Brothers Mike and Gary Braun realized their long-held ambition to work together when they launched Pivotal Advisors, their sales management consulting firm in Prior Lake.
Given their connection, it only makes sense that the Brauns use familial terms to describe their pragmatic approach to helping companies sell more. They focus on preparing sales leaders to drive behavioral changes among sales teams while instilling structure, discipline and accountability that will improve results.
"The theory is, if I make really good parents, I'll get really good kids," Mike Braun said. "I can invest a lot of time in my sales force, or I can invest that same dollar with the sales leader. Putting it in the right leader doing the right things will drive a bigger impact for a lower cost than trying to invest in all of the individual people."
The Brauns base that conclusion on their "weird collection" of experience, including business acumen that they said goes well beyond the sales department. Collectively, the brothers have spent decades in senior executive sales leadership and consulting roles, including Mike's time at Pearson Education Co. and Gary's at e-commerce firm Digital River Inc. They also have expertise in technology, human resources, organizational development and behavioral sciences.
The Brauns founded Pivotal Advisors, which offers project-based sales consulting, individual sales leader coaching, a peer advisory group for sales leaders and interim sales management, in late 2008. Despite the poor economy, they found a dozen clients who helped them prove that their approach worked.
Today, the firm has close to 100 clients, six employees and an equal number of contractors. Revenue has grown from $250,000 in 2009 to $1 million last year. Clients typically are small to midsize firms with $20 million to $100 million in sales, in manufacturing, technology and professional services.
The Brauns aim to serve 500 clients by the end of 2016. They plan to add staff to scale up the business, standardize content and develop online delivery and expand outside of Minnesota to reach that goal.
The pragmatism of the Brauns' approach comes in part from experiencing explosive growth with companies that went from $70 million to $1 billion in sales, in one case, and from $1 million to $400 million in another.