Metrics that Measure Up

Michelle Valentine, Founder and CEO of Anrok is taking on the Sales Tax compliance challenges for B2B SaaS companies. Global Sales Tax compliance is a critical obstacle to successfully deploying a global Product-Led Growth strategy.Michelle's conversation with our host, Ray Rike covers a wide array of topics including:Evolution of Sales Tax and Compliance in SaaSChallenges of Global Sales Tax ComplianceDynamic Nature of SaaS Sales TaxEvolution from Investment Banking to Venture Capital to B2B SaaS Founder/CEOWhat was the catalyst for Michelle to found Anrok? Michelle's experience as a SaaS investor was on a run with a founder along the Embarcadero in San Francisco, and she was sharing their company's challenge with tax compliance which sparked the idea. Thinking back to the early days of Amazon, most states did not initially tax e-commerce sales - but that has changed dramatically over the last 10+ years and Michelle saw the same change to B2B SaaS in the future!Michelle provided the history of State sales tax in the 1920s, which was introduced on physical retail store sales as a revenue source for States. In 2018, a similar concept began to be deployed by States on cloud-delivered software (SaaS) - though it is to be noted that California never charged for software sold in the state. Stimulated by COVID-19, a new reality was introduced - if you had an employee, even a remote employee in a state, you had to charge Sales Tax in that state. Based upon a Supreme Court case in 2018 (South Dakota vs Wayfair), there is also a "revenue threshold" that requires companies to collect sales taxes in the state of the customer that bought software/SaaS from the company. Think about the challenge of staying on top of each state's Sales Tax laws, and then how much more difficult that becomes when expanding globally.Many countries worldwide will require sales tax on even the first sales in that country.  VAT ID validation is one approach to determine if a specific transaction requires sales tax collection - but each country does have different local thresholds.Why is now the time for next-generation sales tax compliance software? The majority of sales tax compliance software was built for consumer companies, and was not developed to understand global sales tax compliance, was not built with recurring revenue in mind and thus did not have the data model flexibility to expand and adapt to a rapidly changing regulatory environment. Even cities like Chicago are now requiring software purchased and/or used in their jurisdiction to be taxed.If you lead a B2B SaaS company that is selling your solution to companies in states outside of where your company is headquartered, and especially if you are considering selling to companies around the globe, this conversation with Michelle is full of amazing Sales Tax compliance insights that make for an insightful listen!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Henry Schuck, Founder and CEO has been leading ZoomInfo since he first founded the company in his law school dorm room through multiple funding rounds leading to an IPO in 2020. Henry shares his journey and his leadership evolution which continues today as he maneuvers the industry's choppy waters of 2023 and 2024!The journey from founding DiscoverOrg to the ZoomInfo IPO…and beyondData-driven processes and decisions - how they are used at ZoomInfoLessons learned from leading a public company during an industry correctionHenry founded ZoomInfo 17 years ago in his law school dorm when he was 23 years old.  The goal was and continues to be to provide Sales and Marketing professionals with the most up-to-date data to inform them who their prospects are who their buyers are and if they are in the market for their category of solutions.The journey started as a boot-strapped business with two first-time founders including $50,000 of personal credit card funding! TA Associates was the first outside capital brought into the company when the company hit $30M Run Rate revenue, which allowed for investing into the business including acquisitions and scaling Go-to-Market.In 2017 they acquired RainKing and then acquired ZoomInfo in 2019 and that was when the original company - DiscoverOrg became ZoomInfo. The primary market had traditionally been the B2B Technology industry, and the ZoomInfo acquisition enabled a more horizontal focus across additional industries focused on B2B Selling.On June 4, 2020 ZoomInfo went public - how did that change Henry's role as the CEO? The first statement was you do not want being in a public company to change you as a leader much, but at the same time, there are new responsibilities including a new set of investors. Moreover, as a public company, you are constantly fundraising as you need to meet the institutional investors regularly and the public stakeholders are more transient, and building trust with them is critical.Staying focused on what is most important in running the business and executing is still an important role of the CEO, which does not change dramatically as a CEO. One of the things that does change materially as a company scales is to hire people who can take on the majority of day-to-day execution of the strategy. At the same time, the CEO focuses more on setting the strategy and hiring great executive leaders. The acquisition of RainKing required Henry to build the skills of integrating a competitive company and its employees into the company, and then the acquisition of ZoomInfo made the company much larger which requires an additional skill set of leading a larger workforce.Henry shared how does a CEO know if an executive can scale to the next level of the company's growth.  