Roger Sholanki knows what it takes to build, scale, and exit. The Toronto-based serial entrepreneur has spent his entire career building software companies and has three successful exits under his belt. In 2004, he turned his attention to Book4Time, which he founded to simplify how service-based businesses managed reservations.
By 2015, Book4Time’s platform powered operations for Four Seasons, Hyatt, and Starwood Hotels & Resorts across more than 30 countries.
The platform was thriving, but behind the company's growth was a common problem: unpredictable sales.
“We were great on the tech side, but I was the one selling and closing deals myself,” Sholanki says. “We couldn’t scale.”
Forecasts were unreliable, hiring experienced sales leaders hadn’t worked, and performance varied wildly. “I must have gone through half a dozen false hires,” Sholanki remembers. “A few months in, things just wouldn’t work out.”
Sholanki's goal was to step out of founder-led selling and build a professional, data-driven sales organization capable of consistent, quarter-over-quarter growth—the kind investors reward.
One day, Sholanki received a package containing two fuzzy dice and a note: "Don’t Gamble on Your Next Sales Hire. Hire Sales Academy." Sholanki ignored it for weeks, until a particularly frustrating morning with a deal gone sideways prompted him to take a call with Sales Academy founder Sean Anderson.
“I was ready for a sales pitch,” Sholanki says. “Instead, Sean spent an hour asking deep questions about our business. It felt like sales therapy.”
What began as a conversation turned into a consulting engagement—and eventually a complete three-step sales transformation.
1. Moving From Demos to Discovery
Most SaaS companies default to demo-first selling. Sales Academy introduced the CustomerCentric Selling® framework, emphasizing discovery before demonstration.
“Once we slowed down and focused on real buyer pain, our conversations changed,” Sholanki says. “Buyers had more confidence and we faced less resistance on pricing.”
2. Building a Better Hiring System
Selling a $99 product requires different skills than selling a $10,000 enterprise solution. To find true enterprise sellers, Sales Academy implemented psychometric assessments and structured interviews that identified motivation, drive, and curiosity as key traits.
Every new hire now goes through personalized onboarding and coaching, including recorded call reviews and targeted feedback. “That’s how we built the caliber of salespeople we needed,” Sholanki explains.
3. Creating Messaging That Resonates with Enterprise Buyers
Book4Time refined their positioning and story to match the sophistication of its market.
“Sean helped us align how we talked about the product with how enterprise buyers think,” Sholanki says. “Our messaging finally made sense."
Within the first year, Book4Time's sales organization was almost unrecognizable. Forecasts became reliable, onboarding accelerated, and hiring errors dropped sharply.
“Sales Academy replaced our gut feel with data,” Sholanki says. “We could finally predict who would sell—before we even hired them.”
That predictability attracted a growth investment from Serent Capital, providing Book4Time with the resources to scale globally and ultimately pursue a strategic acquisition.
“You’re better off growing 20% every year than 50% one year and 5% the next. Predictable growth builds confidence, and confidence drives valuation,” he adds.
While Book4Time adopted new processes, Sholanki says the biggest change was mental discipline.
He credits three mindset shifts for lasting impact:
Book4Time’s story shows how a founder-driven SaaS company can evolve into a scalable, investor-ready enterprise. With guidance from Sales Academy, Sholanki turned unpredictability into precision—and built a sales engine strong enough to power a $150 million exit.
“We stopped gambling on sales,” he reflects. “Once we built the system, everything else followed.”