RevOps FM

Many entrepreneurs dream of creating categories. But few have actually done it - much less built a category worth billions of dollars. Mark Organ is one of those rare few. As founding CEO of Eloqua, he pioneered marketing automation in the early 2000s, paving the way for other players and selling to Oracle for nearly $900 million. Mark and I chat through how he co-founded Eloqua, the pivots and experiments needed to achieve product-market fit, and how category creators may be wired a bit differently. Thanks to Our SponsorMany thanks to the sponsor of this episode - Knak. If you don't know them (you should), Knak is an amazing email and landing page builder that integrates directly with your marketing automation platform. You set the brand guidelines and then give your users a building experience that’s slick, modern and beautiful. When they’re done, everything goes to your MAP at the push of a button. What's more, it supports global teams, approval workflows, and it’s got your integrations. Click the link below to get a special offer just for my listeners. Try Knak About Today's Guest Mark Organ is the founding CEO of Eloqua (the first successful marketing automation platform) and Influitive. His greatest professional passions include creating new billion-dollar categories in technology and developing new leaders. Today he helps CEOs achieve their full potential in their businesses and their lives as the CEO of Categorynauts.https://www.linkedin.com/in/markorgan/Key Topics[00:00] - Introduction[01:05] - Founding Eloqua and marketing automation[07:47] - Origin of the lead generation playbook[10:39] - Getting to product-market fit[16:03] - Genesis of lead scoring[19:08] - Toolkit software vs. opinionated software[24:25] - Pivots and brushes with death are the norm[27:09] - When is it right to build a category?[30:14] - Building a category around an under-served hero[33:51] - Creating a category for the second time[36:42] - Challenges with churn at Influitive[41:05] - Alternatives to VC funding in SaaSResource LinksCategorynauts - Categorynauts is the leading global community of category creating leaders, helping CEOs looking to discover, develop and dominate their category. Learn MoreVisit the RevOps FM Substack for our weekly newsletter: Newsletter

Historically, Product-led Growth (PLG) companies have been underserved. Marketing automation platforms, growth playbooks, reporting frameworks, and “best practices” have been largely designed around the needs of their sales-led cousins. But PLG has had a renaissance in the past few years, and all that's changed. PLG now has its own communities, methodologies, frameworks, and tools. Today's guest, Dave Rigotti, has quickly become one of the godfathers of PLG as a thought leader and co-founder of Inflection.io. Thanks to Our SponsorMany thanks to the sponsor of this episode - Knak. If you don't know them (you should), Knak is an amazing email and landing page builder that integrates directly with your marketing automation platform. You set the brand guidelines and then give your users a building experience that’s slick, modern and beautiful. When they’re done, everything goes to your MAP at the push of a button. What's more, it supports global teams, approval workflows, and it’s got your integrations. Click the link below to get a special offer just for my listeners. Try Knak About Today's Guest Dave Rigotti is an entrepreneur and marketing leader dedicated to furthering the B2B marketing industry. Dave was VP of Marketing at Bizible (acquired by Marketo), Director of ABM at Adobe, and now is co-founder and marketing leader at Inflection.io.https://www.linkedin.com/in/daverigotti/Key Topics[00:00] - Introduction[01:39] - What is PLG? [04:00] - Why PLG has gotten so popular recently[05:50] - Reasons Dave focused his new company on PLG[07:26] - Why sales-led software doesn’t scale for PLG [07:40] - Playbooks of top PLG companies[14:34] - Inflection’s data structure[19:12] - Opportunities and challenges of PLG ops[22:46] - Funnels, attribution, and PLG[25:31] - Scoring in PLG[26:47] - Top-down vs. bottom-up PLG motions[29:34] - Dave’s journey from startup to enterprise to startup[33:17] - Sustaining product agility as a startup[35:01] - How it feels to see Bizible not evolve after acquisition[36:06] - How to break the cycle of product stagnation as you scaleResource LinksInflection.io - Product-Led Growth Software - Official website for Inflection.io Learn MoreVisit the RevOps FM Substack for our weekly newsletter: Newsletter

