Episode 49

full
Published on:

21st Jun 2024

Improving Productivity and Creating Repeatable Processes With Jeff Ignacio and Laura Fu

Our host, Jeff Ignacio, sits down with Laura Fu, VP of Revenue Operations and Productivity. They talk about managing the entire customer journey and which metrics to focus on, including pipeline coverage and NRR. They also look into how to optimise the sales funnel in a scaleable and repeatable way and how to inspire and incentivize reps. Finally, they discuss what data is the most important to track and analyse and how to build a tech stack.

Transcript
Speaker:

Audio - with jingle: Hi Laura,

how are you doing today?

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I'm very well, thank you very much.

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Well, today I'm joined by Laura Fu,

formerly VP of RebOps and Productivity

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over at Olo, but Beyond that, I'd

love Laura to give a little bit of

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introduction to her own experience

to share with the guest today.

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Jeff, thank you so much.

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Um, I, um, recently, uh, came

from Ola, where I was their VP

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of, um, RevOps and productivity.

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And, um, my mission is to help

revenue teams scale and accelerate and

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operate, um, at maximum efficiency.

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So what I think is interesting there is

you have, Productivity in your job title.

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So, for example, in my job title, I

have the word growth, but you can grow,

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you know, inefficiently or efficiently.

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So I'm actually curious, how did

productivity come into your job title?

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And then what did that mean exactly

for helping your sales team?

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What a great question.

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Um, I think about productivity

as, um, helping our sales team.

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Again, operate at maximum

efficiency, right?

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So it's to be as productive as possible.

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And, uh, that means that they're

equipped with all of the right tools

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and they're really efficient in terms

of both how they go to market, how

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they execute deals, um, how they close

business, how they qualify out deals.

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So that's how I think about,

um, you know, productivity.

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So when we think about.

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You know, I put myself in the

position of a sales rep when I'm

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designing systems or processes.

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I personally like to use user stories.

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So it's a simple Madlib.

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It's as a X, I want to Y so I can

accomplish, you know, W, right?

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So as a SDR, I want to Show up to

work, have my list curated so I

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can quickly and efficiently reach

as many contacts as possible.

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Is there a framework or set of

metrics that you use to work

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backwards from in terms of measuring

productivity for different sales roles?

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Um, yes.

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So I would say, for example, um, As

an AE, I want to generate as much

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pipeline as possible so that I can

effectively qualify and convert

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those leads into close one business.

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You caught on very

quickly there, by the way.

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So is it just sales reps that

you've been supporting or is it

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sales development reps, pre sales?

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Like tell me about the entire sales team.

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Great question.

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So primarily I work with um,

AEs because that's usually where

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we, you know, start our focus.

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But, um, my, my experience has been, um,

with supporting the entire ecosystem.

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And I really think about go to

market as, um, a team sport, right?

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And so that is, um, the whole customer

engagement from top of the funnel.

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From SDRs and not it's

not just SDRs, right?

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It's also the marketing team.

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It's a partnership team and then it's

how we run through the sales cycle

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including the AEs, the um, um, the

SEs, the pre sales consultants, right?

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And sometimes during the sales cycle,

we also need the help of the SDRs

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because we might need to get in

touch with multiple stakeholders.

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Um, that we, you know, don't have enough

information from and then all the way

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through the post sales, um, portion of

it, which is, you know, customer success

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and customer experience implementations,

et cetera, because that's really where

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our next opportunity comes from, right?

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The CS side of it.

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That's wonderful.

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So productivity, I think, can

be completed with just sales

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productivity, but you're talking about.

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Steel threading the entire customer

experience with all parties and all

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hands who are servicing or supporting The

customer right from marketing generating

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awareness to developing interest to

the sales team all the way to the CS

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organization What's a metric that you've?

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Worked on, worked on and centered on,

uh, you know, I'll give you an example.

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In my experience, it was calls per

day to targeted ICP or targeted

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persona for the SDR team, right?

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Cause my SDR team in the past had

been, you know, young 20 somethings,

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you know, First job out of school,

business acumen may not be as high.

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I give them like a one cheater on

who our ICP and who our persona is,

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but they, they don't have enough like

cycles in the business experience to

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really know, you know, why they're

calling a specific individual.

