Garen Hess

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

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founderexecutiveauthor@garin_hess ↗LinkedIn ↗goconsensus.com ↗

Garin Hess is the founder and CEO of Consensus, a demo automation software platform. He is also the author of the enterprise sales book Selling is Hard. Buying is Harder.

11statements → 6claims → 0claims resolved → 3.91/5average certainty → 1.55/5average debate potential →

6 not checkable as stated how the 6 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 5 assertions · 2 opinions · 1 insight · 2 disclosures · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 6 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 0 are resolved, and 6 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 Garen argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

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 Garen Hess on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.

What they said11 Episodes1

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

Insight

Hess: Transitioning from SMB to enterprise is harder than starting over

“Moving from small business to enterprise focus will be as hard or harder as starting your company over. Starting your company in the first place. And it was actually really good advice and I've appreciated that because even though I knew it was going to be cha…”

Garen Hess Jul 30, 2019 ▶ 13:16 1466 Sales Demo Tool Passes $3m in ARR, Transitions To Enterprise

Disclosure

Hess: Consensus enterprise segment grows 50% amid flat overall revenue growth

“Right now we're seeing pretty flat growth because we've been seeing a change in our focus, so we've been focusing mostly on enterprise, and so we've seen a growth rate of about 50% annually in our enterprise, but overall we've been pretty flat just because we'…”

Garen Hess Jul 30, 2019 ▶ 10:03 1466 Sales Demo Tool Passes $3m in ARR, Transitions To Enterprise

Opinion

Hess: Building custom content for clients was a massive mistake

“The problem is the content phase building out Content turned out to be a massive mistake.”

Garen Hess Jul 30, 2019 ▶ 15:20 1466 Sales Demo Tool Passes $3m in ARR, Transitions To Enterprise

Opinion

Garen Hess recommends Riverside Acceleration Capital over competitors like Lighter Capital

“I would highly recommend them to any entrepreneurs looking around for that out there because I looked at a lot of other firms like lighter capital and others and nothing against the other firms, but these guys have been awesome.”

Garen Hess Jul 30, 2019 ▶ 17:20 1466 Sales Demo Tool Passes $3m in ARR, Transitions To Enterprise

Prediction Not checkable as stated

Hess: Consensus expects enterprise expansion to fully offset churn

“We really expect to be able to make all of that up at some point through expansions because we're starting to have some expansion, you know, very large expansion discussions with some of our enterprise customers.”

Garen Hess Jul 30, 2019 ▶ 19:14 1466 Sales Demo Tool Passes $3m in ARR, Transitions To Enterprise

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Consensus average deal size is about $17,000 per year

“Average deal size is about 17,000 dollars a year.”

Garen Hess Jul 30, 2019 ▶ 6:06 1466 Sales Demo Tool Passes $3m in ARR, Transitions To Enterprise

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Hess: ADP split test showed 44% increase in close rates with Consensus

“ADP, when they first came on back in 2014, they started with 80 sales reps and they did the split test for 90 days where they had every rep, every other deal they would use consensus as part of the sales conversation. And sales process. And then they compared …”

Garen Hess Jul 30, 2019 ▶ 7:48 1466 Sales Demo Tool Passes $3m in ARR, Transitions To Enterprise

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Hess: Lack of content is the main reason SMB customers churn

“Six months after they bought the software, They don't have content, and I would say that's the number one reason that the small business accounts are churning because they just struggle to get the content in there.”

Garen Hess Jul 30, 2019 ▶ 16:02 1466 Sales Demo Tool Passes $3m in ARR, Transitions To Enterprise

Disclosure

Hess: Consensus experiences approximately 28% gross revenue churn

“Yeah, gross revenue churn's been at about 28%.”

Garen Hess Jul 30, 2019 ▶ 18:21 1466 Sales Demo Tool Passes $3m in ARR, Transitions To Enterprise

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Consensus typically enters accounts with around 25 seats

“We typically get in a lot of companies have about 25 seats. And then they scale up from there.”

Garen Hess Jul 30, 2019 ▶ 6:21 1466 Sales Demo Tool Passes $3m in ARR, Transitions To Enterprise

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Consensus spends $14,500 in CAC to acquire a $17,000 ACV customer

“We spend about 14, five.”

Garen Hess Jul 30, 2019 ▶ 19:55 1466 Sales Demo Tool Passes $3m in ARR, Transitions To Enterprise

Appearances (1)

Episode	Date	Speaking time
1466 Sales Demo Tool Passes $3m in ARR, Transitions To Enterprise	Jul 30, 2019	12m

Garen Hess

The record, in short

How they sound: not measured why? →

Appearances (1)

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