Martech continues to expand and shift at breakneck speed. Hot startups from five years ago have become legacy incumbents. Some platforms consolidate into monolithic suites while other categories break apart into specialized point solutions. AI looms over everything, with potential to disrupt virtually every established paradigm. Who better to guide us through this landscape than Phil Gamache, one of the humans behind the awesome Humans of Martech podcast? Join us for a deep dive into the future of Martech and a behind-the-scenes glimpse at how Phil and Jon produce their show using the latest AI tools. Thanks to Our SponsorMany thanks to the sponsor of this episode - Knak. If you don't know them (you should), Knak is an amazing email and landing page builder that integrates directly with your marketing automation platform. You set the brand guidelines and then give your users a building experience that’s slick, modern and beautiful. When they’re done, everything goes to your MAP at the push of a button. What's more, it supports global teams, approval workflows, and it’s got your integrations. Click the link below to get a special offer just for my listeners. Try Knak About Today's Guest Phil Gamache is on a mission to future-proof the humans behind the tech and help them have successful and happy careers in marketing. During the day, he runs all things Growth at Pelago and during the weekends you can find him behind the mic on humansofmartech.com. https://www.linkedin.com/in/gamacp/Key Topics[00:00] - Introduction[01:40] - Origin of the Humans of Martech Podcast[03:42] - Importance of soft skills in becoming a martech leader[04:33] - Growing an audience for the show[08:00] - Importance of having a specific approach for the show. Enjoying the process of learning through being a host.[11:00] - Use of AI for creating podcast imagery and transcription[17:32] - What do we consider AI-generated imagery to be? [20:30] - Point of view on martech and being platform agnostic[25:21] - Phil’s ideal stack[26:47] - Benefits of a composable CDP architecture[30:17] - Definition of composability in martech[34:27] - Challenges of troubleshooting a composable stack[38:19] - The relative recency of the cloud-first warehouse and the transition to warehouse native tech[40:22] - How much does the tech matter, in the big picture of business? [42:19] - Phil’s take on the role of AI a year from now[44:20] - Propensity modelling[49:03] - Finding balance in lifeResource LinksHumans of Martech – Future-proofing the humans behind the tech - The Humans of Martech website. Click on "episodes" to browse the huge back catalogue by topic. Midjourney - Image generator Phil uses to create the AI artwork for the showInsightface.ai - App Phil uses to incorporate photos into AI-generated photo. Learn MoreVisit the RevOps FM Substack for our weekly newsletter: Newsletter

If you're looking to transition from a technical MOPS expert to a leader - or if you're an existing MOPS leader who wants to up their game - Jessica Kao is the person to learn from.She built a career as an expert MOPS consultant before becoming an enterprise marketing ops leader. Listen to this conversation and you'll quickly see: she's ridiculously good at the business side of marketing operations. She knows how to plan, how to communicate, and how to lead. Thanks to Our SponsorMany thanks to the sponsor of this episode - Knak. If you don't know them (you should), Knak is an amazing email and landing page builder that integrates directly with your marketing automation platform. You set the brand guidelines and then give your users a building experience that’s slick, modern and beautiful. When they’re done, everything goes to your MAP at the push of a button. What's more, it supports global teams, approval workflows, and it’s got your integrations. Click the link below to get a special offer just for my listeners. Try Knak About Today's Guest Jessica Kao is Senior Director, Marketing Operations and Martech at Cloudflare. She has 10+ years of experience inspiring a nation of marketers through authenticity. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jesskao/Key Topics[00:00] - Introduction[01:40] - How Jessica defines the mandate of marketing ops. It is the accelerant to marketing. Everything flows through the pipes of marketing operations. [03:02] - How to determine if marketing ops is doing a good job. “Winning” means the CMO views you as a strategic partner and when you’re a bullet point in the board slide deck. But all projects should be aligned to the CMO’s initiatives and marketing KPIs. Marketing ops succeeds when the marketing team reaches its goals. [06:03] - Marketing ops shouldn’t just view themselves as the executor of another team’s strategy. Marketing ops can bring clarity, due to their position of visibility, the data we have, to spot trends, to provide feedback, etc. How do we make use of the data that we have to provide clarity to marketing leadership? [08:47] - Learning to be an internal advocate for the marketing ops team and navigating reluctance to be “self-promotional. ” The acceleration leap is the ability to translate what we do into something that provides business impact. Promoting the work we do is a by-product of bringing that clarity to the marketing team and focusing on the right things. Winning is not completing your tickets - it’s prioritization, doing the right things, providing clarity. [10:43] - The roadmapping