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And so I have to always gauge

and test that our newest SDRs are

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actually calling to the right persona.

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So it's not just number of calls.

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It's actually calls to the right people.

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So I'm curious about a metric that

you've been working on in focus.

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Yeah.

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Um, can I give two?

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Oh, totally.

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Let's do it.

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Okay.

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Awesome.

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So I think if we had to boil down

the entire like auto market or

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revenue rev ops and do like two

metrics, it would be one pipeline

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coverage and two net retention rate.

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Okay, so let's talk

about pipeline coverage.

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Pipeline coverage basically covers

everything from a top of the funnel

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through where we close business, right?

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It's basically telling us, Hey,

how much pipeline do we have?

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And are we effectively

closing that pipeline?

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So are we being productive and

and efficient about the pipeline?

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And, you know, I like to see the

general rule of thumb is three, right?

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So between 3 to 5, a coverage ratio

of between 3 to 5, which means we

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end up closing, you know, a third

or fifth of our business, right?

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Tells us that, um, of all of the leads

that were coming up on coming in of

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all of the, um, work that the SDRs,

the marketing team, the partnerships

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are generating, um, you know, a third

of it is qualified and that's great.

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And then it also tells us that as

we're executing the sales cycle, um,

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The presales consultants, the, you

know, the AEs, the value consultants,

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everybody working together.

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We're doing the right job of, like,

being rigorous about closing business

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and, um, and executing the sales cycle

in a scalable and repeatable way so

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that the conversion rates, um, you

know, are maintained at, at, like,

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industry standards with a benchmark.

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So.

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We're doing a good job

of managing the pipeline.

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That's metric one.

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Metric two is N.

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R.

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R.

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Right?

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N.

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R.

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R.

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Helps us measure whether our clients

are whether our customers are coming

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back, whether they're getting value

from the platform and whether or not

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they're going to be repeated customers

and in most businesses that I, you know,

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have been with in my last roles, right?

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A majority of New dollars to the business

actually came from existing customers.

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So existing customers are our

best, um, prospects basically.

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And so I think the NRR metric

tells us a number of things.

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It tells us whether we're delivering

on the value that we sold them.

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That's one.

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And I think the second thing

that it tells us too, is.

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Hey, did we do a good deal?

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Right?

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So we might be really good at, um,

you know, maybe we've got a good

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relationship with the customer in that

that first pipeline coverage metric.

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But then the second metrics and are

really tells us whether we did a

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good deal and whether the customer

is going to be, you know, happy

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and a long term customer with us.

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Those are all good points.

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So when I think about pipeline coverage,

3x is the heuristic that we use.

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Gives you a sense of, and this is

unweighted pipeline coverage on

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a dollar basis that you should be

winning at roughly a third, but

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what's still missing is, you know,

the progression, the deal velocity,

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which is of the existing pipeline, how

much of it will close and by when and

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at what size and by what percentage,

because that will dictate whether your

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pipeline coverage is correct or not.

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You might need a little bit less if you

have incredible brand equity and things

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just close at a higher percentage.

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Okay.

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If we're also lucky, in a demand

constrained environment like we are

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today, the win rates are a little

bit higher, a little bit lower,

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and the pipeline generation is

something that we keep a keen eye on.

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The NRR metric's really interesting,

because I can imagine that, yes, we

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might be winning at, 25 to 30 points,

30%, but then the NRR for certain

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categories, certain verticals is

actually less than a hundred percent.

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That may not be something that

we want because that sacrifices

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next year's growth, right?

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So if they're going to churn and upsell

up to flat a hundred percent, that

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means that segment is not growing.

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It puts more pressure

on next year's growth.

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So I think one thing to think

through is where are you not

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only winning for acquisition.

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But where are you winning in terms

of repeated and loyal customers

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in terms of as measured by NRR?

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So I love that.

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So beyond the numbers, we, you and

I, before we connected, wanted to

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talk about how do we inspire reps?

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And I think that goes to like management,

leadership, culture, different aspects

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outside of what you see on the paper.

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How do you think about inspiring reps?

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Like what can revenue operations

do in order to work with leadership

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to, you know, motivate reps?

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Yeah.

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Actually, Jeff, let's go back to

that point around the metric, too.

