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Guest: Peter Platten, Chief Revenue Officer of Protos Security. Peter joined the company in 2020 and has helped lead its transformation from a $150 million organization to a $750 million revenue firm today.
Overview: Private equity doesn’t reward incremental thinking. It rewards leaders who can scale under pressure, build systems that outperform, and push past what most teams believe is possible to Make BIG Happen.
On today’s show, Peter Platten explains his four-move framework to grow fast in a private equity environment. He also discusses how to build teams that overshoot goals instead of simply meeting them and why systems-thinking — not siloed optimization — is the real key to exponential success.
Peter Platten on “pushing the possible”:
“ Some folks will say, ‘It’s too difficult,’ or, ‘It’s too lofty.’ But we’ll take a look at what our goals are, what the time period is, and then we’ll work backwards. And by doing that, we’re able to get more intentional as opposed to hopeful. And when we look at what those goals need to be, building our structure is to account for the overage. I know that if we set our goal on $100 million or $200 million, we’re going to come in at $50 million or $150 million. So we set those goals a bit higher to build in some insurance around the process. And then we just have to make sure that we attract the right talent, apply the right processes, structure, training, and technology to support us in that effort.”
Peter Platten on hiring for commitment in a high-pressure environment:
”I have a way that I approach the recruiting process, and it’s what I call ‘The Four Cs’: it’s Character, Commitment, Competency, and Culture. I have a rubric essentially that marries up to those things, and if one of them is off, then it just doesn’t work. So you can have somebody that has good character and you think they’d fit in great in the culture. And, based on their resume, they seem to be very competent. But at the end of the day, are they going to be truly committed? Especially in a PE world where I’m looking for folks that have grit, stick-to-itiveness, folks that are really looking to go the distance. So it’s important that we identify folks that have all four. And we do our best. There are times that we don’t make the right hire, but we definitely limit the number of times that we miss.”
Peter Platten on driving accountability by “getting visible”:
“We look to drive what I call company-wide accountability. You want to run a marathon? Tell the world. Or like my SVP of marketing says, ‘Tell a toddler,’ because they’ll never let you forget it. So we get visible with what our goals are that helps us drive our accountability.
“It’s both internal and external. Last year we went through the next generation of our branding. ‘Security that never settles.’ We also created something called the Protos Promise where everybody got involved, from the C team to the field team. Everybody wrote out their Protos Promise. Those were put up in every office and it was very visible for everybody to see. We have visibility around our sales results, around our measurement of fulfilled hours for the obligations we have to clients, a number of things. It’s the commitment that we’ve made to our clients. We will not settle. There are times that we are going to make a mistake or screw up, but we won’t settle. We’ll make sure that we get it right. We believe in getting vocal and visible with our promises to not just our clients in the marketplace but also to our employees and to our teammates.”
Links:
How Not to Get Fired As a PE-Backed CEO – You’ve all heard the story. Private equity funds a company…and there goes the CEO. Why does this happen?
Why PE Firms Should Engage Coaches for Their Portco CEOs – CEO Coaching International’s Randy Dewey discusses how our team works with private equity firms and their portco CEOs to accelerate growth, improve execution, and maximize returns.
About CEO Coaching International
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