Metrics that Measure Up

Renee Cullinan, founder of "Stop Meeting Like This"  is pivoting her highly successful career as a high tech executive and then founder of a pioneering consulting company that focused on how to increased company productivity and employee satisfaction by eliminating the wasted time associated with internal meetings and email overload.In this episode of Metrics that Measure Up, we focus on both the metrics associated with increased employee productivity and then on the increasing importance of understanding and enhancing stakeholder satisfaction.White-collar employees, especially senior executives spend most of their time in meetings and composing and responding to emails.  Using a typical executive, they spend approximately 25 hours per week in meetings, which equates to 1,200 hours per year, and on average, 32% of that time is wasted.  Think how much more productive you can be with having an extra 400 hours (10 weeks) to invest in higher value, strategic activities?Unfortunately, not enough companies tackle this productivity opportunity, often because of the inherent challenge of the existing culture of a company.  Fixing this requires consistent, ongoing executive commitment which means having a long-term employee productivity orientation. Biopharma companies lead the way in being willing to take on this opportunity, due to their historical long-term orientation.In the "very interesting" category, Renee actually found the work from home environment during the pandemic, actually helped to increase the productivity of meetings and the Renee shares 5 questions to determine if your organization is positioned to capture this hidden productivity drain: Are you a manager or maker?How many hours are you in meetings per week?Which of the following statements is more true?       - I control my calendar or my calendar controls meGiven my role, the # of meetings I am in is?       - too many      - just right      - too fewWhat percentage of total meeting time is wasted?      - late starts     - late arrivals requiring repeating conversations     - technology snafusNext, we pivoted to Stakeholder capitalism and Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG).  My first question was if only 50% of companies are willing to invest in tackling internal employee productivity,  how willing are they to take on ESG.    Renee highlighted that internal productivity and employee satisfaction are too often a "HR" initiative and thus are often dead on arrival.In contrast, ESG is driven primarily by external constituents, by regulatory bodies like the SEC, and potential customers, especially in the Fortune 500 are now requiring ESG responses within vendor RFPs and many board of directors are linking executive compensation to ESG metrics and measurements.Socially responsible investing is also increasing measured by shareholder investment decisions, in fact, the percentage of US-based assets under management that use ESG criteria to make investments increased by 42% over the last two years.I asked Renee if small, high-growth B2B SaaS companies can justify investing in ESG initiatives.  The response, if you are selling to Enterprise-class companies, ESG leadership will be a competitive advantage in acquiring new customers AND socially conscious employees.Renee's example of the social impact of "free meals" at high tech companies and its impact on local businesses and the local community are not understood, or at least not prioritized.If ESG and stakeholder capitalism + increasing employee productivity are topics you are interested in promoting within your company,  Renee 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.

Revenue Operations is positioned to be the revenue architect across the customer journey.  That is a bold statement and the perspective of one of the leading revenue operations thought leaders, Jeff Ignacio.Revenue Operations hit an "inflection point" in 2021.  Jeff believes the rapid growth of B2B SaaS companies has highlighted the incongruency that customers are experiencing due to the "drops" in internal hand-offs between marketing, sales, and customer success.Jeff believes Revenue Operations should act like Product Management.  RevOps customers are the marketing, sales, and customer success resources who need the right data, at the right time, in the right context delivered by the right process.  This includes understanding the "customer experience" with their company at every stage of the customer journey.Product-Led Growth has led to a new requirement for Revenue Operations, and that is the ability to leverage and integrate the data from product analytics platforms into the revenue tech stack.  These new "data operations" skill-set is not typically available in existing RevOps organizations, and may even require a new operations group.Is a Chief Revenue Officer required to make revenue operations fully productive? Jeff said this is helpful in early-stage companies when the customer journey is less mature.   In larger organizations with more well-defined and mature organizational structures, the need for a CRO to make revenue operations effective is less important.Jeff defines revenue operations to include 4 pillars:Process Enablement Advisory SupportWhen asked about Revenue Operations being more "strategic" versus "tactical", Jeff's first recommendation was to allocate time slots upfront to strategic activity.  