One, they need to learn quickly and simultaneously they need to build a great team underneath them to help scale their function. A great team allows the department head to take additional time to learn the skills required at that stage of the company's evolution. Without a great team, that learning process is compressed and may not afford the department executive the time to grow on the job without negatively impacting the business.One of the most important parts of the executive leadership team's role is to be very aligned with the CEO to intimately understand the vision and then to ensure you are executing the priorities that align with the vision.How does the role of the CEO of a public company change during a period of economic uncertainty (post ZIRP) and decreasing growth? The difference in leadership when growth decelerates is you can not spend as much, so the need to build the muscle to determine the best way to prioritize investments increases.  Another key change is the need for "transparency" increases as growth decelerates, including providing the narrative so it is not developed out of thin air.  Things like here is where we are succeeding, here is where we are struggling, and then monthly updates on how the company is performing as measured against the priorities, the strengths, and the threats.Henry says that in 2024 they have their best people ever, and the best level of engagement which he credits to having a higher level of transparency.Henry shared the importance data plays in their decision-making. Henry highlighted one area is if there is a data source that identifies prospects that will convert into customers at a higher rate and with an increased velocity. One example was to identify prospects that did not show up to a scheduled meeting and then take a systemic, data-driven approach to follow up with those no-shows and get them back into an active sales cycle. This "play" became a material source of new customer ARR every month!If you are a founder, a CEO, or a Go-to-Market executive this conversation with Henry is full of great insights and ideas on how to scale a company and increase GTM efficacy in today's changing purchasing environment.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Matthew Blumberg, author of the Start-Up CEO Field Guide and founder of Bolster provides his insights and highlights from his series of books for start-up executives. Our host, Ray Rike, and Matthew discuss many of the main topics in the Start-Up CEO and directly from Matthew's experience as a multiple-time founder and CEO including:Lessons from being the founder & CEO at the same company for ~ 20 yearsImportance of Authentic Leadership in Changing TimesMoving beyond Storytelling to Execution to Selling your companyEach book in the "Start-Up" series was written specifically to help founders and CEOs use each book as a guide along their journey as a founder and as a CEO.What are the unique experiences gained from founding and running the company for almost 20 years? Learning how to pace yourself for the long term is key. Moreover, if you want an organization that is engaged and vibrant it starts with YOU...keeping yourself engaged and vibrant is served well by viewing each day, month, and year as a new opportunity to learn grow, and evolve as a leader. This is especially important as each stage of growth requires a different skill set than what got you there.One of the challenges of leading a company for an extended period is keeping those employees who have also been around for a long time to keep them fresh and get good at rotating people into different departments. One of the advantages of this approach is that they already have tribal knowledge and share the company's values.The Start-Up CEO is broken into six sections, and one is "Managing yourself so you can manage others". Why was this an important topic to Matthew? One was his journey to learning how to receive feedback gracefully, which is hard for everyone, and took Matthew a while to become good at receiving feedback. One of the key lessons Matthew learned was the need to "act upon" the input to make sure the person sharing the feedback is assured it was heard and accepted.Another learning was that Matthew's orientation to "think by talking" and "manage by walking around" could be a double-edged sword. Sometimes employees will take a conversation that the CEO thinks is an idea vetting opportunity that can be viewed as a "decision" versus "discussion", especially with people lower in the organization.Another example of needing to be careful of your natural orientation is being a "pacesetter", who is more focused on getting stuff done versus building long-term relationship capital.Why did Matt write a second edition of the "Start-Up CEO"? It was because he had recently sold Return Path, and he wanted to finish the book including his company being sold, and he also wanted to capture many of the social learnings from leading a company during COVID and the resultant change in the workforce that evolved during the remote work era.One of the final topics Matthew and Ray discussed was the value of collecting data from both internal resources and external sources, especially customers. Matthew highlighted his use of "active eavesdropping" to hear how employees communicated the company messaging to prospects and customers, and also hear what customers were saying to the rank and file that may not be shared with the CEO.If you are a first-time CEO or preparing for the next phase of growth in leading your company, this episode and conversation 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.

