How Pandell Adopted an ARR-First Mindset With Eighty Twenty CMO

Pandell is a leading land and financial SaaS solution, serving 500+ energy companies in Canada, the USA, and abroad.

ENGAGEMENT HIGHLIGHTS

CHALLENGES

• Aiming to scale annual growth from 10% to 30%

• Revisiting and revising team structure, processes, and tech

• Looking to build a blueprint, set marketing priorities, level up teams, and drive revenue pipeline

SOLUTION

Pandell engaged with Eighty Twenty CMO, who:

• Established clear goals, milestones, and priorities

• Identified ideal CRM for deeper reporting to support revenue growth

• Redefined sales process from lead to closed-win (definitions, criteria, owners, etc.)

• Leveraged data to create baseline and optimized revenue forecasts

• Optimized job roles and team structure based on SaaS best practices

RESULTS

• Improved analytics now drive better decision-making and performance

• People, systems, and technology in place to scale

• CEO freed up to focus on higher-value work

• Clear blueprint for long-term success

  
  

CHALLENGES

Setting Pandell up for rapid, sustainable growth

With a proven solution, solid client base, and team of 150, Pandell was far from the ‘struggling startup’ phase.

In recent years, the company was hitting revenue growth of roughly 10% a year—but President and CEO Greg Chudiak was eager to scale.

“We wanted to set ourselves up to push revenue growth towards 30%,” explains Greg. “We knew that meant reviewing our systems, how we approached the marketing and sales process, and how we scaled the team. But the question was—how? We didn’t know what we didn’t know.”

While Greg had made inroads into leveling up their capabilities, achieving the future growth targets was unlikely without bigger changes. They needed a clear blueprint for growth.

“We’d started to make improvements and were utilizing our sales and marketing data to improve processes and set goals,” says Greg. “But we weren’t sure if we were on the right track. Are we tracking the right things? Do we have the right stages in the marketing and sales cycles? What should we prioritize? When?”

To bridge the gap between the company’s current reality and vision for growth, Pandell needed strategic marketing leadership.

Greg valued the perspective an outside set of eyes could bring, but past engagements with consultants had been a waste of resources.

“We’d worked with multiple marketing consultants, but those engagements weren’t very successful,” says Greg. “We had to spend so much time educating them, and they didn't provide much detailed information back to us.”

Pandell needed a Fractional CMO with deep background knowledge in SaaS who could hit the ground running and keep up that pace.

They needed someone capable of building out a scalable process with airtight metrics and milestones through the entire sales and marketing cycle.

And they needed someone who could align and mobilize teams across the organization.

“I came in thinking that if we could just get some validation around what we were doing, I’d be satisfied,” explains Greg. “But Mike took us to a completely different level of depth. Where we’d struggled for workable solutions, he delivered.”

“We wanted to seize more opportunities in the market and push our revenue growth towards 30%.”

Solution

Defining the people, processes, and technology to scale—and mobilizing teams to get the work done

On the recommendation of an advisor, Pandell enlisted the help of Michael Gaudet (Principal, Eight Twenty CMO) for a 12-week engagement.

“What initially stood out was his software industry experience and the marketing analytics associated with it,” explains Greg. “To not only operate in strategy but also guide execution takes detailed knowledge. That made it easier to buy in.”

Mike’s commitment to a collaborative approach also earned Greg’s trust.

“Other consultants came in with a degree of arrogance and said, ‘This is the way it's done,’ but Mike didn’t pitch us preconceived ideas,” says Greg. “He identified areas we could improve, defined the path forward, and then spent time with key individuals on every impacted team building trust. He showed them the metrics, why they were important, and how it would help them do their jobs better.”

Discovering what makes Pandell tick

Mike got the ball rolling by getting deep under the skin of Pandell’s business goals and revenue goals.

“Mike spent time with me understanding our corporate strategic direction, our goals, and our existing resources across people, processes and technology,” says Greg. “Then he had discovery conversations with team leads across design, sales and marketing.”

Mike used all he learned in those conversations to build out a high-level plan for where Pandell needed to focus, then broke the engagement down into granular detail:

• The milestones that needed to be accomplished

• The timelines for each

• The tasks that would drive them

• The stakeholders to involve

From there, he collaborated with Pandell’s sales, marketing, and backend technology teams to get the work done.

A consolidated CRM that’s built for scale

The company had long been running a homegrown solution for their CRM. Rather than discount the value of this solution, Mike performed a straightforward and objective needs assessment around reporting and scalability.