Secondly, Jeff said that "ruthless prioritization" in understanding what is critical path to achieving the measurable goals that have been established. This includes becoming comfortable with setting expectations with your stakeholders, including being able to push back when requests are not aligned with the mutually agreed-upon goals.Jeff also recommended that asking "what are you trying to accomplish" upfront when asked to execute an activity will be a good step in moving from reactive resource to strategic asset to the revenue leadership team.  Another idea was to start thinking more proactively about what the data you are creating suggests, and start to provide more strategic ideas and recommendations to address negative trends highlighted by the data and reports.When asked about the optimal "profile" for a revenue operation professional, Jeff highlighted a few key attributes, especially business acumen and the ability to clarify, thus understand the real goals of the executive stakeholder.  Jeff also suggested using a case study approach to interviews to understand how the candidate has applied their skills in similar situations.Will revenue operations be a must-have experience for the CRO of the future?  Jeff's answer was nuanced, highlighting skill sets including data analysis, process design competencies, and system design will be valuable, but having hand's on RevOps experience will be a plus but not a requirement.I then asked Jeff to pull out his crystal ball and predict how Revenue Operations will impact business performance - thus be measured.  His responses: 1) Customer Acquisition Costs; 2) Expansion time and profitability to enter new markets.Lastly, Jeff discussed the need for RevOps to move from working "in the business" to "on the business".  This will enable RevOps to become a strategic advisor, with a seat at the executive team table.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Product-Led Growth (PLG) and B2B Sales - how do they co-exist in the evolving world of Go-To-Market strategy in B2B SaaS?On this episode of the Metrics that Measure Up podcast we are joined by Tim Geisenheimer, Founder and CEO of Correlated.  Tim's first experience was leading a sales team in a PLG company where he experienced the change in how customers first experience a product.  PLG requires the sales team to truly understand "HOW" customers are using the product, and adjust their sales outreach accordingly.First, we discussed the real and perceived risks that sales face in a PLG company.  Tim said that sales is critical in PLG companies, though the skills and approaches change.Sales professionals must become product consultants who can help users gain the most value from the product.  This requires the sales professional to have much deeper visibility into how the user is using the product.Second, we pivoted to discuss how PLG may impact pipeline development and the Sales Development function.  One of the interesting changes is that the number of inbound leads increases dramatically in PLG companies, and SDRs will be required to learn the skills of inbound lead qualification instead of outbound led generation.This evolved into the creation of a Product Qualified Lead (PQL).  A PQL is the scoring of a potential paying customer based upon how they are using the free version of the product. Some of the common variables used to score a PQL include log-in frequency and are they using high-value features.  These two primary signals can be used to score a lead and help prioritize which users and accounts to reach out to first.Is "Value-Based Selling" still a key sales skill required to be successful?  Tim went back to the need for B2B sales professionals to have better product knowledge, as it relates to the business value delivered.I pushed Tim on 'if" Customer Success is better positioned to help free users become paying customers?  His response centered on the need for sales to become product consultants and that sales skills will be critical to optimizing free users converting into paying customers.Tim highlighted that a foundational element required for sales to be productive in PLG companies is having easy-to-access and understandable product analytics information available by the user, by account in the Customer Relationship Management platform.  I asked Tim if "existing" CRM vendors can provide the required functionality for this?  In response to this question, Tim highlighted that existing CRM tools are limited in providing this functionality, in part due to the relational database model that traditional CRM tools are based. The most common "metrics" that he sees Chief Revenue Officers being measured upon in PLG companies is "existing customer expansion" and "Net Dollar Retention Rate" which highlights one of the most attractive aspects of the "land and expand" model for PLG companies.  Average Time to Expansion is a new leading indicator that PLG companies are tracking, with best-in-class companies seeing < 60 days from the time a client first signs up to expanding their "paid" usage.The classic "Close Rate" metric will be different in PLG companies, and not as important as other expansion-centric metrics.  The other topic we discussed was if "sales comp plans" are changing in PLG companies.  One change is assigning sales reps longer to accounts to shepherd the "expansion" journey.  In fact, Snowflake has no CS  resources as sales own total responsibility for existing client expansion.If you won revenue responsibility in a PLG company, this is a great listen to understand the evolving world of sales in B2B SaaS and Cloud companies.