process. Using an agile cadence, thinking of marketing technology like a product. Think about how you launch a project and create it. Quarterly planning and monthly sprints. Monthly sprints is the right fit. They have an “above the line / below the line” backlog. In a new company, shifting the balance from ad-hoc to roadmap. Being a consultant is helpful as it gives valuable skills in scoping. [13:54] - Learning to communicate incremental value instead of thinking of a project as needing to be 100% done and complete before delivering value. People get discouraged. Think of crawl/walk/run - crawling is still winning. This way people view MOPS as problem-solvers rather than blockers. Continuous delivery of incremental value. [15:46] - How to determine what should be prioritized. Jessica knows where they need to go in one, two, and three years, and that is her North Star. If you don’t have a roadmap, others will make one for you. Get buy-in from your boss and their peers. [17:23] - Translating features to stakeholder speak - what capabilities are you going to unlock. Quick-wins deliverables roadmap vs. plumbing/architecture/non-sexy roadmap. Jess has an external-facing roadmap of quick wins - these are “shiny objects,” which may seem like table stakes to MOPS. But if you position them in terms of the capabilities they unlock, then they can be positioned as wins. MOPS should communicate multiple wins every quarter. For the non-sexy plumbing, keep this on the internal roadmap - e.g., compliance. These things take a long time. Don’t keep communicating that you’re still working on complex projects quarter after quarter. When the capabilities are released, move them from the internal roadmap to the external roadmap. [20:12] - You can’t get money to fix what’s broken. But you CAN get budget to support new capabilities that deliver business value. [21:56] - Translating technical priorities into business objectives vs. translating business priorities into technical projects. This process happens bi-directionally all day long. Your job as a marketing operations leader is to translate up to leadership and down to your team - to provide clarity both ways. [24:25] - The multi-faceted skillset that a marketing ops leader needs to have. Not every leader has all those skillsets. Those that are missing, you need to hire. [26:09] - How to capture the long-term vision. Jess uses a project manager to capture it. She creates a library of “walking decks” for each company - a three-year roadmap, a yearly vision, a quarterly plan, wins. This holds true at every level. You don’t need a director title to be strategic. [27:44] - Developing communication skills as a leader. Jess learned and taught public speaking in grad school. Also learning through experience, trial and error, and mistakes. The marketing ops community helps each other out. Having mentorship, advice, and outside perspective is vital. Building a “board of directors” for your career. Find mentors who will challenge who you are and who will give you what you need. [33:15] - Overcoming imposter syndrome. Things get easier with repetition. But there’s always a next level and there’s always a new thing. The “freak out” period gets shorter. Emotional regulation is a top skill as a leader. You know how to figure it out. Learn MoreVisit the RevOps FM Substack for our weekly newsletter: Newsletter

Everyone is talking about how transformative AI is, but the information is still very piecemeal. There are tons of app focused listicles or cool tricks for ChatGPT, but if you're like me, you don't have time to go looking for ways to put apps to work.So I set out to take a comprehensive look at the business of marketing, breaking it down into the fundamental jobs to be done and creating practical guidance for marketers on how they might incorporate AI into their daily work in each area. This episode covers four main applications that have me excited, but if you visit the link below, you can access an Airtable base with over 35 use cases and over 40 apps. Thanks to Our SponsorMany thanks to the sponsor of this episode - Knak. If you don't know them (you should), Knak is an amazing email and landing page builder that integrates directly with your marketing automation platform. You set the brand guidelines and then give your users a building experience that’s slick, modern and beautiful. When they’re done, everything goes to your MAP at the push of a button. What's more, it supports global teams, approval workflows, and it’s got your integrations. Click the link below to get a special offer just for my listeners. Try Knak Key Topics[00:00] - Introduction[01:30] - Why make this episode[03:17] - Unstructured text analysis[05:27] - Structured data analysis[09:47] - Visual media generation[11:37] - AI and workflow automation[15:09] - AI for creative writing[17:15] - Two visions of AI usageResource LinksA Very Gentle Introduction to Large Language Models without the Hype - A useful primer to AI and large language models.