Julio Martinez, Founder and CEO of Abacum has been involved in Finance for most of his career. He then transitioned into the technology industry and was responsible for launching products for 4 years before founding Abacum.During this episode, we will cover 4 primary topics with Julio:The vision behind founding AbacumThree common FP&A mistakesFP&A’s role in developing corporate strategyUnique challenges of a start-up in a crowded categoryWhat was the catalyst for founding Abacum? After 20 years working with Finance teams across hundreds of companies, Julio saw and felt his client's pain of managing the financial planning and modeling process which was an area that Julio had seen challenges repeating again and again for his clients.What are the most common challenges facing the FP&A leader in 2024? The most important one is that FP&A teams need near real-time access to financial and operational data to deliver near real-time insights based on the metrics that matter to the senior leadership team. Today, it is a very manual process for most FP&A teams.The above need suggested that FP&A is being asked to go beyond period-specific modeling, planning, and budgeting and be able to have insights on near real-time performance, at least every week, and highlight the metrics trends quickly to the executive decision-makers.Over the last 10 years, FP&A's role has been elevated to a more strategic function that is involved in analyzing performance trends and metrics "in-period" to accelerate how their insights are factored into the next period's operating decisions and priorities.One of the recent posts that Julio made on LinkedIn focused on the most common mistakes that FP&A organizations make. A classic first mistake under indexing the importance of partnering and building strong relationships with other departments and their leadership. This "relationship capital" will result in gaining additional insights into the issues impacting the financial performance trends. A second challenge is the FP&A professional is great at modeling and using analytical tools, but often does not understand the business well enough to gain a seat at the executive table to go beyond reporting on performance trends, but also on what to do about the challenges facing the business.Many finance teams are spending 60% - 80% of their time gathering and modeling financial performance trends, and if they could flip that time to 60% - 80% of their time being spent on the analysis and then solution ideation specific to what the financial operations reports are surfacing.Next, we discussed the unique challenges of introducing a new product into a function and process that has been using technology and mature vendors for many years and even decades in certain industries. Julio says it starts with diving deep into your target market's and prospects' business to answer how your product meets their highest priority pain points and the challenges that are specific to their environment. Secondly, Julio highlighted having a "strong opinion" and "innovation" into how technology can address business processes and challenges that still exist even after using alternative technologies or approaches. Another key factor is to ensure that some of the key customer-facing resources are "domain experts" who have served in the role of their buyers and users and can quickly develop shared experience and trust-based relationships with both the customers and the internal product team.If you are responsible for leading an FP&A team, or use the outputs of the FP&A team to plan, manage, and improve your operational function this conversation with Julio Martinez, Founder and CEO Abacum 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.

Sean Brophy, the Head of Global Sales at Pigment joins our host, Ray Rike to discuss selling the Return on Investment of Financial Planning, Modeling, and Forecasting Software to both the Chief Financial Officer and the Chief Revenue Officer.Topics discussed during the conversation include:The challenges of selling to the CFO & CRO as economic buyersHow the business perspective on the value of planning, modeling, and forecasting has evolvedProving value and ROI to the CFO as the economic buyerTop Sales Performance MetricsSean has spent 20+ years on helping companies turn data into information that empowers more informed decisions. The first topic we covered was the unique challenge of selling to finance and revenue executive decision-makers. Pigment started solving problems for the office of Finance, and learned that integrated planning impacts not only finance but also the other functions, including Sales, Human Resources, and Supply chain to name a few. This requires the sales hires to be business-focused first and have the ability to effectively move across functions during the sales process.Top-down or bottom-up sales to the office of Finance? Sean prefers the initial entry point being with the CFO anchoring upon the unique value that aligns with their top objectives and biggest challenges. CFOs are typically looking for at least a 2x - 3x return on investment, which requires a hypothesis aligned to the metrics the CFO is targeting for improvement.Next, we discussed the rising importance of FP&A, and where we are in this department's maturity? Sean highlighted that more FP&A teams are acknowledging the fact that the current FP&A tool set is not meeting today's business requirements. FP&A today goes beyond reporting and is being asked to iterate financial plans in real-time using the latest data and then modeling different scenarios to be able to adjust the financial plan based on the latest data and trends.Then I asked Sean if FP&A has a seat and strategic role at the executive leadership table? Sean said FP&A is more strategic than ever, and a big part of that is their role of being able to leverage the most recent data and provide insights and recommendations on the latest financial trends - not those from multiple quarters ago.CFOs are prioritizing solutions that drive increased efficiency and more profitable revenue. This includes helping executive sales leaders build better revenue plans that increase productivity and increases revenue growth efficiency. This begs the question of selling value, which Sean says should be part of every Sales 101 model. Sean suggests that every sales process begins with asking what is the business value to the potential customer, and what metrics they will use to measure the return on investment of any new technology solution. Beyond selling, Value engineering will create a "value hypothesis" that is conservative and then shared to be validated by the buyer's champions who will typically start collaborating on the value hypothesis which is often increased from the initial "conservative" ROI presented.What the are primary metrics Sean uses to measure Sales Productivity and he presents to his CFO and CEO? Sean highlighted top line ARR growth as the top metric, but also Customer Acquisition Cost efficiency including the average Cost per Acquired Customer to ensure efficient growth trends. Sales Productivity as measured by the cost of the seller measured against quota delivered is the other TOP efficiency metrics Sean uses.If you are responsible for marketing and/or selling solutions to the CFO and/or CRO, this conversation with Sean Brophy, Head of Global Sales at Pigment 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.

