Metrics that Measure Up

Ray Rike
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Jan 17, 2023 • 32min

Product Analytics and Metrics that Matter - with Todd Olson, Founder and CEO Pendo

Product-Led Growth is one of the hottest topics and trends in the B2B SaaS industry. Heading into 2023, most company will be evaluating their usage of every SaaS tool, and as a vendor understanding how customers are using your product is foundational to understanding and forecast customer retention metrics.Todd Olso founded Pendo, the leading Product Analytics solution provider, over 9 years ago. His vision was to combine product analytics and product utilization to enhance the user experience.Todd highlighted that as "software eats the world" the Pendo customer base has expanded far beyond software companies to mainstream industries such as retail.The first macro industry term we discussed was "Product-Led Growth". Todd re-framed the question to be a "product-centric" company and that product-led growth is just one aspect of a company's culture. Todd explained that when selling to highly regulated industries like governmental entities, that product-centric may be more about enhancing the user's experience in a digital-led model, even though the sale of the product was executed by and with humans.Todd highlighted the phrase "is this a feature or a bug". The context of the phrase is that when the user experience requires a human being to train users, this is a bug that needs to be fixed by being a product-led company.Pendo has recently launched a "product-led certification course", to teach professionals, including product managers and any other leader looking to learn more about how to introduce product-led concepts into their company.We pivoted to the concept of the Chief Product Officer (CPO) and their role in a product-centric organization. The CPO should own the strategic goals of how the product directly drives the company strategy and goals including how to connect the product to market/customer needs.Todd's personal belief is that a product-led company requires having both a Chief Technical Officer and a Chief Product Officer. The primary difference is the CTO is more conservative and focuses on the "-bilities" of technical products while the CPO is looking for strategic growth advantages that have a higher risk profile. This differentiation provides a healthy friction between the two different primary goals.If you are currently using a product-centric, customer facing process, or considering a product-led growth strategy, this conversation with Todd Olson, Founder, and CEO of Pendo is a great listen!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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Jan 11, 2023 • 39min

The Power of Go-to-Market Experience + Capital - with Mark Roberge, Stage 2 Capital

Mark Roberge is the founder and Managing Director of Stage 2 Capital and previously was the Chief Revenue Officer at HubSpot from 2007 to 2016.  Mark is also the author of the best-selling book "The Sales Acceleration Formula".The lessons learned over his nine years leading revenue at HubSpot have led to several new endeavors including creating a Sales curriculum being taught at Harvard Business School and founding Stage 2 Capital. We started the podcast by discussing "The Sales Acceleration Formula" which was first published in 2015. The bool was stimulated by a breakfast between Mark and enterprise sales influencer and author, Jill Konrath. It evolved from a concept called "The Art and Science of Sales" to become the basis for the book. The Sales Acceleration Formula is essentially an autobiography of how Mark built and scaled the revenue organization at HubSpot.The presence of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems enabled Sales to become more data-driven, and changed how Mark leveraged that data to inform how he built and managed the sales organization. One of the most interesting perspectives Mark shared was how he and his management team used the data being generated from the CRM. Using the insights from the CRM data changed how HubSpot Sales Managers were able to better coach sales reps based on the "signals" being generated. Foundational to capturing those insights was the need to develop a very well-defined and structured sales process that generated performance metrics at each stage of the sales process.We quickly pivoted to a leading sales technology of the day, Conversational Intelligence. I asked Mark why with the ability to capture and listen to every Sales conversation has not made full sales funnel performance a more data-driven, sale management and coaching process.Mark highlighted one reason is that Sales organizations are often so focused on "chasing the number", that they do not carve out the time to step back, take a strategic planning approach to the future based on historical performance metrics and incorporate that into the planning process. This "reactive mode" cascades and impacts the organizational culture to one of high urgency - low value reactions versus one of high value - low urgency strategic activities leading to increased performance.Another topic we discussed was the 360 lead review process at HubSpot, which lead to the concept of the SMarketing SLA (Service Level Agreement). Marketing and Sales co-owned the pipeline generation and lead development process, and as a result consistently led to analysis of  pipeline generation performance. Far too often, there is significant friction between Sales and Marketing, which can be addressed by leading into the data. This starts with defining what a "lead" really is and starting to measure lead performance and conversion across the entire lead-to-customer process.Finally, we discussed the catalyst for founding Stage 2 Capital. Stage 2 Capital is unique in that the Limited Partners (investors) are primarily successful B2B SaaS Go-to-Market executives who can provide both capital and applied operating experience across each stage of a B2B SaaS company's growth. One of the important findings was the failure rate to scale across different stages of growth is much too high. The Science of Scaling was based on research that Mark conducted across several early-stage companies, and then he applied the "challenges of scale" to the formation of Stage 2 Capital.If you are considering raising funding for your SaaS company, or are just looking at how to more efficiently scale your revenue generation engine at the next phase of growth, the conversation with Mark Roberge is extremely instructive based upon the experience and success of Mark and hundreds of other GTM executives involved in Stage 2 Capital.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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Jan 4, 2023 • 39min