In this engaging discussion, Emir Atli, the Chief Revenue Officer and co-founder of HockeyStack, reveals his insights into the company's rapid rise in the attribution software space. He shares how HockeyStack disrupts traditional models that depend on Salesforce, offering faster implementations. The conversation delves into HockeyStack's innovative go-to-market strategies, primarily leveraging LinkedIn for high-quality content and optimizing customer experience. Emir also emphasizes the critical role of data management and customer success in enhancing client outcomes.

Jill Rowley is a legend in SaaS, with early tenures at Salesforce and Eloqua. As one of Eloqua's first salespeople, she helped shape the category of marketing automation and was also an early pioneer of social selling. Today she is helping evangelize a new perspective on partner-led growth, which she calls "nearbound." Jill and I talk about what it was like selling cloud-based software in the early oughts, helping the first customers to use marketing automation, and what it means to go to market with partners. Thanks to Our SponsorMany thanks to the sponsor of this episode - Knak. If you don't know them (you should), Knak is an amazing email and landing page builder that integrates directly with your marketing automation platform. You set the brand guidelines and then give your users a building experience that’s slick, modern and beautiful. When they’re done, everything goes to your MAP at the push of a button. What's more, it supports global teams, approval workflows, and it’s got your integrations. Click the link below to get a special offer just for my listeners. Try Knak About Today's Guest 23 years in SaaS. Early employee at Salesforce (first 100), Eloqua (#13), HubSpot Advisor (2014-2016), Marketo (2018).Loves startups, especially category creators - - in the trenches building Nearbound.https://www.linkedin.com/in/jillrowley/Key Topics[00:00] - Introduction[01:23] - Start of Jill's career at Salesforce. [03:08] - How Jill pitched SaaS in the early days of cloud software. Salesforce's guerilla marketing tactics. [04:47] - Moving to Eloqua as employee thirteen. Creating the category of marketing automation. Evangelizing for the importance of marketers on revenue. [10:05] - Early days of service partnerships at Eloqua. Co-selling with David Lewis. [11:54] - Types of service partner relationships. How there can be power-disparities and bad dynamics between smaller service partners and larger vendors. How many companies still view service partners as a source of leads rather than a way to build credibility and influence with prospects. There are bad fit partners. Need to have organized partner ecosystem data. [15:26] - Definition of nearbound. Living in market with your partners. Differences from inbound and outbound. Looking at a practical, hypothetical example: Clari and Hubspot. [20:41] - Addressing potential criticism of the partner-led approach: that it's too slow. Why you can't go to market with 1,500 partners. [24:01] - Why the value of partnerships is far more than leads. Top-down vs. bottom-up partnerships. Why both are important. [29:50] - Partner ops. Reference to Scott Brinker's article (see resource links). Resource Linksnearbound.com | The future of GTM is here - Official Nearbound website. Partner Ops: The forgotten ops that’s suddenly thriving in the ecosystem era - Scott Brinker's article on partner ops. Learn MoreVisit the RevOps FM Substack for our weekly newsletter: Newsletter

