Metrics that Measure Up

Tony Jamous, Founder and CEO Oyster HR share his insights on the global employee strategy imperative and his insights into why global employment is so important to the world's economy. During this episode, Tony and our host, Ray Rike discuss a wide array of global employment topics including:The Sustainable CEO - the what, why and howWhy global employment is important to the world economyThe reality of global employees - it may surprise youThe top three challenges in implementing a global employee strategySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Brandon Redlinger, Vice President of Marketing joins our host Ray Rike to discuss his journey to becoming the head of marketing for Chili Piper, a leading B2B SaaS company. The topics they cover include:The path to VP Marketing and beyondThe benefit of building a personal LinkedIn brand and followingThe evolution of the B2B SaaS CMO roleHow will B2B Marketing evolve in the AI eraBrandon's first role was as a Sales Development Representative and then as an AE for a few years. Then he discovered his passion for technology and marketing, so he moved to the heart of B2B technology in the Bay Area and has held marketing roles at Demandbase working with Marketo founder, Jon Miller and then moving to Revenue.io and eventually to becoming the Head of Marketing at Chili Piper.Brandon first built his marketing experience in demand generation at both Engagio and Demandbase, and realized he needed to round out his marketing experience more and made the mode to Product Marketing at Revenue.io - that in retrospect was a good move to broaden his marketing experiences. Those roles were the foundation to becoming the VP of Marketing at Crosschq and now at Chili Piper.What surprised Brandon the most about his first role as the Head of Marketing? The first was learning how to manage internal politics and knowing how to "play the game" of getting things done and moving forward cross-functionally. Though Brandon initially bristled at the thought of "playing the game" he quickly realized it was about developing cross-functional relationships and communication skills to get peers on board and supportive of the marketing programs and priorities.Brandon just entered the VP Marketing role at Chili Piper and he shared some of the priority programs and initiatives he is working on first. With the introduction of new products and new ICPs, Brandon identified the need to tie use cases together and came up with the concept of "Demand Conversion" to sell a larger story and not a single-point solution - such as lead routing.Another key factor in Brandon's journey to becoming the head of Marketing was building his own LinkedIn brand. Brandon initially started his LinkedIn journey by seeing the number of profile visits to Jon Millers profile at Engagio, and he and a colleague started a shared journey to surpass Jon Miller's profile views - which is pretty impressive since Jon was the founder of Marketo and Engagio. The result was being invited to many podcasts as a guest and then being able to transfer that following to the company's brand.How important was Brandon's LinkedIn presence and following to getting his first and now second head of Marketing role? He says it did for sure and is especially important when the following are the same buyer personas that the hiring company sells their solution.How has the role of the CMO evolved? It all centers on the availability and usage of all the data to draw insights and then act upon finding the signal amongst all the noise. Brandon is convinced that the success of marketing leaders in the future is understanding and even being able to read and predict where the market is going - not just understanding where it is!If you are an early career Marketing professional or in your first head of Marketing role, this is a very informative and instructive conversation!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Henry Mizel, the Senior Vice President of Revenue Operations and Partnerships at Apollo.io has over 8 years of experience as a Revenue Operations professional. During today's episode Henry and our Host, Ray Rike discuss the evolution of Revenue Operations as a function and a profession including the below topics:The evolution of Revenue OperationsThe primary responsibilities and measurements of RevOpsRevOps - strategic function or a tactical departmentProduct function to GTM executives (Data Side)Examples of unique value deliveryIf you are a Revenue Operations professional or an executive leader interested in learning more about how RevOps is being leveraged at one of the highest growth B2B SaaS companies in the private market, this episode 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.