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Leaders of Growth - a phrase that could refer to many B2B SaaS companies and executives.Today, we speak with Arthur Nobel, principal at Knight Capital and author of Leaders of Growth.Leaders of Growth is the result of 47 interviews with B2B SaaS operating executives and investors.  Brand name B2B SaaS executives including Mark Roberge, Matt Chappell, Katie Christian, Nathan Latka, Wes Bush, Patrick Campbell plus 42 more B2B SaaS executives with hands-on experience in scaling companies beyond Product-Market Fit.Arthur first shared three different ways to define the journey and stages that B2B SaaS and Cloud companies go through. 3 views on company journey stage:  - Sequential (Series A, Series B, Series C, etc)  - Revenue approach ($1M, $5M, $10M, $20M, etc.)  - Company Maturity ModelWe then dove into whether investors actually modify their investment thesis and enterprise valuation models based upon the above 3 lenses?  Revenue growth, especially the velocity of growth remains a primary variable which VCs use to establish company value.The thing that stood out the most from the 47 interviews was the AUTHENTICITY of everyone interviewed.  Also, their openness and willingness to share their experiences and lessons learned...especially those learnings through failure as well as success.The second theme he identified was the top-down view that investors shared and the bottoms-up perspective that the majority of operators used.  When asked to explain what "top-down" and "bottoms-up" meant, Arthur shared that operators were much more focused on the more pragmatic "what" drove the business including topics like hiring, culture, tactical approaches whereas investors were much more focused on conceptual thinking, such as frameworks and methodologies.When asked common challenges that the growth leaders faced, Arthur shared six common categories:   - Departmental objectives at each stage of growth  -  Data challenge - including what metrics to measure and prioritize at each stage  - HR Challenge - such as hiring the right people at the right stage  - Documentation and enablement - critical as employee count increases  - Process challenge - well defined. documented and systemized after 20 - 30 employees  - Tooling - having the appropriate platforms and systems architecture at each stageI asked Arthur if he has developed a framework to help B2B SaaS companies scale within and across each stage of growth?  He highlighted this is a very complex task, as each company's journey is unique, but would try and share his initial thoughts:High-level framework:-Scaling is not a point but a continuum that dictates using a stage by stage maturity model:     - Ad-hoc     - Process introduction    - Repeatability     - Predictability    - ScalabilityIt is also very important to define the maturity model for each function and against the six common challenges that were highlighted above.We then discussed the concept of thinking, planning, and acting like you are already in the next stage of maturity versus continuing purely executing current state processes, activities and tactics. Some examples that Arthur shared on the traditional "VC" stage basis:Series A = Replicability    - Build a strong initial leadership team   - Lay a solid foundationSeries B = Predictablity   - Establish Senior team   - Become more structued and documentedSeries C = Scalability   - Be careful of silos   - Use shared metrics to align cross-functional teams Learning from those who have already been there is the key theme of this episode!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Make it, Don't Fake It is a mantra that has long lived in the entrepreneur start-up culture in the B2B tech industry!Sabrina Horn is not only a pioneer in the B2B Tech public relations space, she is one of the most networked executives in the B2B tech industry.After only 4 years in the corporate world, Sabrina took the plunge to found The Horn Group, with a specific goal to help B2B tech companies exploit the impending business transformation created by the personal computer.  Her first "pitch" to bring on her first customer was to an early stage, enterprise software company with less than 50 employees - that company was PeopleSoft which became one of the world's largest B2B enterprise software companies.The rest of her 24 year+ run as the CEO of the Horn Group is one of the most successful and admired companies in B2B tech public relations.  To determine the return on investment for public relations, she has two recommendations: 1) Ask yourself what does success looks like one year from now; 2) look at outputs versus outcomes like increasing inbound leads, social engagement, market sentiment, etc. Secondly, she recommended having a range for success versus a single point and having the right tools to measure the impact of PR.Public relations goals also need to be dynamic and evolve with both the company and the market that the company exists and the market it targets to acquire new customers.  PR is part science and part art, and cannot be successful without continuing to evolve the strategy and the measurements of success.The "founders curse" was one of the first topics we discussed that was highlighted in Sabrina's book.  This happens to entrepreneurs, founders and CEOs who have an emotional bond to their company that is similar to a parent/child relationship.  This can lead to the effect of having blinders on and not listening to the market's feedback on your company and what they really need.  