A Chief Revenue Officer's learnings from $0 - $100M+ ARR - with Mark Kosoglow, CRO Catalyst and SVP Sales, Outreach

Imagine having your founder and CEO working weekends to develop leads and a calling list for the VP Sales in an early-stage B2B SaaS company. That was Mark Kosoglow's experience when he first joined Manny Medina, the founder, and CEO at Outreach - the leading Sales Engagement Platform company in the industry.I asked Mark about the reality of leading Sales at an early-stage B2B SaaS company, and if he could share a couple of lessons he would share. The importance of building pipeline was priority #1 and is something he is living with in his new role as the CRO at Catalyst Software. In fact, Mark said pipeline cures most ills of an early-stage B2B SaaS company.When we double-clicked on pipeline, I asked Mark about the importance of identifying the Ideal Customer Profile early in the journey. Mark said this was critical to focus the outbound demand generation efforts early on, and to also build a buyer persona map to identify the different key members of the buying team, and create messaging that resonates with each buyer. Mark requires Sales Development Representatives to conduct at least 50 activities per day, and add 15 new contacts into a cadence every day while ensuring there are no outstanding to-do activities at the end of every day.What is the role of Account Executives in creating pipeline? Mark has a standard operating model which depends on the profile of the actual average contract value. But, as a rule, he uses the goal of 25 opportunities in the pipeline. Once that opportunity goal is hit the goal of outbound pipeline generation activities is reduced from 50 activities and 10 people sequenced per day to 50 activities and 10 people sequenced per week. Once the number of active deals in the pipeline reduces back to 15, then the activity goals increase back to 50 activities per day.Cold calling is a lower value for Account Executives in the early stage but is a reality of the role until the active pipeline is to a point where 100% of an AEs time can be allocated to the highest value activity of turning opportunities into revenue.Next, conversion becomes a top priority. One is a well-defined, stage-based deal management sales process, and second a strong deal review and management process to help the AE successfully move from opportunity to revenue. How a rep can "guide" the buyer through the buying process is a top priority in how sales management should be coaching an AE in the early days.Mark does not believe stage-by-stage conversion is a priority early on, as there is not enough data to provide statistically valid feedback. However, at each stage of the Sales process there should be a primary "question" that should be answered such as:- Do they have problems we can solve?- Are the problems big enough to solve?- Will the buyer agree "how to buy"?- Will their investment be worth it? - Will they buy?A key to his success is encapsulated in the quote: "process makes you great, but documentation makes you legendary". This was discussed in the context of when to introduce a Sales Enablement function. Are there any signals that suggest when to invest in a Sales Enablement function? Mark highlighted that Sales Enablement is responsible for onboarding and not ongoing coaching or figuring out Sales Process, that is the Sales leader's role.If you are considering a Sales leadership role at an early-stage B2B SaaS company, or are a founder/CEO looking to scale beyond founder-led sales, this conversation with Mark is a great listen!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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Dec 29, 2022 • 38min

The Different Buying Team Profiles - with Brent Adamson, author the Challenger Customer