Private Equity (PE) firms are becoming a larger part of the exit optionality for B2B SaaS Founders and CEOs. Over the past few years, PE firms have gone down the market to evaluate companies in the $5M - $20M ARR range which was traditionally the domain of Venture Capital.In today's episode, we cover several aspects of being an Operating Partner at a Private Equity firm with Paul Stansik, Partner at ParkerGale Capital including:The role of an Operating Partner at a PE firmThe evolution of an Operating Partner over the past five yearsHow to work with a PE Operating Partner as a GTM executiveThe most concerning “metrics trends” over the last 12 monthsWhat CEOs should expect from their VP of SalesPaul started with the four primary roles of an operating partner in PE including: 1) Keeper of the standards and having a strong view and sense of what "good" looks like. Documenting the processes and associated measurements that lead to the strongest performance across customer acquisition, retention, and expansion.2) Being a strategic diplomat - nothing gets done unless there is an agreement in place as an operating partner does not "OWN" the process so they need to get the management team to a place of agreeing that something needs to be done and then agree to the "WHAT" of needs to be done.3) Help to keep score - many founders may not have yet implemented a robust measurement system across the GTM motions. Establishing those measurements provides more insight and predictability of how success is being measured and reported. This includes metrics definitions, instrumentation, and reporting cadence.4) Creating an environment and/or culture of the company that includes being supportive, yet demanding to ensure the investment is on track to provide the targeted return on investment.What are the current SaaS metrics trends that are most concerning? Paul highlighted that "quota attainment" in the 30% - 50% range is extremely concerning. What makes this level of quota achievement acceptable and what to do about it? If you are a CRO knowing that a low percentage of new reps will make quota and not doing something about it is a real problem. Paul posted an article on LinkedIn on "Why Sales Sucks" and this is the primary theme of the article.If you are working with or will be starting to work with an Operating Partner in a Private Equity firm this conversation is chalked full of great insights and ideas.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

How does being a World Series of Poker champion influence the entrepreneurial journey? That was one of the surprising insights that David Daneshgar, Co-Founder and CEO of Whippy shared during his appearance on this weeks episode.During David's conversation with our host, Ray Rike he shared his experiences and vision for AI enabled customer communications which including the below topics:How being a World Series of Poker Champion helps David as an entrepreneurThe promise, potential and reality of AI empowered customer communicationsCustomer Use Cases for AI enabled customer communicationsIf you are responsible for a company that has a large number of customers, and customer communications this episode provides thought provoking insights into how AI can not only enable but transform how companies interact and engage with their customers.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Nicolas Kopp, Founder of Rillet, discusses unique accounting challenges in recurring revenue models, importance of revenue recognition, and financial performance reporting. He shares insights on entering a mature market with a new product, common challenges in the market, and limitations of traditional accounting software for SaaS metrics.

Dave Gerhardt, the founder and CEO of Exit Five, former Chief Marketing Officer at Privy, and Chief Brand Officer at Drift discusses the challenges, opportunities, and success strategies for building a Community for B2B Marketers.In 2021, Dave started Exit Five as a community for B2B Marketers as a side project while at Privy. it started by posting on LinkedIn and launching a podcast building a following and then creating a community at $10 per month. Within the first 60 days, over 1,000 members joined the community and now the community includes over 3,000 B2B Marketers.Dave defines Exit Five as a media company focused on B2B Marketing. With over 3,000 members Dave has a unique perspective on the role of Chief Marketing Officers and their organizations.  Over the past 2-3 years, the environment has changed resulting in much greater scrutiny on Marketing expenses and thus rigor has returned. Moreover, the market conditions have forced CMOs to ensure Marketing and Sales are more tightly aligned - especially as Dave Kellogg says if the CEO goes right and the CRO goes left - the best CMOs stay close to the CRO by going left.What does Dave think about measuring ROI on evolving trends such as community-led growth or media-led growth? Dave highlighted this is a common problem, and part of the reality is that good marketers just need to know that these are critical "long-term" strategies, that need to be blended with up to 70% of the investments being more short-focused, but having the courage to help the CFO and CEO understand the strategic, long-term value of the other 30% of Marketing investment. Bottom line, getting the CEO and CFO to understand the strategic value of Marketing is a key skill of those most successful CMOs who can see the return over multiple years, not just a few quarters.Another point Dave highlighted was that over time members of your community will self-identify how they heard about your solutions and why they decided to "raise their hand" to buy something. Community is even more important when the deals are bigger and the risks are heightened. If you are thinking about or modeling the investment and returns of building a B2B community, this conversation with Dave Gerhardt is full of great ideas and critical insights into what turns an audience into a community.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Becky Lawlor is the founder, of Redpoint Content, which advises and assists technology companies by providing original research services and content marketing servicesEvolution of Content MarketingRole of Research in a Content Marketing StrategyOriginal Research Content ChallengesOver the past 3-5 years, content marketing has evolved from a "nice to have" versus a "must have". The primary goals include increasing brand awareness, enhancing demand creation, and ultimately generating pipeline. Over the past 12 - 18 months in an environment of increased efficiency and reduced expenses, the quality of content is trumping content quantity. The benefit of AI is as much about quality as it is about producing more content with fewer resources.Becky started by sharing that a good content marketing strategy and even organizational structure begins with understanding what the target audience is looking for and reflects a high level of engagement. Becky's findings are that "original research" is consistently one of the highest-performing content marketing assets, in fact, many of Becky's clients report that original research-based content performs 2x - 3x higher, as measured by downloads" as other types of content, such as how to guides.Becky highlighted that while industry analysts provide a valuable service, most technology buyers understand there is a certain "pay to play" aspect to analyst-published research which increases the value of a brand's own "primary research". One key caveat is that when a whitepaper is a "funded project" for a brand - that an analyst report is not that much more valuable than a brand conducting its own "original research".If you are responsible or depend on pipeline creation, or have direct responsibility for identifying, creating, and publishing content that increases brand awareness and drives demand creation, this 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.