Having a founders agreement might be prudent, and even identify key inflection points in the company growth that may require the founder to take on a new role. Also, having mentors who are not part of the company and will provide objective, unbiased feedback is critical to maneuvering difficult moments and decision points.  Sarina even recommends founder performance reviews by the board and conduct an annual "self-assessment" to ask yourself where my company is headed, what is needed to achieve the next phase of growth and am I still having fun!As a founder, surrounding yourself with an executive team that is not like you, has different experiences, and even disagrees with you is a critical skill to develop.  Having a team that shares your passion and excitement for the company vision is a foundational element for every member of the leadership team to share.  This materially impacts building culture and building a strong brand.Establishing "founding company values" early on is foundational to the company culture.  As a company grows, the values may evolve by shifting in meaning and/or priority, but remain as a beacon throughout the company's evolution.  Being a CEO is a never-ending, learning journey.  Being in the CEO role is key, as learning on the job cannot be replaced by reading, theory or external advice alone...experience matters.  In fact, Sabrina highlighted that the experience from losses is typically the largest learning opportunity.  Being a CEO is a "lonely" place to be, and having a network of advisors and mentors who have shared the role of CEO is an incredibly valuable resource. The "isolation iceberg" is real, and Sabrina even mentioned how giving back was a great outlet to feel more connected.MAKE IT, DON'T FAKE IT!  is a great read for any founder, CEO, or aspiring entrepreneur considering embarking on the founder's journey!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Jordan Henderson is a lawyer by education, who transitioned into a B2B tech career that has spanned sales operations, customer sales, sales management, and ultimately revenue operations.  This well-rounded career journey led Jordan to a career in Revenue Operations.RevOps can be the "canary in the coal mine" for a B2B SaaS company.  Revenue Operations are problem solvers.  Being able to monitor the day-to-day "Go-to-Market" operations provides a unique opportunity to be an early warning factor when things are not performing as planned.  Being a trusted "canary" requires building credibility through the consistent use of foresight and insights into the customer acquisition, retention, and expansion processes.  When asked about RevOps being a "tactical, reactive" function versus turning strategic, proactive insights into predictive foresight, the conversation took an interesting turn.To move from tactical to a strategic function, Jordan recommends proactively taking a larger role in "business operations". Go beyond providing reports and dashboards to the executive team, and instead analyze what the reports/dashboards you developed are telling you about the future of the business and Go-To-Market performance.A pre-requisite to becoming a strategic partner,  RevOps professionals need to first learn everything possible about the functions you are supporting, including marketing, sales, and customer success.  Then instead of just responding to administrative requests, come back with not only the requested deliverable but also recommendations on how to improve the information you just delivered.Jordan also highlighted why it is imperative to understand how the company level objectives, like ARR Growth, CAC Payback Period, and Net Dollar Retention are impacted by the "leading indicators" that RevOps has unique insight and access.  If you focus on the "outcomes" that your boss's boss cares about, you are much better positioned to be a strategic advisor to the CEO and CFO.The path to RevOps is well served by having experience in the operating roles you are supporting.  Jordan has sales, sales management, customer success, and business operations experience which has informed his orientation to the strategic impact that Revenue Operations can have on revenue growth and pipeline performance.  When I asked about being held to "objectives" that you do not ultimately "CONTROL", Jason highlighted that RevOps can have more impact on company and revenue performance than any single, quota-carrying rep.Next, we turned to how the customer journey can be impacted by RevOps.  Jason agreed that in theory, this is a good goal, but that Revenue Operations does not  "YET" truly understand the internal customer buying process, and is something that should be factored into how internal processes and inter-departmental hand-offs are managed.Finally, we discussed the sales technology tool landscape and the potential evolution of a revenue operations platform.  The first step Jordan takes towards the goal of a revenue operations platform is the consolidation of existing Martech and Salestech.  Vendors like Syncari, Clari, and Kluster are three early market leaders.   The RevOps Squared Revenue Operations framework, which is comprised of three layers: 1) Data; 2) Process + Platform; 3) Business Insights.If you are aspiring to be or already are a revenue operations professional, or a Chief Revenue Officer considering the creation of a  Revenue Operations function, Jordan 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.

