Paul Stansik

I love working with tech companies. The products are literally magic. Technology helps us do things instantly that used to take us weeks - or in some cases, weren't even possible. But making that magic make sense is really hard. Why? A 🧵on storytelling in software. 👇

@SahilBloom “Figures it out.” Maybe the #1 habit of a Simplifier. (And what Complicators resist the most.) open.substack.com/pub/helloopera…

The best career advice I ever received: There's nothing more valuable than someone who can just figure it out. Do some work. Ask the key questions. Get it done. Repeat. If you do that, people will fight over you.

@paulswaney3 Not personal instruction, but it's free. (And includes some great stuff around what to do with sales call recordings/notes.) hellooperator.substack.com/p/ai-101

I need to kick up my AI usage Please DM me a proposal for 3-5 hours of paid instruction if you are interested. Needs to be this week via Zoom I know there’s a way I can get this better, but I don’t know what tools to use to synthesize everything better and faster I have 15 docs flying around for strategy session prep after 13 site visits, multiple maturity assessments, 5 ride longs with sales force, more data than you can imagine

I don’t think either of them posted it, but the recent pod where @PaulStansik interviews @cjgustafson is really, really good.

@jjtejkl @cjgustafson Thanks sir. We had fun.

@moneyfetishist Best offense is a good defense. The best execs are all hyper paranoid about basic execution. hellooperator.substack.com/p/dont-drop-th…

I don’t particularly like John but he’s absolutely right on this And the people complaining about PE being “too operational” are missing the entire fucking point Your only goal in PE is to not fuck up the investment That’s it Everything else - the models, the frameworks, the strategic memos, the board presentations - is just theater around that core objective Don’t fuck it up And the only way to not fuck it up is to actually understand what’s happening in the business at an operational level You can’t delegate that understanding to someone else You can’t outsource it to consultants You have to know it yourself There are imo exactly three ways to generate returns in PE: 1. Financial engineering - buy cheap, use leverage, sell expensive, hope multiples expand 2. Regulatory/informational asymmetry - know something the market doesn’t, exploit it before it gets priced in 3. Operational improvement - actually make the business better Financial engineering stopped working in 2022 when rates went up The easy multiple expansion cycle is over Regulatory/informational asymmetry exists but it’s rare and requires deep domain expertise most operators don’t have Which leaves operational improvement That’s the only lever that actually works consistently And operational improvement requires operational work I don’t care how you generate the returns You want to find regulatory asymmetry and exploit it? Great, do that You want to use engineering expertise to redesign production processes? Perfect, do that You want to implement operational improvements through better systems and management? Fine, do that The method doesn’t matter What matters is that you have to actually do something that creates value And whatever that something is, it requires getting your hands dirty understanding how the business actually works You can’t create value from a conference room You can’t generate returns by showing up to board meetings four times a year You have to be in the business When I look at investments, I’m thinking about one thing particular: what could kill this Not what’s the upside case Not what multiple we’ll exit at What are the ten things that could fuck this up And then how do I prevent or mitigate each one That requires operational knowledge I need to know: - Which customers are actually profitable versus which ones destroy margins - Which suppliers have us by the balls versus which ones we can renegotiate - Which processes are fragile versus which ones are robust - Which employees are critical versus which ones are replaceable - Which systems work versus which ones are held together with duct tape - Which regulations matter versus which ones are irrelevant I can’t know any of that from financial statements I can only know it from operational work The best operators I know are obsessed with not fucking things up They’re not optimizing for maximum upside They’re optimizing for minimum downside They want to understand every risk and control it That requires being operationally involved You can’t control risks you don’t understand You can’t understand risks without operational knowledge The people who say “I didn’t join PE to be an operator” are the people who don’t understand risk They think the risk is in the deal selection It’s not The risk is in the execution after you buy

@PEoperator @paulswaney3 @PrivatEquityGuy brb betting my career on this

Operators are more important than ever as private equity is dealing with two harsh realities. @paulswaney3 & @PrivatEquityGuy both had recent tweets which express current sentiment and triggered this thought for me… Here’s my take on the two realities: 1. The era of up and to the right rapid multiple expansion is over. 2. Anyone can financially engineer returns (becoming commoditized). That leaves two options to generate returns: 1. Have an investing angle (rare) 2. Improve the companies Both are hard. It’s hard to have an angle. Even an industry specialist is competing with other industry specialists. That’s not enough. That leaves operating. I think this will increasingly be the emphasis for PE firms. Yes they will do deals, yes they will use leverage. But increasingly they will need to be GREAT at assessing talent and driving operational improvement. NOT tracking “initiatives” in a spreadsheet- actually driving execution So I expect operating partners to become more prevalent and for proven managers to be more in demand. You could even see a shift in the associate path to more ops heavy (see my post yesterday) pre-VP. This is my view on the current landscape. I don’t know everything but I do know it’s a very different world today vs 5 yrs ago. Very different. And I think it favors operators.

@techsaleshackz Seems like you discovered something important: Frameworks are great but eventually you have to make the job your own. Wrote something on this on the topic (including how and when to put your authentic spin on the fundamentals) you might enjoy. hellooperator.substack.com/p/why-sales-su…

I didn't get really good at sales until I learned how to relax during discovery calls The biggest thing that lead to this breakthrough was when I started treating sales calls like conversations I threw MEDDIC, BANT, and frameworks out the window I sat there in my chair & started talking to prospects like human beings Finally started closing deals Deal after deal My manager would talk about how i'm so good at sales, this and that But the funny part was I threw everything that people teach about sales out the window man Just started trying to connect w/ people It worked

@dklineii And kindness theater kills companies. hellooperator.substack.com/p/what-kills-c…

Harsh truth: "Psychological Safety" has become code for mediocrity. The concept's been weaponized. Underperformers use it to shield against feedback. But high performance requires clear standards and psychological safety. One without the other is just corporate kindness theatre.

@PEoperator Smart vs. useful. There is a difference. hellooperator.substack.com/p/smart-vs-use…

Lots of folks from PE or finance want to get into operator roles. The #1 mistake I see them make when pitching themselves is focusing on strategy vs execution. We don’t need strategy. We need execution. Ideas don’t generate EBITDA. Execution does.

@businessbarista It's always hard. Gets easier when you start by identifying what chapter your business is in: 1. figure it out 2. fix it up 3. or scale it up Then all you have to do is assess for what matters most for that chapter. More on how to do that here: hellooperator.substack.com/p/what-ceos-sh…

Sales leaders are painfully hard hires to make. Experts in persuasion. Super high talk-to-walk ratio. If you mess it up, it can cost your business 12+ months and tons of revenue. I definitely haven’t figured making this hire out.

@jjen_abel Louder

(run for cover)

@lennysan @jasonlk The “figure it out” gtm people. (Warning: They’re rare.) hellooperator.substack.com/p/what-ceos-sh…

@jasonlk Who are the 1%

Noticing a trend: Lots of asks from early-stage founders looking for intros to great B2B GTM people. With AI making it so much easier to build, distribution/GTM is becoming harder to crack.

This sends the signal that call recording software isn't "gotcha" technology (it shouldn't be) and improves your culture literally overnight. Those are my top 5. But what did I miss? Any other favorites?

Share customer questions, competitive talking points, examples where they nailed the pitch, great cold calls, props for great demo collaboration with pre-sales, etc. Anything that (a) people are proud of /or and (b) are examples of "what good looks like" should be fair game.

5 underrated ways to build a high-performance sales culture (🧵)