Well, Now You Know The Truth

Meet Host, Mary Grothe

Mary Grothe is a former #1 MidMarket B2B Sales Rep who after selling millions and breaking multiple records, formed House of Revenue®, a Denver-based firm of fractional Revenue Leaders who currently lead the marketing, sales, customer success, and RevOps departments for 10 companies nationwide. In the past year, they've helped multiple 2nd stage growth companies between $5M - $20M, on average, double their MRR within 10 months, resulting in an average ROI of 1,454% and an average annual revenue growth eclipsing $3.2 million.

Don't Have Time to Listen, Read The Full Transcription.

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Mary Grothe: Welcome to the House of Revenue®. I'm Mary Grothe, the Founder and CEO. I love scaling companies to their first 5 million then 10, 15, and 20. If you've reached a revenue plateau and aren't sure how to get past it, you're in the right place. Listen in as we interview CEOs and solve their most pressing revenue challenges, if you want to be on our show, or want to learn more, connect with us at houseofrevenue.com.

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All right, we're back in today is spreading the good news. Let me give you the rundown. Here's what happened. I recorded an episode last week right before I went on vacation. Man, I was coming off a few crazy weeks. I could even be so bold as to say months I was worn out, tired, discouraged, and I needed that vacation. I can't even begin to tell you. CEOs get out there. Take your vacations. It was the first real vacation I was attempting to unplug and take in about four years. Boy, it was needed.

Let me just break down what happened for you. I recorded an episode. I wasn't in the best place. I think it went live on Tuesday or Wednesday. I heard a little bit of the playback. I thought, you know, "this just isn't good radio." I'm not putting goodness into the world, so I asked my team to take it down. I'm going to redo it for you today. Those of you who subscribe to the podcast got it automatic download. So if you listen to it, bear with me. I'm all better. Things are great. Sorry for the somber episode. But hey, that's life.

I think part of being a CEO is being honest. That's what this show is for me. This is a pathway to talk to other CEOs to say, I get you, I see you, I hear you. This road isn't easy. But man, when it's good, it is so good. It is so joyous. Being a CEO can absolutely be one of the greatest experiences I believe life has to offer. I'm so thankful for this role. In last week's episode, all that I said was that we had just a bit of a wake-up call around burnout. Our team was working so hard just round the clock to deliver excellent work. Fortunately, and unfortunately, our pipeline just wasn't slowing down. There has been such a demand for our services in the market for which we are so thankful. We kept bringing clients on and bringing clients on, which put stress and pressure on the team.

Finally, I just had a couple of team members look at me and say this isn't sustainable. We have to pump the brakes. This isn't working. We have to slow down. I was looking at my calendar, looking at the lineup of business development meetings that we had. I thought, "Oh my goodness, what do I do?" So, we made the decision to put waitlist language all over our website. I think we're gonna be able to lift it soon. We're recruiting like crazy right now. We're just in such a fortunate position. It was weird for me because I'm a former top salesperson. All I ever want to do is sell, sell, sell, sell, sell. But it's very interesting, running a company where I'm on both sides of it - selling it and servicing it. Well, I don't do this service anymore, but my team does. I oversee that, and I want to make sure our team is well taken care of.

The point of the episode last week was to announce that we went on waitlist mode. Thankfully, looking at the amazing talent that is in our recruiting pipeline. We're so excited. We're gonna be extending some offers and just had one accepted this morning. Going to have a couple more offers extended by Tuesday. We're going to get our new team members trained, ready to go and get them embedded here in some teams and continue to bring on work. We are so fortunate and so thankful for the companies out there looking to do business with us. So hey, stay tuned. It could just be a matter of a few weeks before we're signing paperwork.