It quickly became clear that identifying a right-fit CRM was key to rapid growth and would add tremendous value as the company scaled.

“We were running a combination of an in-house CRM system and a third-party for the marketing side,” says Greg. “Mike made a key recommendation to consolidate that into a full CRM solution. We now have a roadmap to implement that will bring our Directors and reps current performance information and, for myself, the ability to put together stronger forecasts.”

Challenging and refining existing forecasts

One of the big wins for Pandell was combining a top-down forecast with a detailed bottom-up model based on Pandell’s actual numbers.

Mike worked with Greg to build out a baseline revenue forecast, then dug deeper to create an ‘optimized’ forecast based on what could be achieved if certain sales and marketing hires and system improvements were made.

“That’s a key tool for me as a business executive who owns the revenue side and commits to it, making sure our shareholders and advisors understand that we accomplished what we said we would,” says Greg. “We can gauge things from a high-level and then determine how to drive the results we need.”

Establishing a metrics-first mindset and approach

As part of the engagement, Mike collaborated with sales and marketing to redefine their processes all the way from first lead to deals closed and won, building out definitions, entry and exit criteria, and owners for each stage.

To create value that would last long after his engagement, Mike worked hard to level-up the leaders responsible for carrying the program forward.

“Mike worked with each of the leads to think in a more ARR-centric (annual recurring revenue) way and leverage the best-practices from leading B2B SaaS organizations,” says Greg. “He inspired them to feel empowered as true drivers of revenue, rather than operating as siloed support functions.”

Restructuring teams to support stronger processes

Mike worked collaboratively with key stakeholders to determine how to best fit together the pieces of the puzzle in terms of role and responsibilities within sales, marketing and even client services.

“Mike looked at where current team members add value, the gaps that existed, where we should gravitate to as we grow and scale, and the best ways to fill every role,” says Greg. “Now, the teams in sales and marketing know exactly what they have to accomplish and what we’re doing as a group to rebuild the organization for rapid scaling and capacity.”

While business change at scale can induce anxiety, Mike’s consensus-driven, consultative approach ensured everyone was aligned.

“Mike’s a straight shooter and he’s not hesitant about telling you something difficult, based on his analysis,” says Greg. “He showed us what it takes to be an industry top performer, then made it easy for us to start making those changes together.”

“Mike’s training enabled our marketers to feel empowered as true drivers of revenue, rather than acting as a siloed support function.”

Results

The foundations laid for 3x revenue growth

With a clear blueprint for growth, Greg estimates they’ll double or triple revenue over the next two to three years.

“Once we’ve implemented the plan we created with Mike, we’ll have the right structure, the right organization, and the right tracking to affect change and drive the scalability we need,” he says.

Pandell’s engagement with Mike was night and day compared to previous consultants.

“Mike was a great investment for us and delivered more than I was expecting,” says Greg. “Because he was so good at building relationships and held our people accountable for their deliverables, he got so much done.”

With a metric-driven mindset embedded across the team, coupled with the introduction of a sophisticated CRM, Greg expects big gains for the business.

“Our new system will make life easier for our sales and marketing teams and provide information that they need to do their jobs more effectively,” says Greg. “Our directors and reps will have their hands on current information, enabling them to make better decisions, move things forward, and handle so much more without needing to be micromanaged.”

Greg appreciates how easy it was to work with Mike—and believes the foundational work he’s done supports his success as CEO.

“When the plan’s in place, I’ll be able to step back from a lot of the day-to-day and really look at things from a high-level metrics perspective, forecasting on our basic characteristics and leaving it up to the team to drive the results that we need,” says Greg. “Understanding sales and marketing better has helped me become a much better President and CEO.”

In just 12 weeks, Mike helped Pandell get a clear picture of their current situation, identify improvements to get the growth they wanted, and establish how to get there.

But the real ROI is his long-term impact.

“Mike created a clear picture for us as to how to get to that high-end sales and marketing organization, and that's what had been missing,” says Greg. “That blueprint is gold for me. I now know what we need to do, and how to get there.”

Greg recommends Mike to any CEO looking to drive more revenue and growth in their organization.

“Mike brings a fresh pair of eyes and true industry experience, which is hugely valuable. You meet lots of guys who are good strategic thinkers and can help you at a high-level, but Mike couples strategic thinking with much more detailed knowledge, experience, and expertise to dig into the very specific things that need to change,” he says.