Heading into 2023 companies are preparing for larger buying teams, and increased scrutiny on every purchase. I could not think of a better backdrop to speak with Brent Adamson, the author of The Challenger Sale and The Challenger Customer.The Challenger Customer is based on research focusing on the different "profiles" of the buying team in a considered "SaaS" purchase. This is one of my all-time favorite books focusing on how to understand the buying process and charting the sales process accordingly.We started the conversation with a comment Brent recently made on another podcast, and that was "the SaaS industry has broken sales". As we double-clicked on this comment, what Brent was highlighting was that due to the large influx of capital and thus the number of companies increased so quickly, sales became more of a volume-centered process versus the more traditional, value-based, solution selling that traditional software companies used before the "growth at any cost" phase of the SaaS industry evolution.Another variable that impacted the volume-centric approach was the rapid evolution of "Sales Technology" which automated many of those processes that were traditionally executed manually by a sales professional. As a result, many sales professionals over-indexed activity and volume and lost some level of attention to what makes each target account and the individual members of the buying team unique.When Brent conducted the initial research to write The Challenger Sale, one consistent truth uncovered was that no single buyer, not even the executive decision maker wants to make a decision isolated from the broader team. Their driving need is to gain team agreement or consensus on strategic purchases - such as SaaS solutions.In the initial book, it was discovered that there were 5.4 individuals in every strategic purchase decision, and that number has consistently increased over the last few years - hitting 11 or even more in 2022. Though even though this number is significant, the more important aspect of this reality is the "diversity" of the profiles, functions, roles, and decision criteria for a strategic purchase. The above was the basis for Brent's second book, The Challenger Customer. The first topic we discussed was the different profiles of members of the buying team who are "mobilizers".What is a mobilizer? Based upon a survey of 2,000+ B2B Sales Professionals, the top performers identified that the most important attribute of a buyer persona was their ability to build consensus and willingness to drive change in their organization. This is much different than the standard, find a coach, champion, or executive decision-maker in the sales process. What are the different types of "mobilizers":- Skeptic- Go-Getter- TeacherSkeptics typically are the most difficult to accept the value proposition of your solution and how it will work in their environment. However, once the skeptic is won over, they will be the best advocate for your solution being purchased and implemented. On the other hand, the "friends and the guides" may want to talk with you more than anyone else at the potential customer, but are not good at mobilizing change in their company.Next, we discussed the importance of tapping into the "emotions" of the buyer. It  comes down to the concept of "Identity Value" and goes beyond company value or professional value. Identity Value is the value that sponsoring a  purchase will impact how a person feels they are viewed and how they view themselves. Once a person feels your solution impacts their "identity value" it will dramatically increase their desire advocate purchasing your solution.As we enter 2023 and encounter a "cautious capital" approach to purchasing new solutions, I cannot think of a better use of time than listening to Brent AND reading The Challenger Sale!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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Dec 20, 2022 • 35min

Marketing Metrics that Matter to the CFO - with Chris Golec, Founder and CEO Channel99 and Demandbase

Heading into 2023, B2B SaaS CFOs are doubling down on using performance metrics to guide the 2023 operating budget. A key question is what metrics they use to help evaluate the Marketing budget, and what metrics they wish they had from Marketing to help inform budget allocation and investment decisions.Chris Golec, the founder, and CEO of intent data and account-based program platform leader Demandbase has recently launched his new company, Channel99 which is purpose-built to help bridge the gap between Marketing performance metrics that Marketing is currently capturing and those performance metrics that Finance leaders would like to see that help inform their budget allocation and investment analysis.We started the conversation with Chris on the evolution of B2B Marketing over the last ten years. In the early 2010s, Marketing Automation platforms enabled broader and more frequent outreach to their target buyers, and then Account-Based programs started to evolve in the 2015 - 2020 timeframe to increase the "quality of Marketing outreach. Chris predicts that moving into 2023 and beyond, B2B Marketing organizations will be held to more "performance-centric" measurements that focus on the ultimate outcomes of pipeline and revenue ($) that the CFO uses to evaluate return on investment for all Marketing program investments.We dove into the megatrends that Chris mentioned early in the podcast, and the impact of Marketing Automation, Intent Data, and Account-Based Marketing programs. Chris highlighted, though self-admittedly from a biased perspective that these investments did increase the Return on Marketing investment, but most companies do not have the infrastructure to measure the impact of Marketing investments down to the last mile of pipeline and revenue ($).When asked if Marketing is using metrics to inform decisions, Chris highlighted that the majority of Marketing performance measurements (metrics) are primarily department focused, and not linked to the ultimate outcomes that CFO and CEO are most interested in - Pipeline and Revenue generated. One quick action to change this reality is for the CEO and CFO to require Marketing leaders to measure the ultimate outcomes in dollars...not activity, engagement, and leads.Chris shared his premise that one reason that Marketing does not provide more granular "finance performance metrics" to the CFO is the lack of easy-to-use infrastructure that can measure dollars invested in high-priority target accounts that fit the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) through to revenue generated.Another key requirement to capturing and generating good Marketing ROI performance metrics is to start with understanding discretionary program spending on things like paid and organic search and understanding not only the engagement levels, but the engagement levels with accounts in their target market (ICP) and then pulling the thread all the way through to revenue.If you are a "performance" centric B2B Marketer or a Finance leader trying to better understand the return on Marketing investment, the conversation with Chris Golec is highly informative and thought-provoking!!!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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Dec 13, 2022 • 33min