Sally Duby, Chief Sales Officer at The Bridge Group shares the latest SaaS Account Executive Benchmark Report based upon their research which they have been conducting since 2007.During the episode we cover a wide array of topics and benchmarks from the report including:Account Executive Compensation Trends (OTE, Base Salary and Commissions)AE Quota Trends - By Annual Contract ValueAE Quota Achievement TrendsWin Rate TrendsExpansion and Renewal ResponsibilitiesThe full report is available by clicking here.If you are responsible for hiring, managing. modeling AE comp plans or have Account Executives in your company, this conversation and report is full of new insights and trends on the state of B2B SaaS Account Executive metrics trends and benchmarks!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Godard Abel, Founder and CEO of G2 is a pioneer in the world of B2B Software and SaaS reviews joins our host, Ray Rike to discuss the benefits of being a multiple-time CEO as he guides G2 into the next stage of growth and success. During the conversation, Godard and Ray cover a wide array of topics including:The benefit of being a multiple-time B2B SaaS Founder and CEOHow the experience of a Salesforce acquisition impacts perspectiveThe vision behind G2 and B2B Software Reviews (yesterday and tomorrow)How AI will change the B2B SaaS industryBuild or Buy a Large Language Foundational Model (LLM)Godard started by founding Big Machines on January 1, 2000, to build a company for the new millennium. During the "dot-com" bust, Godard learned the importance of customer focus and winning and keeping one customer at a time. The most important lesson Godard shared is the importance of continuous learning.G2 was founded 12 years ago, with the initial vision of becoming "Yelp for Software" which did not exist for B2B software and SaaS. This coincided with Marc Andreessen's "Software will eat the world" and Godard saw the opportunity to become the Amazon for buying B2B SaaS and Software.The journey to building G2 took a slight detour as Godard saw that building the audience of B2B software buyers to both provide reviews and then use reviews to inform their purchasing decisions. He simultaneously founded SteelBrick which was ultimately acquired by Salesforce.Back to G2 - the initial focus was on Sales and Marketing software as the buyers of revenue technology were more likely to share their experience online, especially compared to buyers of finance, HR, and infrastructure software. Some buyers of software who wrote the reviews even saw the published review as a career enhancement opportunity.What is the point of "critical mass" for B2B Reviews? The key was to have at least 20 reviews on the top 10 products, the reviews become more meaningful for the buyers. Then being able to rank on Google via SEO, becomes the point where monetizing B2B reviews is first possible - though getting to that point is and was a LONG journey. One of the techniques to get reviews includes incenting reviewers with gift cards.Another key approach is to progress on a category-by-category basis to build the critical mass of buyer reviews - and today G2 has over 2,300 different categories covered on their platform.Godard shared a few learnings from being acquired by Salesforce and then running a business unit within Salesforce. Godard highlighted the value of the V2MOM process, which begins with the vision and then the values that guide execution. Then write down the "methods" and "measurements" to ensure that the "how" is well understood and the measurements of success are well understood by everyone in the company. Godard said almost every meeting with Mark Benioff started with the V2MOM review, which included the measures of ACV bookings, year-over-year growth, pipeline, and where you stand against plan!The ultimate goal for G2 is to become a "Software Marketplace" that goes beyond being the leading Software/SaaS Reviews platform. Ultimately, Godard envisions moving beyond being a lead source for B2B SaaS/Software vendors, but even going beyond by enabling testing of the software to ultimate purchase - similar to what Amazon has done for retail.What are the metrics that G2 uses to measure the health of the business? The first thing Godard highlighted was the hiring of Chad Gold as CFO. The top metric is "Net New ARR" growth and then splitting that into growth from new customers and existing customers. The next metric is customer churn, and ensuring that maintaining and expanding existing ARR continues to grow as measured by NRR and GRR. Godard shared the importance of ensuring you fix Gross Revenue Retention is the first step to having good Net Revenue Retention.What is Godard's favorite SaaS Metric? He highlighted Net New ARR / Sales and Marketing expenses and the importance of calculating this metric by customer segments.The final topic was asking Godard HOW AI will change the B2B SaaS industry? Having the advantage of a large customer base and the associated data will serve as competitive moats as SaaS companies evolve into providing AI enabled value. Godard sees a combination of both existing vendors who have established the competitive moats and also native start-up AI companies both be winners in the AI era.If you are in a company that buys or sells B2B SaaS and Software, this conversation with Godard Abel, Founder and CEO of G2 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.

