The Real Reason We Held Our First SKO

We held our first SKO last week. And I’ve been thinking about it since.

When Jim and I started Troubadour, we were a two-person operation. Shared context was automatic since it was just the two of us. As we’ve grown, keeping that alignment has become one of the harder and more important things we do.

The SKO was the most intentional investment we’ve made in it yet.

What an SKO Is Actually For

Here’s what I think the real value of an SKO is, at least for a company like ours: it’s the moment where your engineers and your salespeople get on the same page. Not just about what you’re selling, but about why customers care. About what a problem actually costs someone, and what it looks like when it gets solved. That matters more in technical services than people realize.

The Gap Between Technical Work and Business Conversations

The work our team does — networking, security architecture, data center deployments — is genuinely complex. But the conversations that lead to that work aren’t always technical. They’re business conversations. And there’s a real gap that can develop between the people who do the work and the people who talk about it.

The SKO is one of the best tools we have for closing that gap. I won’t pretend we’ve figured this out. But I walked away from last week believing our team understands not just what we do, but who it’s for and what it changes for them.

That feels like a foundation worth building on.

If you’re a founder or sales leader who’s thought hard about how to run one of these well, I’d genuinely like to hear what’s worked for you.

– Mark Arsenault, Co-Founder