The journey from FP&A to SaaS CFO - with CJ Gustafson, CFO PartsTech

Mergers and Acquisition analyst to FP&A professional to SaaS CFO. This is the path that CJ Gustafson took on his journey to becoming the CFO at Parts Tech.The common thread across each step of his journey was metrics, a perfect subject for CJ's appearance on the show. CJ developed his excel and financial chops during his first role as an M&A analyst, which served as the foundation for his success in modeling financial plans and budgets.What are the critical experiences and learnings CJ learned in his FP&A role that prepared him for being a SaaS CFO. A unique opportunity in FP&A is being in the room with senior executives, and learning how successful leaders organize their resources for success. Building upon that, being able to ask questions of the senior leadership team provided him access and insights that most roles do not afford.Having cross-functional insight across Marketing, Sales, Products, and Operations provided a holistic view of how businesses plan, make decisions and manage. When asked what the most surprising part of being a CFO, was the sheer number of vendor agreements that required review and approval, and the associated skills required to negotiate strategic agreements that directly impact the operational and financial performance of the company.Mostly Metrics is the newsletter CJ launched about 2 years ago. What was the motivation to create a newsletter focused on metrics? First, being able to document and reference his learnings in previous roles. Secondly, the newsletter provided CJ the opportunity to ask thought leaders and successful executives, and investors about topics directly related to his newsletter. Third, CJ finds writing things down is key to him remembering and thus being able to recall previous learnings when required in the current working environment.Heading into 2023, many CFOs are scrutinizing revenue and expense budgets at another level of granularity. So I asked CJ for his advice to other first-time CFOs as they prepare their first annual budget. First, CJ recommended the value of experiments before committing the annual budget to new ideas and investment areas. Secondly, make sure the headcount plan is very detailed by month, and use a "max" headcount model versus incremental headcount centric, as attrition is hard to forecast. Finally, CJ recommended no more than one new software platform be implemented per quarter. Limiting new software implementations is as much about the organization's ability to implement, train users and ensure effective utilization of the new software to gain the benefits, as it is to control the expenses.What are the "metrics" that CJ is focusing on heading into 2023? CJ highlighted the need for a CFO to understand the metrics that departmental leaders use to inform their decisions. An example is going beyond CAC Payback Period to learn something like the importance of "activation rate" in a PLG motion and how that ultimately impacts the company-level financial metrics. Understanding the departmental top priority metrics also informs CJ's understanding of the budget requests the department executives are making, and how they will measure the ROI. We also went into those "metrics" that are specific to a company, maybe even a North Star metric. CJ highlighted the shopping cart abandonment rate as key to understanding the PartsTech user, and how that one metric provides both product priority, and also a key performance metric to improve that has a direct impact on revenue growth. A North Star metric that CJ now uses is Gross Merchandise Value which is critical to understand, as it's at the center of forecasting.If you are interested in the path to becoming a CFO, this episode with CJ is a great listen.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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Dec 6, 2022 • 25min

