Owning the Outcome

Jessica Scanlon, CEO of Hot Dog Marketing, joins the podcast to share her team's journey in transitioning from standard retainers to an agile retainer strategy. As Jessica explains, by leveraging the agile methodology, the planning cycles and production sprints of her team’s retainers now allow for more flexibility, responsiveness, and better client results. We start with a breakdown of agile retainers (what they are and why they matter) and the impetus was in making this transition. We then unpack the transition period for her team, including the key elements that needed to be reimagined across project management, process development, pricing strategies, team training and more. We wrap with results: what Jessica’s client engagements look like today, the differences she feels with the new agile approach in place, and the most noticeable, tangible impact on KPIs she’s seen—like average order value, assets under management per CS rep, and more.

In today’s episode, Ranya Barakat, CEO of CRM Toolbox, joins the show to talk about the major transitions, pivots, and inflection points her team has navigated over the last few years—as CRM Toolbox, a firm offering migration, integration, and complex onboarding services, used to be IDS, a LATAM full-service agency. Ranya starts with the why: what sparked the change in name and branding, the pivot in services, and re-classification to a North American partner. We then dig into her team’s service offering—and what this pivot meant for her old services, her existing team, and her existing client base. Ranya also shares the impact on sales, including how prospecting, her channels for sourcing, and her pricing methodology have all changed. We then wrap on strategy, and what the new client experience looks like working with CRM Toolbox. Ranya shares the team’s approach about defining the problem, understanding tech stacks and data structures, designing and planning solutions, and architecting it inside of (and around) HubSpot.

Eric Baum, Founder and CEO of Bluleadz, joins the podcast to share the makeup of his team’s sales org, including the roles, responsibilities, comp plans, and performance benchmarks for his SDRs and AEs. We talk about each team's focus areas, the handoff criteria and qualification thresholds for prospects, the places in which he builds for scale, and how he thinks about the sales team’s role in fielding inbound leads vs. more outbound prospecting. We even get into the role of his customer success org—and where and how they fit into the org’s efforts in cross-selling and upselling. We wrap with a pandemic-driven experiment where Bluleadz offered sales development as a service—with a team of SDRs dedicated to offering outsourced prospecting for his clients. Eric shares the genesis of the idea and how the team came to be before digging into the logistics: how the parameters of the service were defined, how he qualified fits amongst his client base, and how Bluleadz balanced both recurring and performance-based fees for the service.

Jason Azocar, Founder and CEO of HubSearch, joins the show to share his interpretation of the HubSpot talent shortage. We look at the opportunity in front of partners through three lenses: putting your best foot forward before hiring, best practices for facilitating a candidate through the hiring process, and the importance of sustainable onboarding plans and talent retention strategies. Pre-hiring, we talk about where and how to source, the going market rates for HubSpot talent, and how to position your company as a great place to work. For the hiring process, we unpack the full candidate experience and how to balance speed vs. quality of the process. Lastly, after a hire has been made, we discuss strategies for onboarding, growing, and keeping top talent, how partners should be thinking about balance, and how to grow a People Ops function.

This week, Matt Bolian and Brendan Tolleson, cofounders of RevPartners, rejoin the show. When we last checked in with the RevPartners team, they were the fastest HubSpot solutions partner ever to reach the Diamond tier. Now, about a year later, they return to the podcast as the fastest ever to reach the Elite tier. They offer actionable insights, frameworks, and the specific steps they took to reach the Elite tier of HubSpot’s partner program in under 16 months. First, we discuss scaling operations. Do they do anything *unique* or against the grain operationally? How do they sell? How do they define their service offering? Second, we discuss scaling people ops. How has their org chart evolved? How did they identify the right headcount needs and priorities? And how do they recruit the right people—and keep their top talent? And third, we discuss scaling demand. Does RevPartners have a traditional sales org? And how has their approach to content creation and marketing helped spark their growth?

John Heritage, President of Evenbound, joins to highlight, and then digs deeper into, the learning and development focus of his agency's culture. We start with its origin built on both his personal and professional experiences before moving to how he positions these learning initiatives around both HubSpot, and its growing, changing, expanding platform, as well as his team’s productivity—in other words, how does his team balance KPIs like utilization rate and billable hours with dedicating time for learning and development? We then discuss how he and the team operationalize. Specifically, how he infuses competition and camaraderie, how he ensures accountability from the team, and how he thinks about prescribing certifications and education based on role or function versus creating space for folks’ personal interest. Lastly, we talk about the ROI, where he shares the tangible, noticeable results with his clients the work his team delivers.

Steve Whittington, President of Roadmap, joins the show to talk about the oftentimes *unspoken* aspect of systems implementation—the ripple effect and impact a new CRM can have on an organization's culture. Steve talks about how he views and defines the culture change that comes with a new CRM platform, the differences at the individual-level and company-level, and whether it's a change in mindset, behaviors, accountability, responsibility—or all of the above. He then shares how his team implements that culture change in support of a new CRM platform—and if there are any particular tools, functions, or capabilities that seem to spark a culture change more than others. We wrap with his recommendations for other partners and services providers on how to account for the culture change and how to ensure its factored in appropriately into client engagements, front-line user training, and more.

Today, we have Michelle O'Keeffe, CEO of Engaging.io, on to discuss how she and her team dispel the notion that HubSpot's CRM platform isn't customizable, extensible, or powerful enough for enterprise-level businesses. She first calls out that while that notion is swiftly waning, she still highlights the fundamental differences between platforms when comparing HubSpot to other CRM platform options in the market—and how HubSpot's single codebase and crafted platform vs. cobbled-together competitors is such a key differentiator and key value proposition. Michelle outlines the considerations and notable items that she helps surface in her sales process to help prospects level-set and accurately weigh their options when selecting the right CRM—stacking up HubSpot up against things that rhyme with *Kalesforce* and *Kynamics*.

Amber Kemmis, Chief Operating Officer at Revenue River, joins us to talk about senior leadership—specifically, why they're important and others should be thinking about and planning their own tier of senior leaders. Amber starts by sharing where senior leaders fall in her org chart and their primary roles and functions. She then shares her interpretation of the talent market and why its so hard to discover senior-level talent in 2022. We wrap with her tips, tactics, and recommendations for finding senior talent in today's talent ecosystem.

Steve Galligan and Joseph Mohay, CEO and CRO of Integrated Digital Strategies (IDS), join the show to discuss IDS's target niche—franchises. We star with IDS's history and their pursuit of franchises, and whether the business was built with this niche in mind or if it was a discovery over time. We then pivot to the engagements themselves, including what these services offerings entail, the typical buyer's journey for franchise prospects and clients, and the biggest or most unique considerations to factor in when offering services and solutions for franchises. Lastly, we wrap with how this manifests in their operations and processes. They share their approach for handling, working with, and providing value for franchisors AND each individual franchisee—and how they've structured their org chart and teams to enable engagement with these clients.