Growth Camp 2024 – The Globe and Mail. Breakout Session – B2B Growth Clinic: How to Source and Secure Long-Term Business Clients. Andrew Sinclair, Founder, Lane Four is joined by Sari Abdo, Co-founder and CEO, hungerhub; Vala Afshar, Chief Digital Evangelist, Salesforce; and Jordan Chittley, Editor, Globe Drive, The Globe and Mail.
"There’s no magic bullet in hiring sales people. Instead, we hire multiple instead of going in on one person. If they're all great, then great. But if they’re all hitting roadblocks, then we take step back and look at what they're selling."
This year’s Growth Camp, an annual event hosted by The Globe and Mail, brought together top business leaders from across Canada to celebrate the country’s fastest-growing companies and discuss key strategies for sustainable growth. Among the C-suite executives in attendance was none other than our very own Andrew Sinclair—definitely a proud (and truly awesome) moment for the Lane Four team!
Sponsored by Deloitte, Salesforce, and Desjardins, Growth Camp 2024 offered executive leaders a space for thoughtful and candid conversations about scaling businesses, all while acknowledging the very real struggles of navigating a volatile economic landscape over the last few years. It was a space where empathy met strategy, as attendees shared not just their successes, but the challenges and hard decisions that come with sustainable growth in uncertain times. During the event, Andrew participated as a panelist in a breakout session titled “B2B Growth Clinic: How to Source and Secure Long-Term Business Clients”.
Known for his progressive, yet pragmatic approach to scaling Lane Four, Andrew shared valuable insights into the intricacies of the company’s own growth journey over the past few years.
A Focus on “Responsible Growth”
When asked how Lane Four has managed its rapid expansion, Andrew reflected on the company’s impressive track record of [the team] doubling in size for two consecutive years—2021 and 2022. However, as he described it, 2023 saw a shift toward what he calls “responsible growth.”
“We’re trying to form what I like to call responsible growth, which is maintaining our work [on the delivery side] without becoming too top-heavy or too strapped. It’s all about finding that balance,” Andrew explained.
This philosophy represents a pivot from the hyper-growth strategy Lane Four embraced during the early COVID years, which involved heavy investment in product teams and chasing new logos. Today, Lane Four’s focus solely as a consulting firm for tech-enabled growth companies, is far more calculated, with an emphasis on growing its existing client base and aligning sales efforts with measurable outcomes.
“We’ve shifted to a more mindful approach—prioritizing efforts with existing customers and partnerships. We’re focusing on what generates revenue while keeping our cost of sales in check,” Andrew added.
What is “Cost of Sales”?
Cost of sales refers to the direct expenses involved in delivering a product or service. For Lane Four, managing these costs is central to our “responsible growth” strategy, where the focus is on maximizing revenue [from existing business] while keeping operational expenses in check. This ensures sustainable growth without overextending resources.
Prioritizing Relationships Over Sales Cycles
One of the key themes mentioned during the panel was the elongation of sales cycles in recent years, which has become a common challenge for many businesses, especially in the B2B space. When asked how Lane Four has navigated this, Andrew emphasized the importance of strengthening relationships within our existing customer base and highlighted a key shift in Lane Four’s growth strategy, noting that the majority of our expansion now is coming from our current client accounts.
To enhance efficiency and better meet client needs, we’ve made the move to merge our “New Business” team with the “Account Management” team, creating a unified revenue function. This integration now allows for a more harmonized approach, ensuring that functions are more aligned and resources are allocated effectively across different roles. This move was driven by the need to adapt to longer sales cycles and maintain focus on elements within our control, such as deepening customer relationships and optimizing internal processes.
This move not only allows Lane Four to retain and expand within our current accounts but also helps mitigate the impact of external factors like economic fluctuations, which can have an effect on funding rounds and investment opportunities across the board.
Over the last few years, B2B SaaS/tech businesses have faced longer sales cycles, reduced venture capital funding, and market volatility, forcing many to shift from aggressive growth strategies to more sustainable, calculated approaches. Andrew thinks these economic pressures have made client retention and efficient resource allocation critical for continued success.
During the discussion, Andrew was also asked for advice on tapping into new markets, especially in challenging economic times. We’ve identified opportunities in the venture capital and private equity space to foster ongoing exchanges that benefit both the companies we support and the investment firms we partner with—now a key area of our sales team’s focus. His approach, much like Lane Four’s strategy, centres on staying adaptable and seizing opportunities that align with, and play to the company’s strengths.
He also underscored the importance of hiring strategies in maintaining this balance. Rather than hiring aggressively with the hope that the business will grow to match capacity, Lane Four now hires based on actual need—a lesson learned from the elongated sales cycles we’ve experienced over the last two years.
Final Takeaways from Growth Camp
There is no doubt that, yet again, this year’s Growth Camp event offered Canada’s top execs an opportunity to connect, exchange stories, and a wealth of knowledge for businesses looking to expand sustainably while navigating the current economic climate on the table. Andrew’s insightful reflections on Lane Four’s growth journey brought real value to the conversation, delivering practical takeaways for attendees—particularly those working through the challenges of the B2B space.
By prioritizing customer relationships, adopting a “responsible growth” mindset, and ensuring alignment between internal teams, Lane Four has continued to thrive, even in challenging conditions. Looking ahead, we know that playing the long game means staying flexible and adapting to the ups and downs of the economy and market. But we know the strengths of our leadership team will undoubtedly play a pivotal role in maintaining that growth while staying true to the company’s core values.
Andrew, founder of Lane Four, has helped 100’s of billion dollar venture backed companies scale revenue operations through Salesforce and HubSpot. Lane Four is consistently on the Globe and Mail’s list of Canada’s fastest growing companies and was recently named the 33rd best workplace by Great Place To Work Canada. While leading the Lane Four consulting team, Andrew launched Lane Four Highroad, which grew to a multi-million dollar business before a successful exit. Andrew was born and raised in downtown Toronto, and plans to raise his 1-year old daughter inside the city.
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