SaaS Expansion across Europe - with Rick Pizzoli, Sales Force Europe

**Ray Rike** (0:00)
Hello, I'm Ray Reich, founder and CEO of RevOp Squared, and you're host of the Metrics That Measure Up podcast. We talked to a wide variety of B2B, SaaS and Cloud thought leaders, executives, investors, and people just like you to discuss the metrics and benchmarks they use to make metrics informed decisions. Now on to today's show.
Welcome to today's episode of the Metrics It Measure Up Podcast. Today, we are joined by Rick Pizzoli, the founder and CEO of Salesforce Europe. We'll be covering three main areas with Rick today. First, the opportunity and challenge of entering the European market for B2B tech companies. Second, the primary considerations to be prepared for when entering and establishing European market presence. And third, the options and associated expectations, including return on investment modeling for entering the European marketplace. Rick, can you please take a moment to give a brief overview of your journey to becoming a guest on the Metrics It Measure Up Podcast?

**Rick Pizzoli** (1:19)
Thank you, Ray. I really appreciate your time having me here and all of your viewers and listeners to listen in. My name is Rick Pizzoli. I'm originally from San Francisco. I moved out to Europe about 25 years ago to launch Europe for three different tech companies, two San Francisco-based companies and one Spanish-based company. I found out this whole process of European launch is really hard.
It's hard to build a strategy, especially if you don't have a lot of experience on it, build the team, hire the people, manage the people. Twenty years ago, I found it sales force Europe to really add speed and intelligence to that whole market entry process. That could be Greenfield companies first coming into Europe or European companies looking to expand in Europe. So we help both. So since 2003, we've helped about 500 technology companies expand within Europe.

**Ray Rike** (2:07)
Great. Well, you're the person I want to talk to you then, because so many of our clients and conversations I have with SaaS CEOs, you know, typically in that may be as early as five to 10 million, but definitely in the 10 to 25, they're like, we think we need to expand our target addressable market. And one of the first things they look at is Europe, because you've got the United Kingdom, and they're English speaking, and it feels comfortable. So you've got over 25 years of helping US companies enter the European marketplace, or as you said, European companies expand beyond their native country. What are the top challenges that a SaaS CEO should be aware of even before they start planning for this expansion?

**Rick Pizzoli** (2:51)
Yeah. I mean, European companies typically go a little bit earlier. They might be the 2-3 million level mark, just because the addressable market is smaller. You're right. US companies are probably 5-10 million. So it's typically series B when the US companies were looking over. The number one is really to be really prepared and have a strong home market. Have a clear, ideal customer profile established, solid products of really good customer or product market fit in your home market. Good sales processes, so good lead generation strategies, outbound, good digital marketing strategies to get inbound, good sales processes, and good metrics. So having all those really established in your home market well, then you start planning for international and then planning is really the first step in going international.

**Ray Rike** (3:38)
Well, that's pretty solid device. Make sure you have a repeatable and scalable customer acquisition process in your own country before you say, well, it's not working well here, maybe it'll work better in Europe. Good solid device. But you mentioned something there about the planning process, right? because we talked a lot here when we first kind of launched to get product market fit in US marketplace. We talk about ideal customer profile, buyer persona. We think about our messaging and value proposition. Do we have to do that again when we first enter the European marketplace, Rick?

**Rick Pizzoli** (4:12)
Well, you certainly have to understand it for your home market and you have to have it documented well for your home market. We speak with thousands of companies, we've helped hundreds of companies, and nobody has it documented. They all come to us and they say, we want to launch Europe. I say, great, send me your plan, let's have the first call. They say, let's have the first call, and then we'll talk about the plan. Nobody's got it documented. The first thing we ask them is, tell me your metrics about your home market. How are you selling today? Who's your ideal customer profile? What's your best target vertical you want to get into? How have you structured your home team? Now let's take a look at Europe. What are your revenue objectives for Europe? What is your budget to expand within Europe? Have you done any kind of market planning?