Marketing Operations to Sales Operations to a VP, Customer Success.  This carer path serves as an amazing foundation for a Revenue Operations executive.This is exactly the career path that Alison Elworthy, EVP of Revenue Operations at HubSpot. Alison's experience as a customer success executive was an eye-opening experience for a career-long operations professional who had not previously invested time interacting with customers.Alison's experience working with HubSpot customers led HubSpot from being a "function-out" to a "customer-in" focus for Hubspot's recently formed revenue operations function.How to bring the customer needs into revenue operations?  Alison created a "Voice of the Customer" team that resides within Revenue Operations.  The primary goal of this group is to ensure that every member of the RevOps team shadows customer conversations to life. Monthly "customer first" meetings include all HubSpot executives to listen to the most recent, highest priority customer needs.Next, we discussed how to staff a "Voice of Customer" function, which centered on bringing in both internal CS resources and external personnel with outside perspectives.  One tool is the "customer roadblock" portal which enables customers to be part of the voice of the customer data collection process.   One topic that came through loud and clear from this process was that hand-offs between marketing, sales, and customer success were negatively impacting the customer experience.As we dove into the "hand-offs" issue, the concept of the "revenue flywheel" evolved.  First,  the revenue operations team identified that there were not common metrics across the internal functions and/or the customer journey.  After developing a holistic "revenue model", they were able to define metrics across three levels of operations including Vital Signs, Pulse Signs, and diagnostics. Vital signs are the top 5 KPIs that the CEO and Chief Customer Officer ( CCO) tracks.  The pulse signs are the top 10-15 metrics that directly impact the company-level metrics.  The diagnostics enable internal resources to double click into the source data that impacts both the pulse signs and vital signs.  By doing this, Alison highlighted this helped to increase the RevOps team investment on forming strategic insights (foresight) versus reactive activities and historical "hindsight".Next, we pivoted to the role that platforms and systems play in a "Customer-In" focus while enhancing internal alignment. Alison highlighted "systems as the foundation" for efficient Go-To-Market operations.  As the conversation evolved, the importance of "DATA" was highlighted as a co-equal, foundational priority for Revenue Operations.  In fact, Alison highlighted the same question to marketing and sales results in different answers due to the inconsistency of the data.If you are contemplating or just starting your "Revenue Operations" journey,  Alison's experiences, insights, and ideas are a great place to start!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On this episode of the Metrics that Measure Up podcast we are joined by Wes Bush, founder and CEO  of ProductLed.Wes's journey to founding ProductLed and becoming a leading voice on Product-Led Growth started when he was responsible for demand generation for B2B SaaS companies.  Specifically, when he led demand generation at Vidyard, they launched a new product that allowed them to evolve from "hosting videos" to providing a self-service tool that allowed end-users to quickly film, edit and share videos across email and social media channels.This launch quickly led to over 100,000 users and eclipsed the value to Marketing Qualified Leads almost overnight.This experience started Wes to think that there were not well-defined "playbooks" for companies to leverage as they started to evaluate and take the first steps into a Product-Led journey.Wes shared the PLG "Layer Cake" model, which highlights the foundational elements required for any PLG program: 1. Data Layer - getting a solid product analytics infrastructure in place 2.  Product Layer - gaining deep insights into the User Experience 3. Conversational Layer - when and how to interact with the userIn a sales-led motion,  traditionally only sales and marketing are deeply engrained in the process and the metrics that predict outcomes.  