All right. So the other exciting thing we got to do is our company, House of Revenue®, won the Colorado Companies to Watch award and attended the big Gala Friday night. What a fun time. I got to wear a pink and purple ombre ball gown with that real fine tool. So pretty. I had the greatest time. My husband got to join us. Our Denver-based team went out and had a very fun night celebrating, so thank you to Colorado Companies to Watch for selecting us as a winner. There were some great speakers and presenters at the Gala. There was a female CEO up there. Man, she was just speaking my language. Forgive me. I can't think of her name. She's the CEO of Etoptics. Oh my gosh, everything that she said. I think at one point while she's talking and I just said, "Get it, girl!" from the audience force, drawing attention to myself, but that's okay. I bet she’s tremendous. Got to hear from OtterBox and hear their history, backstory, and some really exciting things in their company.

Truly an amazingly well-put-together event. We are so honored and so thankful to accept this award. They sent out the fun fact that Colorado Companies to Watch has been in existence for 13 years. They have 650 winners, and over 10,000 companies have applied and 50 won. We feel very fortunate to have been given this award. Truly, truly, thank you. We are forever a Colorado Company to Watch. It's so exciting.

Okay, what's next for us? There was something so interesting when I was at that event, thinking about the heart of the CEO. It was incredible to be there watching videos. They had some former winners that did interviews on the videos. I'm listening to these CEOs talk about risk, challenge, perseverance, not giving up, having a heart for their customers, their people. I was so inspired after watching those videos and realizing that I'm not alone. As a CEO, it can be very lonely up here. I am so thankful that I got to sit in a community at the Gala amongst other CEOs. But you know, it's neat. It's also coming right after the Colorado Thought Leaders Forum CEO Event.

Earlier in October, and yet again, I was sitting around the room with many second-stage or more mature companies. I think they are 3 million above in revenue. Sitting with just 100 plus CEOs in the room, looking around like these are my people. This is my community. These people get me. So fortunate. So honored. So thankful to be a part of this community. Go hug a CEO. We need it from time to time. Oh goodness. Well, I'm keeping today's episode short. I wanted to recap and help explain if anybody realized or saw that last week's episode was taken down. It's just a summary here. We're on a waitlist. We're lifting that waitlist here very soon. We are so excited to be staffing up with some new team members, and we’re thankful for the award that we won.

The last thing I'm going to close out and talk about, and this was something I brought up last week on the now-deleted episode, is I had really lost sight of who I was. I was so in the weeds for so long - working crazy hours from 5am. Some nights I was working past 9pm, which is very late for me. Usually, I'm in bed by like 8:55, so working after nine o'clock is very difficult for me to sustain seven days a week - crazy hours. So in the weeds, and I just lost sight of who I was. You can go to marygrothe.com and read about who I am. I will confess, I lost sight of that. I became so ingrained in firefighting mode and was so deep in the weeds that I was just trying to solve everybody's problems and do right by everybody. I wasn't taking care of myself, my family. It's bad.

100 CEOs won an award earlier this year, the Titan 100, and I was one of them. They're highlighting a different CEO a few times a week. My post went out this week, and they chose a quote, and the quote was, I was surprised that I had even said it. It was a quote where I was boldly proclaiming my faith as a Christian woman and talking about what God created us for our God-given talents, and what I believe the purpose of our company is. It hit me like a two-by-four - I forgot who I was. I forgot what mission I'm on. I've just been so in the weeds. I read those words. I didn't even know who said them. It was me.

Anyway, I'm back in action. I'm feeling very whole. Disneyland was fun. I'm so thankful for my executive team. I'm so thankful for everybody on our team. We just had our quarterly meeting on Friday. Everybody is centered. Everybody is ready to finish out a very strong Q4. I will think of a great topic for all of us on next week's episode. I just wanted to drop a short word for this, so you had a quick summary and recap of what is going on. I will come up with something very meaningful and thoughtful for the next episode. Have a great week.

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Thanks for listening to today's episode. If you're interested in being on our show or want to learn more about how we can help you scale your company, connect with us at houseofrevenue.com or with me Mary Grothe spelled G-R-O-T-H-E on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Instagram.

Connect with House of Revenue® on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.

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