Kind Folks Finish First - Sam Jacobs, Founder and CEO Pavilion

STOP if you do not think that the concept of "Kind Folks Finish First" is applicable in corporate America!Sam Jacobs, the founder, and CEO of Pavilion realized that getting fired for the third time was the catalyst for finally understanding that pursuing his real passion "to help others" was the key to finding both success and fulfillment.Sam credits a shift in "mindset" as foundational to creating a company and a passion that enable him to find happiness and success. The Power of Failure are the first four words in Chapter 1 of Sam's best-selling book - Kind Folks Finish First. As Sam's CEO shared that his services were no longer needed, he realized that believing you are a failure, you are a failure. Rather, if you think about failure as learning, experience, and wisdom your path to success will become much easier. Why is it so hard to stop being a "victim of your situation" versus the master of your destiny? The common emotion is "fear" because they are afraid. Often this mindset provides the motivation to identify why what you experience is unfair and not due to your own decisions and actions. Admitting to yourself that you are responsible for your experiences and outcomes can be liberating and the foundation for real growth.What do you stand for was the opening to Chapter 3. Sam highlighted that this was not a question he asked himself, it was a question that his coach forced Sam to answer for himself. Being in New York City, Sam felt that "making money" was his primary goal and motivation. Sam's coach said is that where you find energy, and after a few week's Sam realized he stood for "helping people to cared about to meet their professional goals". This clarifying moment was the catalyst for the "what and how" of building Pavilion.Getting by Giving, was a central theme throughout the book and is also a key Pavilion value. Sam said being very selective in investors and employees who share that mindset and value is key to ensuring the culture of a company lives by those values. Being able to focus on the long-term goals and building the culture, means you might sacrifice growth rates to build a long-term, durable growth company that uses its values to guide its journey.Every crisis is an opportunity, another key phrase Sam shared in the book. Sam's primary advice is that you must look outside of yourself. The instinct in a difficult environment is to focus on yourself - but in times of challenges focus first on your "customer's" challenges and situation and allow that to be your guide for decision-making. With that mindset and focus, the investment you make in your customers now will provide returns over time that cannot be measured with a short-term orientation focused on "your needs" versus "your customer's needs".Sam's transformation which started once he realized "his true calling to help others" is an inspirational story and message for anyone looking for happiness and success in their professional life.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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Nov 30, 2022 • 36min

Saas Metrics for Investors and Execution Decision Making - with Nick Franklin, Founder and CEO ChartMogul

Nick Franklin is the Founder and CEO of ChartMogul, a leading SaaS Metrics Reporting, and Subscription Analytics Platform. Nick worked for five years at ZenDesk, where he led both Europe and then Asia-Pacific before founding ChartMogul eight years ago.With 2,500 B2B SaaS companies as customers, Nick's insights around how companies use metrics to inform decision-making are unmatched. Nick's perspective is that during the earliest days of a B2B SaaS company's evolution, the importance of being able to track metrics begins. An example early on is how pricing and packaging impact customer acquisition and growth. Another example Nick highlighted is if a founder is considering raising external funds, having a grasp on the key financial performance metrics is critical to gaining investor confidence.Nick highlighted the importance of providing access to company performance metrics to all employees is critical to creating a metrics-centric culture. When I asked Nick "why companies do not provide performance metrics transparency to their employees?", Nick shared that many of their customers simply say they prefer to keep company financial information "on a need-to-know basis". Nick could not explain why that is beyond history and an old-fashioned mentality.Nick responded that they wanted to ensure that even the earliest-stage companies could develop a metrics culture, and use ChartMogul as that infrastructure. That is why ChartMogul provides a free version of its platform to companies with less than $10,000 MRR. Over fifty percent of their customers are paying customers up to $100M ARR. Some companies decide to use a metrics and subscription analytics platform in preparation for an impending financing event, which begged the question of what are the top metrics investors want to see a founder truly understand. Nick highlighted early customer retention, revenue and product engagement growth, and eventually dollar-based customer retention and expansion.Double clicking on the "engagement" measurement, what are the common metrics to measure? How many users, how many times do they log into/use the platform on a daily/weekly/monthly basis, and then almost always there is a product-specific "North Star Metric" such as messages, API calls, documents sent, etc...During our discussion on "engagement", I asked Nick what the aha moment, often referred to as the "activation point" is for ChartMogul. He shared that integrating into a subscription management platform is the first activation point, but more importantly the "high-value activation point" is when the user gains insight or perspective on a metric that was not previously available, understood, or even considered as a critical business metric.If you are evaluating how best to capture, calculate, publish and use metrics to inform your B2B SaaS journey and decisions, this conversation with Nick is a great listen.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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Nov 15, 2022 • 29min

