It’s rare that a guest prompts us to completely rethink how we approach the work we do and our roles in our companies.That’s exactly what happened, though, with this week’s guest, Todd Abbott. Todd is the CEO of InsightSquared, the forecasting and analytics platform.Todd has dramatically changed the way he thinks about sales, sales funnels, and what he calls the "science of sales". And on this episode, he shares that evolution with all of us.In our conversation, Todd and I talk about what made him change his views, the power of system-captured engagement, and his mission to get reps out of the data entry business.Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends! You can connect with Sean on Twitter @Seany_Biz @DriftPodcasts

As operators, we spend so much time thinking about the Day-In-The-Life of the sales reps at our companies.There are so many different things competing for time and mental headspace in a rep’s day in the life. Apps, tools, managers, Salesforce, prospectsOur guest on this episode, Michelle Pietsch, is an expert in helping to cut out the noise and getting reps back to what they want to do most: sell.Michelle is the Vice President of Revenue at Dooly, a tool that helps reps to update Salesforce, take sales notes, and easily manage all their deals. In our conversation, we talk about building sales teams without much instrumentation, how to get on the reps’ level before pushing out processes, and competing for that precious reps’ workspace. Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️  review and share the pod with your friends! You can connect with Sean on Twitter @Seany_Biz @DriftPodcasts

When you buy a new tool, your organization has placed a considerable investment in buying that tool, not to mention the investment made in Operations folks like us to implement and run these tools.So why is it that so many tools go unadopted? Or, just as commonly, why do so many end up only being used for a fraction of what they’re capable of? In this episode, I’m going to outline 4 steps to launching a new tool at your organization that people will actually use. Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️  review and share the pod with your friends! You can connect with Sean on Twitter @Seany_Biz @DriftPodcasts

It’s easy to say that the relationship between Sales and Sales Ops is an important one. We all get that. But how do you make that relationship actually work?In this episode, we sit down with Kelley Chan, the Director of Commercial Sales Strategy and Execution at GlobalFoundries. Kelley has a unique set of experiences that ranges from working at a massive organization like Box to being, as she puts it, "a one-woman band" at People.ai. In our conversation, we dive into the metric categories she created for coaching reps, how she brings business context to data, and why everything we were taught about ratios in Sales planning is wrong.Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️  review and share the pod with your friends! You can connect with Sean on Twitter @Seany_Biz @DriftPodcasts

So much of what we do in Operations is figuring out how we get from Point A to Point B, and then how do we get there better, faster, and smarter the next time around.On this episode, we had the chance to talk to Mickey Heynen, who has built a team around this mission of getting from Point A to Point B better, faster, and with longer lasting results. Mickey is the Vice President of Global Professional Services and Education at Confluent, where his team of change agents makes the company’s promise a reality for its customers.In our conversation, we talk about Professional Services as a company within the company, how internal communications is like a game of catch, and how his team solves problems and magnifies the solutions to those problems to the rest of the world.Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️  review and share the pod with your friends! You can connect with Sean on Twitter @Seany_Biz @DriftPodcasts

While everything in sales and marketing funnels is measured and instrumented to ridiculous levels of detail, it's easy to forget about the post-sale customer journey. That's where Customer Success Operations teams come in.CS Ops hasn’t always received the same amount of time and attention that Marketing Ops and Sales Ops have, but it’s making its presence known now.Our guest on this episode, Caitlin Quinlan, is the Senior Vice President of Revenue Operations at Gainsight, and she has helped design every aspect of that customer journey from post-sale responsibilities and hand-offs to retention forecasting. In our conversation, Caitlin and I talk about the evolution of CS Ops, the way she debunks myths about Sales and CS compensation, and she outlines the 2x2 grid that Gainsight uses to segment its customer base.Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️  review and share the pod with your friends! You can connect with Sean on Twitter @Seany_Biz @DriftPodcasts

A very common question we get is, “How does Drift use Drift at Drift?” So on this episode, we're going answer that question.To do this, we called in the experts. Those experts, and our guests, are Tim Ozmina, Senior Conversion Marketing Manager, and Monique Lemieux, Senior Marketing Operations Manager. Together, Tim and Monique form the Marketing and Marketing Ops foundations upon which our Drift instance is built.This episode isn’t an infomercial; it's a master class. In our conversation, we go deep on 3 very specific use cases that we actually use here at Drift, how those use cases go from idea to execution to measurement, and why Tim and Monique don’t look at Drift as its own separate channel, but rather a key ingredient and accelerant for all of their marketing campaigns. Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️  review and share the pod with your friends! You can connect with Sean on Twitter @Seany_Biz @DriftPodcasts

How many times have you been in a meeting and heard someone say, “This is an expensive meeting.” But exactly how expensive is that meeting?In Operations, we spend a lot of time instrumenting things like bookings, lead funnels, and retention rates. Measuring and instrumenting time? That's too fluffy, too subjective.Our guest on this episode, Dave Link, is on a mission to change that, and bring a whole new meaning to the phrase, “time is money”. Dave is the Founder and CEO of Resultably, a company that helps organizations listen to their employees, make better use of time, and drive efficiency.Dave is going to help us answer the question of exactly how expensive meetings on your calendar can be. In our conversation, we talk about the hidden biases in your calendar, how org charts work like the human brain, and why you should think about renewing meetings the same way you renew software. Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️  review and share the pod with your friends! You can connect with Sean on Twitter @Seany_Biz @DriftPodcasts

As your customer base grows and your product offerings expand, you’re likely going to be faced with an important inflection point about the most effective way to make your customers successful.You’ll likely start having conversations about how much your customers do on their own versus how much your company can and should help them to do. If you’re having conversations like these, chances are you’ve considered whether or not your company should have a Professional Services team.Whether you’re considering Professional Services for the very first time or you’ve had a team in place for years, our guest today, Meagen Williams, has built and developed an incredibly successful Professional Services blueprint for all of us to model. Meagen is the Vice President of Professional Services at Acquia, the digital experience platform that was acquired by Vista Equity partners in 2019 for $1B.In our conversation, Meagen teaches us how to measure what “good” looks like in Professional Services, we dive into the healthy tension between your partner ecosystem and Professional Services, and why the goal of any Services organization should not be to generate services revenue. Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️  review and share the pod with your friends! You can connect with Sean on Twitter @Seany_Biz @DriftPodcasts

A pretty common tradition at the beginning of each year at tech companies is the Company Kickoff. This is usually where the entire company comes together to talk about what they’ve achieved, what is up next, and how to get there.These are usually massive in-person events, and obviously, this year that just isn’t happening. In this episode, we dig into how companies can adapt the kickoff format to be a truly virtual event, and have it actually work.The trio with the playbook to pull it off came from our own team at Drift: Mark Siciliano, our VP of Sales Productivity & Strategy, Maria Casella, Drift’s Chief of Staff, and Jackie Wright, the Executive Assistant to our CRO.In our conversation, we talk about what it looks like to run a virtual kickoff during a pandemic, how to manage the competing expectations and content of different C-suite members, and how one of our filming sessions for Kickoff was actually the first time that our CRO and CMO ever met in person!Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️  review and share the pod with your friends! You can connect with Sean on Twitter @Seany_Biz @DriftPodcasts