B2B SaaS company IPOs in 2023 and 2024 are like those mythical creatures from a time long ago - you hear a lot about them but seldom see them today! Klaviyo broke that drought for SaaS IPOs by going public on September 20, 2023!!!Ryan Meadows is the Klaviyo Senior Vice President of Global Sales and has been at Klaviyo since they were less than $50M ARR and started as a Director of Sales five years ago.Selling Measurable value to customersMetrics that Matter to an Executive Sales LeaderThe keys to effective sales leadership in 2024 and beyondHow does the role of a sales leader change during the journey to IPO...and beyond? Ryan started with the comment that "titles do not matter" and that his 8 years at Hubspot were critical to helping Klaviyo scale. The first challenge when Ryan joined was how to build in the rigor of hiring great salespeople, have a repeatable and scalable sales process and ultimately build a long-term sustainable business.Over time that journey includes building a capability to scale to new markets, scale internationally, and develop a platform that goes beyond a single-point solution...and then build the sales capabilities to gain traction in those new markets while building the ability to sell a platform versus a single product.Moving up market to Enterprise-class customers begins with understanding the heightened expectations of the buyers. Aligning every GTM function and achieving success in the Enterprise Market as a top five company priority and goal was the starting point, and the core foundation required to find success in the upper end of the market.Next, we discussed the evolving expectations of the key stakeholders after a company goes public, AND as Ryan was appointed the SVP of Global Sales. Understanding how to manage an earnings call and increase forecast accuracy are core competencies required in a public company.  Moreover to continue achieving the growth expectations as a public company requires close, cross-functional collaboration that shares the focus and responsibilities of pipeline growth, win-rates, and customer retention and expansion.As Ryan grew into the SVP Global Sales role, beyond hiring great leaders who could run the day-to-day operations to hit the numbers, building close relationships with his peers in Marketing and Customer Success became a much higher priority as they ensured they were building a sustainable growth engine. A key to this collaboration was having "shared goals" that the head of sales, head of marketing, and head of partnerships all own and meet weekly to discuss how the pipeline for both new and expansion revenue is performing.Another interesting point is measuring success, Klaviyo's North Star metric is customer value, measured by "Klaviyo attributed value" which exceeds $50B for increased customer revenue created by the Klaviyo solution.If you aspire to scale a company to an initial public offering, and/or grow your B2B Sales organization from less than $50M ARR to IPO, this conversation with Ryan Meadows, Senior Vice President of Global Sales at Klaviyo 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.

Tim Riitters, CFO at Gong sits down with our host Ray Rike to discuss the keys to successfully selling to a CFO. Tim provides a unique perspective as both a multiple time CFO and being the CFO at Gong who is helping to make a CFOs live easier with their Revenue Intelligence and AI enables forecasting solution!During this episode we cover four primary topics with Tim including:How Tim uses SaaS metrics to inform decision making at GongHow Gong uses SaaS metrics in board reporting and QBRsThe key considerations to understand when selling technology to a CFOFor anyone who is a SaaS CFO, aspires to be a SaaS CFO or has a desire to sell their solution to a CFO this episode includes insights and ideas that are valuable to each of you!!!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Patrick Smith, Chief Marketing Officer at Cvent joined our host Ray Rike to discuss the Future of B2B Events   including the latest trends and critical components required to engage attendees in 2024 and beyond.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.