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I was going to see that, um, you know,

your, your point around whether the

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customers come back and, and whether

we're delivering value like that is the

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definition of revenue productivity, right?

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That's us being efficient.

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And so that's why I think

productivity is, you know, the,

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the headline for, um, for RevOps.

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It's, it's really how we

make our teams productive.

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Um, um, And, you know, we also

talked a little bit about, like, the

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coverage ratios and, um, and, uh, you

know, what we, what we might expect.

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And you mentioned the unweighted

number and closing it at, at,

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um, at, at a third, right?

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One thing that I've been really

successful at is actually

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starting to measure pipeline.

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There are two criteria, right?

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The first one is actually.

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From the start of the quarter

through the end of the quarter.

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So it's not just like all time pipeline.

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It's just quarter of a quarter.

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How much coverage do we need

when we start the second thing?

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I think it's more important

when we measure pipeline.

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We're measuring it from a certain

stage in the entire sales cycle,

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not just from stage 1 or stage 0.

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And the stage that I.

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Mostly measure.

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The qualified pipeline is what

we call visible opportunity.

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It's a visible opportunity

when it passes a certain stage.

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And this stage is defined by

a milestone in the sales cycle

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called the new business meeting.

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The new business meeting.

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It's not necessarily the first meeting.

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In fact, it's usually

not the first meeting.

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It's usually a meeting where we're

getting two signals from the customer.

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One, they have a problem

that they'd like to solve.

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And that the solution that we have

as a vendor is a potential solution

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that they've agreed to evaluate.

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So they're essentially, um, they're

essentially at this point, Agreeing

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to enter a sales campaign with us.

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And that's when we start measuring

coverage ratios because it's not

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just like from the very beginning.

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It's like after the customer has

agreed to evaluate and I think that's

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really important because you asked

me about the next point, which is

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how to inspire our reps, right?

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And we still right now live mostly

in a demand generation world.

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We are consistently going out and

educating customers and a lot of new

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technology that's coming out these days.

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Most of us work in companies that maybe

don't have that name brand out there and

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we're solving problems that customers

don't even know that they might have.

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Right?

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So a lot of the front part of

that sales site cycle is really

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spent uncovering Pain, and I

wouldn't even say it's uncovering.

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I think it's educating.

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It's educating the customer about the pain

that they might have, and getting them to

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realize that, hey, this is something that

if we solved, it's going to materially

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change the outcome of our business, and

that's when we enter into a sales campaign

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and start measuring, you know, pipeline.

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Right?

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And so what is one of the best ways that

I've seen, um, Uh, that I've that I've

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seen, uh, help to inspire our reps to be

productive, and I just go back to this.

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If we can show the reps that other

people, their peers have done

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it before, and that they've been

successful, they're going to come back.

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And they're gonna want, they're, they're

gonna feel like they can do it themselves.

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So we, so how to inspire them is make them

feel like they can do it because other

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people, their peers have done it before.

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I always think of, you know, there's

this concept of 3x leverage rule, and

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it used to be applied to the top rep.

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It was someone who could make two for one.

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Essentially, they can make double their

base salary with just their incentive.

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And that was always the person, they

may not, Walk into the office with like

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a Rolex and drive up with a Ferrari,

but a sales rep would see that and go,

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wow, someone in our building, someone

in our office is able to achieve,

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uh, that kind of success internally.

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They're not necessarily a unicorn.

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They worked their way to get there.

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I feel like I can get there as well.

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Right.

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So, you know, having that.

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Load star that, that, that North Star

rep, uh, internally or series of reps,

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that person is always ins inspiring.

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The second piece is, uh, I always feel

like an environment of learning growth.

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Right?

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And as a result of that growth and

the applica application of effort,

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the byproduct is, uh, obviously

great rewards and, and hopefully a

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successful career in the long term.

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How do you then develop, you know,

incentives or structures in place?

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You know, to not only, you know, work

intrinsic motivation, but also provide

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extrinsic motivation to the reps.

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Um, yeah, so I think it depends on, What

the focus, what the key focus is, um, of

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the business at that particular point.

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And it, it just happens that I think,

um, the key thing for, um, the last

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couple of organizations I've had

was really in that first metric,

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the building pipeline metric, right?

