Building a Scalable Outbound Sales System: How Runway Helped Homegrown Transform Their Business Development

Homegrown offers innovative revenue-sharing agreements (RSAs) that allow multi-location neighborhood businesses to expand without sacrificing equity or taking on traditional debt. With a lean team focused on numerous business development channels—from partnerships and broker relationships to events and warm introductions—they lacked a systematic approach to cold outbound sales.

As their CEO explained: "Cold outbounding is something that we did because everyone does it, but it really wasn't much of a process." Without proper systems in place, the founders were handling outreach through ad-hoc emails with no tracking, qualification, or follow-up structure. With limited bandwidth and competing priorities, they needed a solution to build a scalable outbound motion while accurately measuring its effectiveness.

Homegrown engaged a Runway talent for 4.5 months to build their outbound sales infrastructure from scratch. The project focused on:

• CRM Implementation: Transforming their existing Salesforce instance into an organized, data-driven sales tool with proper documentation and reporting capabilities
• Lead Qualification: Developing and implementing a qualification framework specifically designed for their unique lending criteria
• Outbound Process Creation: Building repeatable workflows for prospect research, outreach, and follow-up
• Content Development: Creating tailored email templates and messaging approaches for different business segments
• Analytics & Reporting: Establishing KPIs and building visual dashboards to track performance

The Runway talent worked directly with Homegrown's CEO to understand their ideal customer profile and develop a system that would properly identify and qualify prospects based on their specific lending requirements—including number of locations, point-of-sale systems, and access to C-suite contacts.

While the project didn't immediately translate to closed revenue (as expected in their event-driven sales cycle where deals depend on construction timelines), it delivered substantial business value across multiple dimensions:

Operational Excellence: The systematized approach to outbound freed leadership from administrative tasks and created a foundation that their new full-time business development hire could immediately leverage.

Board-Ready Reporting: As their CEO highlighted, "I was able to create a funnel or Sankey diagram for our board meeting, which got a lot of praise from the VCs because most startups don't have this level of granularity with their data."

Tangible Pipeline: The project generated 150+ qualified leads and 4-5 qualified meetings, creating a foundation for future business with prospects that may convert when they enter active expansion phases.

Structured Follow-up: The new system ensures no potential customer falls through the cracks, allowing Homegrown to maintain relationships with prospects until they're ready to expand.

Business Insights: The engagement revealed the importance of creative, visually-engaging outreach in their market, influencing their broader marketing strategy.

The impact extended beyond the immediate metrics, ultimately influencing Homegrown's approach to team building. Following the project's success, they hired a full-time business development partner who could build upon the foundation established through Runway.

Their CEO summed up the value: "Since when I started with Runway to now, there's been a development where I'm like, 'OK, maybe you've got to be more creative with your outbounding notes, and not necessarily with just words.'"