When I joined Avetta …
We were bootstrapped.
30 employees.
Zero marketing.
No brand. No playbook. No scalable go-to-market strategy.
Just a small team, a big market, and one shot to do things differently.
I was marketing hire #1.
Over the next few years, we scaled from $10M to $50M ARR — and helped position the company for a $3B acquisition that happened last year.
Here’s how we did it — and what I’d do again.
The challenge
Picture this.
You have a brilliant SME sales strategy but no collateral to win deals.
That’s it in a nutshell.
We needed everything.
This was my first taste of what it’s like to really build a story, a category, and a consistent engine for growth. From absolutely nothing.
It was everything.
The strategy
Stop leaving millions on the table.
Yup, that simple.
We were letting a dual pay model go untouched. Contractors weren’t paying on time, if at all, and they were the major part of the revenue engine.
My job was to fix that.
So, we started with one goal: enable sales and get revenue flowing faster.
Positioning
First up, positioning.
No one argues with safety. So, I positioned Avetta (known as PICS at the time) around safety and compliance—not as nice-to-haves, but as need-to-haves.
That shift changed the conversation. It moved us upmarket and into more strategic deals.
I didn’t guess at the messaging.
I interviewed customers. I ran voice of customer research. I made sure our pitch landed because I’d already tested it in the wild, with the full support of the sales team.
Sales enablement
Next, I created the tools Sales actually needed:
- Targeted pitch decks by vertical.
- One-pagers and field-ready battlecards.
- Messaging frameworks for events and follow-up.
As those materials started working, I built on them. We launched industry-specific campaigns and aligned with sales reps to test new angles in real time.
Inside sales and the dual-pay model
Then, it was time to open the funnel.
See, Avetta’s clients paid to have their contractor workforce screened. But, the contractors also paid to be in the network. That was the dual pay model I mentioned earlier.
That was the revenue to unlock.
Instead of waiting for contractors to pay after being invited, I built an inside sales team that proactively onboarded them. We used email and phone outreach to convert faster—and at scale.
I built the team, the scripts, and the campaign engine behind it.
That side of the business scaled quickly—and became a core part of the model.
Event strategy
Next up, scale.
When you do contractor and supplier screening, people don’t necessarily “get” what that means. It’s easier to sell the concept in person.
So we did.
At our peak, we were attending 35 trade shows a month.
I ran the ops behind that. We rotated four booths nationally, always made sure the message fit the vertical, and every single event had a strong CTA or giveaway.
But the power wasn’t just in showing up. It was in the follow-up.
We built nurture flows from event attendee lists and tied them into outbound cadences.
That closed even more deals.
The results
- 5x’d the sales pipeline
- Grew ARR from $10M to $50M
- Won major logos like Suncor
- Built a full marketing org from the ground up
- Positioned the company for a $3B acquisition
- Converted 10s of thousands of contractors into paying customers
The lesson
It’s about speed.
I wasn’t worried about brand colors or catchy taglines.
Don’t get me wrong, those things matter, but my clients need more. They need the right revenue engine — and they need it fast.
Positioning that resonates.
Messaging that closes.
Tight alignment between Product, Sales, and Marketing.
And a super smart infrastructure that turns interest into pipeline.
Why?
Well, the truth is … if you’re sitting at $5M or $15M and you know your GTM engine is leaking — you don’t need more tools. You need the right strategy, and someone who’s been in the trenches.
That’s what I do.
I call it … Growth.