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And so building pipeline was the

rigor and the muscle that we had

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hoped to, um, instill in our reps.

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Um, so have you heard Jeff of the

phrase like We measure what we treasure.

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I always have heard another, uh,

you manage what you measure, uh, or

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expect what you inspect, uh, kind

of two variants of that, but I love

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the rhyming of measuring treasure.

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Yeah.

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Um, so like, because we are

treasuring the pipeline, right.

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What, what I've also found is that

we haven't spent enough time looking

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at forward looking pipeline and

Showing the reps that, Hey, this

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is pipeline that really matters.

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So one thing that I've really

talked about quite a lot is this

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concept of a PG race or PG, uh,

leaderboard where every week, right?

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The first thing that the

reps see is an email.

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It's a leaderboard of where

they stand in terms of how

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much pipeline they've created.

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It's very common for us to share

leaderboards for reps that have

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closed business and, um, you know,

show them, okay, here's where you

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stand, like quarter over quarter.

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You're, you know, here's what.

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Your likelihood of getting

the president's club.

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But one thing that we haven't

done, I think a lot of, I haven't

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seen a lot of it is showing the

reps, Hey, how much pipeline have

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you created in the last week?

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How many new discovery meetings

did you do to create those

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pipe, uh, create that pipe?

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Um, and in those races that I've run,

which are basically ongoing, ongoing

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leaderboards, ongoing tables, ongoing

competitions, we've given the reps,

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um, you know, a bonus for creating the

most, having the most like PG activity,

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for example, quarter over quarter.

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I love that a little bit fun.

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Uh, I remember when I was a sales rep,

we had a whiteboard and the manager would

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always come in and just wipe it clean.

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All right.

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Day one, no one, everyone

starts off from the same place.

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Good luck.

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And then we, uh, hopefully by Wednesday,

you'd know where your trajectory is.

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So super exciting.

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So we talked about inspiring reps.

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incentives.

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Now reps need to operate with data, right?

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It's not just here's like a list and

go pick up the phone and start dialing.

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I'm curious how you think about

supporting them with the appropriate

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infrastructure so that they can, uh, you

know, be effective in their own jobs.

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Yeah, you know, I think one thing

that reps struggle with today is

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there's actually so much data.

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It's not like it's not really

a lack of data, but there's

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maybe like just a lot of it.

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And it's all over the place.

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Um, and I think what we can do as you

know, Rev Ops leaders and sales leaders

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is help the reps just narrowed down on the

key metrics that really matter to them.

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Right?

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Um, and if we're talking about,

for example, um, sales being

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a numbers game, then what we

should be focusing them on is.

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activities, right?

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Are they doing enough activity?

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We go back to the pipeline metric

since that is an overall pipeline.

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Um, you know, since, since pipeline

coverage and, and making the number

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is, is, is the most important thing.

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And then I would say the last thing

that, um, we can help them is helping

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them understand which ones of their

customers Are the best customers

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to call on to, and I'd say that

data is probably not necessarily

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coming in on a real time basis.

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Um, the organizations that I've worked

with before have all been named account

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models where, you know, all the reps have

had like a, uh, a small, a smaller book.

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So all of all of these accounts are

potentially like the best accounts, right?

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But it's also just identifying which of

these best accounts are more likely to.

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Be the ones that, um, are exhibiting

the buying signals are the ones

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that, um, you know, have interacted

a lot with the website, the webinars.

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Um, and so, you know, as we talk about,

like, for example, revenue attribution,

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for example, I love to lean into like

the, the influence model versus the

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source model, because I, I think that.

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Revenue comes like leads come from a

multiple, multiple different places.

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Like for, for customers, especially in

the demand generation environment, they,

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they, they are made aware by multiple

touches across the entire ecosystem.

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I think it was interesting if you use

the analogy, if you wait on top of

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the mountain and then every person who

shows up and arrives at the summit is

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also someone who is a customer close

when, and you ask them, can you tell

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me which trailhead you started from.

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And then did you follow the same

direction as everybody else?

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You'll find that almost everyone

probably started from a different

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trail head, took a different trail.

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They might've arrived at certain like same

vistas, but you know, the journey before

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that was a slightly different from each

person and it's just a unique, right?

