Leading Sales in high growth environments-Leading Sales in high growth environments

Video Transcription

Video Summary

Ian Ewers, Chief Revenue Officer at Reliance ACSN, shared lessons from seven years leading sales in high-growth cybersecurity businesses. He contrasted the common perception of high growth—celebration and big wins—with the reality of constant change, challenges, and problem-solving.<br /><br />He described two company journeys: MWR, which grew from 120 people and £11m revenue to 420 people and nearly £50m before being acquired by F-Secure, and Reliance ACSN, where growth has reached 36% with a target range of 40–60%. Key themes were people, planning/targets, and culture.<br /><br />On people, he stressed always recruiting, not compromising on hires, and looking beyond industry experience to find people with the right attitude, curiosity, and fit. He used creative interview methods like virtual escape rooms and sales simulations to test how candidates think under pressure.<br /><br />On planning and targets, he emphasized “making the boat go faster,” encouraging healthy challenge, quick failure and replanning, and flexible forecasting in volatile environments. He also highlighted the importance of trust when targets need to be adjusted up or down due to events outside a salesperson’s control.<br /><br />On culture, he argued that perfection is unrealistic, change is constant, and businesses often operate in crisis mode across sales, people, delivery, and technology. Strong leadership, open communication, and collaboration between sales and other teams are essential.

Keywords

cybersecurity sales

high-growth businesses

recruitment strategy

sales forecasting

company culture

leadership

team collaboration

target planning

growth challenges