In a PLG motion, every function can benefit from having access to the product analytics to inform their decision making such as: - How users are finding out about and then to start using a product (Marketing)- When users are at a point of activation, that the probability of converting to a paid user or enterprise-wide license is most likely (sales)-  Where in the product on-boarding process do users start to attrite or stop using the product (products)- What features are used in the product that most correlate to customer retention (Customer Success)Tooling and platform infrastructure will need to evolve in Product Led companies.  Specifically Wes sees a day when a platform that natively includes both product analytics information + internal outreach resource process information resides natively. Integrating product utilization information into existing CRM tools is a good short-term band-aid, but not an optimal solution long-term.Freemium versus Free Trials each have appropriate use cases,  One of the primary variables for which model to use is how long does it take to reach that "aha moment", often referred to as the "Activation Point".  For products that inherently have longer journeys to achieve real user value, a freemium product may perform much better than a time-restricted free trial period.Product Qualified Leads (PQL's) the #1 metric for the PLG motion.  A critical component of the initial PQL is proven activation point(s) that predictably lead to higher conversation rates to paying customers.  Another variable to consider is the ability to supplement product utilization data with Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and Buyer Persona data to optimize both the conversion rates and validate the current understanding of the best target customer cohort(s).Time-to-Value is another key metric to capture, and factor into both the PQL criteria, but also into the product roadmap.  The "SOONER" a user can experience value, the higher returns on your PLG investment.We wrapped up this episode with Wes providing three things to consider if you are evaluating whether  PLG makes sense for your company:1.  Technology is deflationary - users want to pay less over time2.   Enterprise customer buying process is up 55% - find a way to decrease that for them3.  Product experience has become part of the buying experienceDon't "TELL" them - "SHOW" them - a key tag line in the Product-Led Growth economy!!!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Product Analytics + Product Led Growth are critical partners for success.Ken Fine, CEO of Heap Analytics recently joined me on the Metrics that Measure Up podcast to discuss the inextricable linkage between these two concepts.PLG currently exists in a continuum of maturity, with some companies managing the entire customer lifecycle using a product-led motion, while the majority still using a traditional sales led motionKen believes the dominant Go-To-Market model in the future will be an artful combination of both a product-led and sales-led motion with a key focus on reducing friction across customer acquisition, expansion, and retention.Some products are better suited for PLG, and others that require more configuration, integration, and implementation assistance will be better served with a combination of product and human assistance.Ken highlighted that PLG is applicable across every stage of the customer lifecycle.PLG requires developing a hypothesis, testing the concept, then using data to determine the efficacy of the experiment, and then continuously iterating to optimize the performance metrics.Activation is the point in a journey where a user finds value from using a product in a PLG motion. Often, activation is referred to as the “aha moment” for a user.Identifying the “activation point” is a blend of art and science, with a strong focus on data that directly impacts company value impacting metrics such as new customers, revenue, share of wallet, etc.Ken’s experience includes being the CEO of a company that deploys Product Led Growth in combination with a Sales Led motion. When asked about the “predictive” data they found to predict conversion to paid, Ken highlighted that when users progressed to using their query tool "x" number of times, conversion rates are higher. In addition, when users leverage their integration feature, that provides a “step level function” in conversion rates.The number of times a PLG company reaches out to a free trial or freemium during free product utilization is an evolving process. Based upon a user reaching an “activation” point, they have a product specialist resource reach out, and are still developing a global heuristic using a “test and learn” approach to determine the number of outreaches that optimize the conversion rate.When asked about the best “resource” to reach out to free or freemium users, Ken highlighted that “it depends”. In their model, a solution consultant with deep product