Jake Stein, Founder and CEO Common Paper is a multiple time founder of B2B SaaS companies including his third with the goal to help standardize Master Service Agreements across the Cloud industry.In today's episode we will be covering three main topics:Vision behind standardizing Cloud Service AgreementsCloud Service Agreement BenchmarksChallenges and Advantages of being a multiple time B2B SaaS founderWhat was the catalyst behind founding Common Paper? Jake highlighted that everything regarding contracts in his previous two start-ups was just too hard! Starting a partnership with the debate and sometimes misalignment that goes with contract negotiation is not consistent to a mutually beneficial partnership. Jake highlighted that when you buy a house - almost every state has a standard real estate purchase agreement. Even the B2B Tech industry has standardized some fund raising agreements, such as the SAFE agreement.The first participants are often early stage SaaS companies, who have a strong desire to remove the friction and resources required for new customer agreements. Currently 20,000 different companies have downloaded the standardized agreement, and 1,000+ companies have used the Common Paper platform to sign the standardized agreements with their customers.As a by product of having 1,000+ companies using the Common Paper standard Cloud Service Agreement - this provides unique access to the data and metrics associated with all the contracts being signed on their platform. Some of the interesting benchmarks include:90% of Cloud Service Agreements have an auto renewal clause29% of Cloud Service Agreements have built in price increases (averaging 5% - 8% per year)70% of Cloud Service Agreements are annual subscriptions48% invoice monthly and 40% invoice once annually85% of Cloud Service Agreements cap "Limitation of Liability" at 1x fees paid in previous 12 monthsThe presence of Data Privacy and AI increased 10x over past 12 months (2.5% to 25%)To see the rest of the benchmarks from the Common Paper Cloud Service Agreement click here.If you are responsible for writing, negotiating or signing Master Service Agreements with SaaS and Cloud companies, this conversation with Jake is chalked full of hard to find insights and benchmarks for the terms and conditions being used today!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Jamie Davidson is a two-time Chief Technology and after his stint as a first Chief Customer Officer decided that Customer Success technology needed a next-generation platform with over 500 customers and funding by A16Z. As a result, Vitally.io was born!Impact of Catalyst and Totango on the Customer Success Technology IndustryThe Future of Customer SuccessThe Evolution of Customer Success MetricsThe Challenges of a Founder in Customer Success TechnologyRecently, two leading players in the Customer Success Platform category, Totango and Catalyst announced their plans to merge. Jamie's perspective is that it could be problematic for category momentum in the short term, but was simply a business decision by two companies that were in no way indicative of the Customer Success platform category as a whole or the Customer Success procession.How is Customer Success going to evolve over the next few years? Jamie sees Customer Success becoming more strategic, especially with the help of additional data, insights, and AI. Ultimately, a balance of the existing role as the primary customer relationship manager, while becoming more strategic as the "voice of the customer" to better inform product roadmap, marketing messaging, and new customer sales.Customer Success, coupled with better tooling has the potential to materially increase the strategic impact that Customer Success delivers. The evolution of Customer Success technology will move beyond the goal of serving the Customer Success leader and will surface insights and data important to other executive leaders beyond the CS leader, including the other GTM leaders and product leaders.If you are leading a Customer Success team, making budget allocation decisions for Customer Success, or are just interested in understanding and helping to determine the future of Customer Success in your company, this conversation with Jamie is a very helpful listen!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.