Revenue leaks can make or break a company's growth trajectory, and in today's Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur Spotlight, we're diving deep with Jess Shuman, founder of Revelin, whose journey showcases how life's unexpected turns can lead to entrepreneurial breakthroughs. After experiencing the perfect storm of layoff and new motherhood, she transformed these challenges into an opportunity to help businesses recover the 16% of revenue typically lost to leaks. Her authentic approach to business consulting, stripped of corporate jargon, is changing how companies understand and optimize their revenue potential.
Hi, Jess! Thanks for joining us today. Tell us about your business. Who do you serve, how do you serve them, and what's the impact that your business and work makes?
Revenue leak impedes an organization’s ability to scale. It is defined as each opportunity missed to upsell, cross-sell, expand, maximize value (discounting), and deals that never go live.
The stats are jarring.
- 16% of revenue loss according to CROs is due to leaks (Clari)
- 2T economic value lost (BCG)
- 49% of leaders cannot identify why a deal is stalled and the pipeline dropped. (Clari)
I built Revelin to find and stop revenue leaks. We are experts at identifying anomalies through our assessment and using our proven people, process, and pipeline frameworks.
After the diagnostic, we build an execution plan with levers to pull for impact today and steps to take next.
Our goal is to find that ~16% of revenue loss due to leaks.
Tell us about the moment you finally felt like you went from wantrepreneur to entrepreneur.
Being unable to see the forest through the trees is a constant feeling. You are tapping away and making progress, but it feels like countless meetings and pats on the back from friends. Will I ever break through?
When I received my first website lead from way outside of my network I thought- oh I’ve created something from nothing. The guiding stars along the way get the entrepreneurial fire in your belly going that you have something tangible.
Describe the moment or period in your life/career that motivated you to make the entrepreneurial leap.
I was laid off and had a baby all within a couple of weeks. I’ve been blessed in my career to have the ability to stay at home with Cooper (pictured below!) for almost a year. I had former bosses reach out for opportunities, but I didn’t have that same level of motivation to go back to “corporate”.
Through a very respected friend, I was introduced to my now business partner. He initially planted the “Hey have you thought about consulting?” and I am indebted to that question.
Describe a tool, service, or software that has been a game-changer for your business. How does it contribute to your success?
Google Suite is free ;) Jokes aside - there are many great tools (Loom, Apify, Hunter.io, Squarespace) but starting out Google can get you far!
We know that success is very often a non-linear path. Tell us about a failure, pivot point, or lesson that changed your course or direction and helped to get you where you are today.
On the personal side, I grew up a poor kid from Appalachia. There are more lessons than I can count, but the value of grit, using your resources, and resilience come to mind.
On the entrepreneur side, in the first 30 days of announcing my company, a referral came in ready to buy. In my mind (and ego) I thought: "See how easy this is going to be?" I received a verbal and started working on the deployment plan. This yes turned to a no. There are many lessons learned. One is to always have a strong pipeline, and learn from the no's (as hard as they sometimes can be).
What unconventional strategy did you employ that significantly impacted your business?
I had to break down some of the typical business “norms” and realize that my authentic self had been masked in the spirit of accommodating and climbing the corporate ladder.
For example, early on I was building a “what we do” type mission statement. It was wordy and filled with business jargon. My partner said to create a mission statement you could read at a dinner party that wouldn’t make people want to leave. That stuck with me.
When you are on your own and selling yourself - it’s you. I learned to be my authentic self and to (try) and remove the jargon.
What’s something you wish you knew sooner that you’d give as advice for aspiring or newer entrepreneurs?
Your current network is important to validate/ challenge some early hypotheses but expand beyond that into any group you can think of like Slack communities, W2E community, Matcha, Toastmasters, National Speaking Association, etc. Get comfortable being uncomfortable.
I also can be a perfectionist. That won’t work as you are building and flying the plane. Be OK with good enough to keep going! If I didn’t think something was good enough or I didn’t have the perfect pitch I would shy away from it. Go after it because without planting seeds you have nothing.
Want to dive deeper into Jess's work? Follow the links below!
- Visit Revelin's website revelinsolutions.com
- Connect with Jess on LinkedIn: Jess (Gard) Shuman
- Read Jess's article – Stop Revenue Leak: How a Revenue Operations Consultant Boosts Growth