knowledge is the initial resource to reach out to provide product-centric assistance but also are trained to identify sales opportunities.Product Qualified Led’s (PQL) is a new metric that highlights when a free trial or freemium user has reached an activation point and is in a position to convert to a new or expanding customer. PQL’s are scored on different levels of qualification, similar to an MQL, though much more qualified based upon actual product usage and engagement. PQL’s go beyond hypothesis and use proven product usage analytics that are predictive of conversion.In summary, Ken shared that if you have traditionally had a sales-led model, that change management is a critical, yet often overlooked element of deploying a PLG model. In short Ken shared - “NAIL IT BEFORE YOU SCALE IT”!If you are considering or recently started your PLG journey, Ken and Heap Analytics are a great follow.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sam Crowell Richard is responsible for growth across the OpenView Partners portfolio. OpenView Partners is a leader in advocating Product Led Growth strategies across their portfolio, which includes leading PLG companies including Calendly.Sam has invested in her career preparing for a growth role in a PLG focused venture capital firm, including learning the secrets of digital marketing in a digital agency, and then for 5+ years at an early stage, PLG company, Dispatch, ultimately acquired by Vista Equity, a leading Private Equity firm in the B2B SaaS and Cloud industry.Product Led Growth companies see 80% - 90% of their initial freemium/trial users acquired using digital marketing techniques such as SEO,  though conversion to paid customers only occur 50% - 60% of the time without the involvement of a human resource.  The type and complexity of the solution directly correlates' to the requirement for the engagement of a human resource to assist the user to become a paying customer.The approach and skillset of the resource initially reaching out to the PLG acquired user is different than in a traditional sales-led environment.  Additional insights, including how they are using the product, possibly areas they have not yet experienced, and allows the vendor's initial outreach to be with a much warmer, engaged led.Product usage, often derived from a Product Analytics platform is a critical foundational component for a PLG company.  One of the areas of focus is how product usage information is provided to the resources responsible for user outreach.  A new consideration for revenue operations is how to provide product usage information within the construct of CRM environments.  Though not a primary topic today, the need for a different CRM for PLG  companies may be a new market opportunity.Top Metrics for PLG companies:1. Organic Search:  What % of traffic and new users come from SEO2. User Journey Metrics:  3. Activation Rate: where people are finding value in your product4. CAC Payback Period:    - must  be much quicker for PLG companies, with < 12 months being great and some even       reaching < 6 months. Price point is a key factor in this benchmarkActivation rate is a nuanced metric, as it is different for every solution.1. Does action correlate to positive business outcome      a. 50% conversion rate to paid2.  Activation point activity or task completed by > 50% of trial users3. Activation point reached quickly     a.  1 week - 1 month40% - 60% of PLG free users represent "Zombie Users" which will never convert.  Activities by agents, robots, and poor fit users represent this category and should be identified as early as possible.We also discussed "Product Qualified Leads" or PQL's.  This is a key metric that is calculated based upon product utilization by free/trial users.  It's interesting that only 35% of PLG companies are using PQL's.  This is an increase over the past year, but still not being used by a majority of PLG companies.  PQL's provide a unique opportunity to decrease the friction and resulting lack of alignment that MQL's have introduced between sales and marketing.Natural Rate of Growth is a new "PLG" centric metric that OpenView Partners uses to understand the organic growth rate of PLG companies.Lastly, if you are an early-stage professional considering a career in B2B SaaS,  Sam shares her advice that you create your own rotational program to gain a well-rounded understanding of how B2B SaaS companies operate across all functions in the company.Sam provides a wealth of insights and advice for any B2B SaaS company considering or are in the early days of a PLG strategy.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.