Revenue Operations Outsourcing Strategy - with Cliff Simon, CRO Carabiner Group

Revenue Operations - the buzz has continued in 2022 but how to introduce and then maximize the return on investment is still a work in process.Cliff Simon, the Chief Revenue Officer at Carabiner Group, an early leader in Revenue Operations stopped by to share his insights into how to maximize the return on RevOps.First, we discussed if Revenue Operations is viewed and delivering as a Strategic function or being relegated to tactical activities such as data management, revenue technology administration, integration, and report development. Cliff shared that Revenue Operations MUST be a strategic, data-driven organization that surfaces and highlights opportunities for increased revenue growth in partnership with the C-Suite.One large risk, despite the best intentions, RevOps often gets so overwhelmed with daily, reactive activities that they forget to take the time to step back and take a more holistic, strategic approach to the insights they are gaining from the data, metrics and process improvement opportunities they see every day. One reality is that RevOps as a profession has grown so quickly, as highlighted by the increase from 5,600 to 17,000 RevOps titles on LinkedIn today, and the 30K+ open positions being promoted online today. This increase in demand for RevOps professionals has led to the current lack of experienced Revenue Operations leaders who understand the strategic impact of Revenue Operations.How is a strategic Revenue Operations function be measured to show the return on investment? Though it is hard to benchmark the impact RevOps has on financial performance metrics, RevOps should be responsible to surface the insights, metrics, and benchmarks for internal revenue performance metrics to the executive team, including highlighting the opportunities for increasing revenue growth and revenue efficiency. One recent research program highlighted that companies with a centralized Revenue Operations function grow 30% faster than those without the function.Today's reality is that the majority of Revenue Operations departments are still primarily focused on tactical activities, and only at $50M ARR and above do companies have the resources and capacity to have a Revenue Operations leader is truly strategic. However, companies should invest early in a RevOps function, and that includes having Sales Ops and Marketing Ops as roles that report into a broader Revenue Operations organization.Another topic Cliff highlighted is that RevOps owns the process to "document" the processes that underly and support the entire Revenue lifecycle. This supports the growth of the company, and as new leaders and resources enter the organization, they can quickly under the "current state" of revenue-generating processes and the associated performance (in the form of metrics) to better inform their decisions on how to evolve the organization and accelerate revenue performance.What metrics should RevOps be measuring: 1) Revenue Growth; 2) Sales Cycle Time; 3) Win Rate; 4) Pipeline Generation Metrics; 5) Net Dollar Retention (including churn)If you are a SaaS CEO, CFO, CRO, or Revenue Operations leader, this conversation with Cliff Simon provides some great knowledge nuggets on increasing the impact that Revenue Operations can make in your company.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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Nov 10, 2022 • 30min

RevOps as a Strategic Revenue Planning Partner - with Toni Hohlbein, Growblocks

As a Chief Revenue Officer, Toni has had a front-row view on scaling revenue engines, and one major challenge he faced was that too much time was spent on financial planning and budgets, versus how to best make money.The first question we discussed was the difference between FP&A and Revenue Operations. Toni's perspective is that Revenue Operations is much closer to the revenue generating process, and thus has a deeper insight into how revenue is generated, and as such should be a key part of the revenue planning process.Next, we discussed how being involved in the revenue planning process makes RevOps a more strategic partner to the executive team. RevOps top three responsibilities are data, process, and tools but only the start. The trick is to take the insights from the aforementioned three responsibilities and becoming the primary purveyor of insights into how the revenue engine is performing on an end-to-end basis.Potential strategic activities starts with revenue planning, which starts with how to generate revenue efficiently. Next, RevOps should be the "mission control" through regular meetings with the commercial (revenue) leaders, and discuss the insights from the dashboards and reports they are providing. Key to the value of these discussions is how to overcome the issues that the data is surfacing.One of the opportunities in today's business culture is becoming data-driven without becoming data overwhelmed. Revenue Operations should take the lead on determining how the data, reports, and dashboards they are creating inform the decisions on how to increase the probability of making the number and even forecasting how the current "data" predicts the revenue future.How can a company ensure that Revenue Operations does not become so reactive to the daily requests, that they cannot carve out the time to be strategic partners to the CRO? First, RevOps leaders should ensure there are good "outcome goals" for how the data and reports will be used, and prioritize time to analyze the data in the context of "how does this data and metrics inform our future revenue outcomes".What are the top "5" metrics that a RevOps leader should own? First, the mindset needs to be that they own the revenue number along with the CRO. Second, CAC Payback Period by cohort including regional, customer segments, and even product level in larger companies. Third, Customer Lifetime Value is a great metric, but since it is so multi-variate in nature, it must be broken down into the input metrics (variables) to isolate which leading indicators are impacting CLTV - a classic outcome metric.If you are a Revenue Operations professional or a senior executive evaluating how to increase the business impact of RevOps, this conversation with Toni is a great listen!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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