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You ask the lead, how

did you hear about us?

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And they might tell you, well, I

don't remember, but if I go back and

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you go back in your notes, you find

out they became aware of you because

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of a campaign you ran two years ago.

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Or they were a previous employer and

they brought you in to that company.

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So you get to get these, you know,

awesome data points, but then the trend,

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the pattern is, you know, there's no

one's almost the same as anyone else.

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They're all unique.

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Fingerprints or snowflakes in their

own way, but you got to find those

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patterns and those trends and I do agree

I personally love the influence model.

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It puts more stress on the operations

team to develop like a multi touch

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attribution But in reality, it's

not about what shape model you use.

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It's Just looking at the data,

making sense of it, looking

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at it in different ways.

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That's why I think multiple

models can make the most sense.

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And then start to develop

some narrative, some trend.

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And that allows you to say, you know,

these are all important channels.

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How we prioritize them, how we

allocate resources across them

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might differ based on what we're

seeing in terms of pattern changes.

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Um, but does it mean that we're, you

know, we're going to over index 100

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percent to one channel just because we're

using a, just a last touch model or a

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first touch model, which I think that

leads to, that leads to extreme type of

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thinking in terms of resource allocation.

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So we talked about tools for

the marketing sales and

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customer success organization.

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I'm curious, what tools have you

supported and believe are critical

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to the overall revenue productivity.

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I think that you need a consolidated

plaque that shows you and has the

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ability to show you, um, everything

across the entire sales scale.

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Journey, um, of the customer all the

way from, you know, funnel management,

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outbound, outbound contact through

the renewal rates of the customer.

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Um, in the past, uh, you know, I've

used Clary for this and, um, there are

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:

multiple, uh, you know, other solutions

out there, but I think that's, that's

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:

the most important thing, like having

a sales engagement platform that allows

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you to manage your revenue across your

entire sales funnel, super important.

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And then, um, the other, uh, tools that

I think are really important are, um,

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something to help you manage all of your

assets and content for your reps so that

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they're not spending a bunch of time

looking for assets that are, you know,

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:

that are out there wasting time, right?

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That's minimizing their productivity.

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:

And then, uh, another one would

be around lead management and lead

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:

flow and making sure that, um,

the leads that are coming in are.

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:

Qualified in our router to the right reps.

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So if we categorize those a little

bit, so some sort of top of funnel

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enrichment, lead scoring engine,

right hand at the right time, um,

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you could include routing there.

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The second is if you need to grab

and go have the right resources at

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the right time, uh, knowledge repo or

knowledge base, um, and then surrounding

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that with an enablement organization.

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And then lastly, a command center,

something that no matter where you are

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in the organization and which part of

the funnel you support, you can go into

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:

it, get what you need and see exactly how

you contribute to the overall life cycle.

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I think that's great.

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So I asked this last question

to everyone who's on the show.

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I'm curious to hear about a personal or a

professional moment of change or impact.

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:

That someone's had on you or you've had

on others that particularly comes to mind.

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:

Thanks for asking that question So

I think you know, you probably are

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:

familiar with the medpick framework,

right and I had the dream privilege

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:

of working with dick dunkel who was

the founder of medpick from PTC And I

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:

worked really closely with him um In

sales productivity, um, at sprinkler.

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:

And I was able to like learn directly,

um, you know, from him basically what

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:

this metric framework really meant.

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:

And I think like that was a moment

of, of change and inspiration for me,

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:

because it just opened up a lot of my,

it opened up my eyes, um, you know,

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:

10 years ago, right on, on like, Hey,

these are the, these are the things

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:

that really matter in a sales cycle.

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So, um, Dick, thank you

for that experience.

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Now, for those of you who are listening

and want to connect with you, where can

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:

folks connect with you and learn more

about you and, uh, from your experience?

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Laura, um, LinkedIn is a great place.

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Always ready to receive a DM or please

just connect with me on my profile.

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:

Awesome.

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:

Well, thanks again, Laura.

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:

Appreciate it.

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About the Podcast

The RevOps Review
Helping your keep the momentum in your GTM Motion
Interviewing leading revenue operators - reviewing the ever changing landscape of GTM operations to keep your revenue engine on track.

About your host

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Emily Liu