 399 demos performed
• 28% closing ratio with 110 new customers
• 1800+ prospect touches (emails/cold-calls) per week
• 2.2% of prospect touches schedule a product demo

It’s an exciting time to be part of the QGenda sales team, and as we go through the rest of the year gathering more metrics about our sales team machine we will continue to tweak & refine the repeatable sales process.

What other sales metrics are important for a SaaS company to track throughout the year?

Twitter: @Benoit_Greg

Hiring new innovative rock-star talent with a self-starter personality is something we constantly think about every day at QGenda in order to provide the best customer experience during high growth. Although now with 30+ employees I’m a bit removed from the hiring process, but it was not that long ago when I personally interviewed each and every candidate along the way.

Here are some hiring tips we use at QGenda:

• Attract candidates by asking fellow employees to recommend people they know, attend college career fairs, and post job listings on linkedin.
• After casting a wide net and gathering hundreds of resumes, filter them down by looking for certain key indicators about their technology prowess. For example, are they using a modern tech savvy email interface like GMail or are they still sporting a comcast or bellsouth email address.
• Once the candidate passes the key indicator filter, a quick 10 to 15 minute phone interview can tell you a lot about a person. We like to break the ice with one of the most important questions during a phone interview by asking “Tell us something/anything about yourself that is NOT on your resume.”
• If the candidate passes the phone interview, the next step is to bring them in for an in-person interview where they will take a tour of the office, meet as many existing employees as possible for a corporate culture fit, take a written test with subjective & logic portions, and lastly work with 3 others to solve logic problems on a white-board.

The process above ultimately helps us hire candidates that are motivated to do whatever it takes to succeed, make unequivocal eye contact, and speak logically with conviction. Hiring new employees is one of the most exciting parts about growing a business and is far from a science, but using some basic guidelines can help streamline the process.

What are some other key indicators or guidelines you use when hiring new employees?

Twitter: @Benoit_Greg

We recently signed a 10,000 sq ft lease with a pre-negotiated expansion option of 6,000 additional feet and look forward to relocating the QGenda headquarters to the 11th floor of Tower Place 100 in the Buckhead Tech Corridor. At QGenda, due to our rapid growth, we have consistently outgrown office space over the years, and today we have 30+ employees spread across multiple floors for a total of around 4500 sq feet.

Here are some key factors to consider when looking for an office space:

• Parking space allotment is always a ratio in the form of X # of spaces per 1,000 sq feet. You want to make sure you always get a minimum of 4 per 1,000. During our search there was a penthouse office space we really liked, but the ratio was 2.6 per 1,000 so we had to eliminate it from consideration.
• Negotiate free rent inside the term of your lease. Most landlords will try to give you free rent outside the term of your lease by saying it’s a 5 year term with 10 months free rent making it a total of 70 months. It is much more preferred to be a 5 year deal with 10 months free inside the term of 60 months.
• Pre-negotiate adjacent expansion options before signing the lease to prevent the landlord from taking advantage of your growing needs by knowing the best space in the entire city for your business to expand into is the adjacent space right next door.
• Tenant Improvement (TI) allowance should be an average of $4 per sq ft per term year. You should have the option to use part of the TI towards moving/cabling.
• Avoid signing a personal guarantee.
• It doesn’t hurt to ask for free parking. However, if the building is well occupied it is highly unlikely you will receive a deal on parking fees, but they typically will make up for it in free rent or some other way.
• Expect an annual rent escalation of 3% each year, but have it begin in month 25.

Finding the perfect office space for any business is fun, time consuming, tedious, and definitely requires the help of a professional commercial office broker. If you have 10 or less employees, then on-demand office space at the Atlanta Tech Village would likely be the best solution.

What other key points have you negotiated in your own office space lease(s)?

Twitter: @Benoit_Greg