Craig Klein

Founder and CEO, SalesNexus · 1 appearance on the record.

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founderexecutiveauthor@craigklein ↗LinkedIn ↗salesnexus.com ↗

Craig Klein founded SalesNexus in 2003 as a bootstrapped CRM and marketing automation software platform for sales teams following a career leading enterprise sales in the energy sector. He is the author of sales guides including Inside-Out Selling and has served as an entrepreneurship mentor at the University of Houston.

15statements → 9claims → 1claims resolved → 3.67/5average certainty → 1.47/5average debate potential →

0 supported 0 partly supported 1 contradicted 8 not checkable as stated how the 9 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

9 assertions · 1 opinion · 2 insights · 3 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 9 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 1 is resolved, and 8 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Craig argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable contradicted claim

Assertion Contradicted

Klein: Average CRM customer lifetime across the industry is roughly 28 months

“The average customer lifetime in the CRM business is about 28 months, believe it or not.”

Craig Klein Jun 18, 2019 ▶ 8:33 1424 He Launched CRM in 2003, Bootstrapped, now $3.5m in ARR

How they sound: not measured why? →

We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Craig Klein on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.

What they said15 Episodes1

Everything Craig Klein said on Top Founders that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Opinion

Klein: Salesforce beat SalesNexus by raising 'a shitload more money'

“Well, he raised a shitload more money than me.”

Craig Klein Jun 18, 2019 ▶ 3:15 1424 He Launched CRM in 2003, Bootstrapped, now $3.5m in ARR

Disclosure

Klein: SalesNexus bundles in-house implementation unlike competitors

“One of the things that we do is that's different is we include the implementation service In the in what we provide, we don't farm that out to consultants like most of our competitors.”

Craig Klein Jun 18, 2019 ▶ 5:08 1424 He Launched CRM in 2003, Bootstrapped, now $3.5m in ARR

Assertion Contradicted

Klein: Average CRM customer lifetime across the industry is roughly 28 months

“The average customer lifetime in the CRM business is about 28 months, believe it or not.”

Craig Klein Jun 18, 2019 ▶ 8:33 1424 He Launched CRM in 2003, Bootstrapped, now $3.5m in ARR

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Klein: SalesNexus has an average customer lifetime of five years

“Ours is five years.”

Craig Klein Jun 18, 2019 ▶ 9:00 1424 He Launched CRM in 2003, Bootstrapped, now $3.5m in ARR

Insight

Klein: Onboarding customization is the key ingredient for CRM retention

“We got to get them to customize it, right? That's the, that's our magic ingredient.”

Craig Klein Jun 18, 2019 ▶ 9:51 1424 He Launched CRM in 2003, Bootstrapped, now $3.5m in ARR

Insight

Klein: Business owners lack the knowledge needed to manage sales teams

“What I found was that I'm working with all these customers, and there's a lot about managing their sales team that they just don't know, not because they're stupid or anything, it's just they don't know because they're not sales managers, they're business owne…”

Craig Klein Jun 18, 2019 ▶ 15:34 1424 He Launched CRM in 2003, Bootstrapped, now $3.5m in ARR

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Klein: Average SalesNexus customer has 3-4 users paying $150-$200 monthly

“Well, our average customer is about three or four users. You know, so they're paying a 152 hundred dollars a month.”

Craig Klein Jun 18, 2019 ▶ 3:29 1424 He Launched CRM in 2003, Bootstrapped, now $3.5m in ARR

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Klein: SalesNexus has scaled to approximately 5,000 customers

“Now we're at about 5000.”

Craig Klein Jun 18, 2019 ▶ 4:57 1424 He Launched CRM in 2003, Bootstrapped, now $3.5m in ARR

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Klein: SalesNexus generates approximately $3.5 million in annual revenue

“We're doing About three and a half.”

Craig Klein Jun 18, 2019 ▶ 6:09 1424 He Launched CRM in 2003, Bootstrapped, now $3.5m in ARR

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Klein: SalesNexus experiences an annual customer churn rate of about 10%

“Cause we, that's about right. About every year it's about 10%.”

Craig Klein Jun 18, 2019 ▶ 9:27 1424 He Launched CRM in 2003, Bootstrapped, now $3.5m in ARR

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Klein: SalesNexus customer acquisition cost is around $300

“So it's around 300 bucks.”

Craig Klein Jun 18, 2019 ▶ 11:38 1424 He Launched CRM in 2003, Bootstrapped, now $3.5m in ARR

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Klein: One-third of SalesNexus accounts are long-standing single users

“I'd say a third or so of our Businesses single user accounts, you know, they've been with years and years and years.”

Craig Klein Jun 18, 2019 ▶ 7:02 1424 He Launched CRM in 2003, Bootstrapped, now $3.5m in ARR

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Klein: Adding marketing automation allowed SalesNexus to raise prices

“We added probably five years in our marketing automation capabilities, or at least we began to layer those in. And so that allowed us to increase prices.”

Craig Klein Jun 18, 2019 ▶ 7:37 1424 He Launched CRM in 2003, Bootstrapped, now $3.5m in ARR

Disclosure

SalesNexus spends $10k–$15k monthly on paid online ads

“We're spending around 10 to 15 K.”

Craig Klein Jun 18, 2019 ▶ 10:44 1424 He Launched CRM in 2003, Bootstrapped, now $3.5m in ARR

Disclosure

Klein: SalesNexus has a total team size of about 20 people

“Oh, we're about 20 people.”

Craig Klein Jun 18, 2019 ▶ 12:38 1424 He Launched CRM in 2003, Bootstrapped, now $3.5m in ARR

Appearances (1)

Episode	Date	Speaking time
1424 He Launched CRM in 2003, Bootstrapped, now $3.5m in ARR	Jun 18, 2019	8m

Craig Klein

The record, in short

Their most notable contradicted claim

How they sound: not measured why? →

Appearances (1)

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