Your GTM message has an incredibly difficult task: to speak to the people who will love your product and take them from a place of disinterest and zero context to a place of understanding and excitement. When done well, it’s pure magic. I think that every GTM and ops professional should be familiar with how to do this, and so I asked my old boss, Mitch Solway, to join me for a masterclass in messaging.Thanks to Our SponsorMany thanks to the sponsor of this episode - Knak. If you don't know them (you should), Knak is an amazing email and landing page builder that integrates directly with your marketing automation platform. You set the brand guidelines and then give your users a building experience that’s slick, modern and beautiful. When they’re done, everything goes to your MAP at the push of a button. What's more, it supports global teams, approval workflows, and it’s got your integrations. Click the link below to get a special offer just for my listeners. Try Knak About Today's Guest Mitch Solway is a 5x VP of Marketing who has led teams at Lavalife, Freshbooks, Vidyard, and Clearfit, among others. Today he works as a Fractional CMO for startups. https://www.linkedin.com/in/mitchsolway/Key Topics[00:00] - Introduction[01:28] - How Mitch defines the hierarchy of messaging. He starts at the end, considering the outcome he’s trying to achieve. Then you can reverse engineer what you need to get to that point, starting with positioning, then copy, then messaging. [02:55] - The end result for Mitch is two stories: one broad, one narrow. The narrow story is targeted at your “Can’t Miss Customer.” This is your ideal customer. You need to understand everything about this person. Mitch calls this “Is this you?” marketing. You tell the prospect a story, and if you know them really well, your Can’t-Miss Customer will identify themselves in your message. Focusing on the person and their world vs. on your product. [04:55] - We don’t tell our customer’s story enough. We need to realize we are only 5% of the customer’s world - important to understand the other 95%. Interview your best customers, then translate those stories back to other prospects. [07:33] - The broad story. This is when you’re introducing something new to the market. You need to educate people to create a vision of an “inevitable future.” Getting the market to see the world the way you see it. Example of doing this with Vidyard using influencers to educate the market with a very low budget. [13:26] - Creating the “narrow story” for Vidyard. The litmus test for the narrow story is, can you get the person from no context to being excited in three questions. Mitch calls this the “context rollercoaster.” Examples of how this works in practices. If you can do this, you’ve found the “nerve center” that you need to touch on. [18:17] - Your product isn’t that important to the customer, most likely. Even if they use it, it’s just a fraction of their world. You need to show them that you understand their pain to spark interest. Example of why this is important in outbound. Example of how Mitch tweaked the messaging at Clearfit to better align with customer truths and how that message was conveyed in radio ads. [21:52] - Example of competing with ZipRecruiter on the radio. They had raised funds and were outspending 20:1. Mitch tweaked the messaging to turn the competitor’s strength into a weakness. [23:57] - Process for creating a messaging framework from scratch. Start with internal interviews with key stakeholders. 90% of that process is about internal alignment. For positioning, he uses April Dunford’s framework and conducts a workshop with key stakeholders. Prior to that workshop he interviews existing customers that the company wants to get more of. Example of doing this with Ourboro, [29:56] - Example of how customer insights also infuse the tone, language, visuals, and emotion of communication. [31:36] - Collecting customer insights is a deep process of understanding psychology and emotions. You need a special type of brain to conduct that research - not everyone can do it. It’s a superpower. But those who are expert in it can help the rest of the company receive those insights. Example of how we brought in a customer each month at Clearfit and the impact this had on the company. [33:59] - Discussion of interest vs. impact as work motivation. How to cultivate an impact orientation. Resource LinksThink Mitch Think - Fractional CMO for Startups - Mitch’s fractional CMO consultancy.Obviously Awesome, by April Dunford - Guide to positioning that Mitch uses with customers. Learn MoreVisit the RevOps FM Substack for our weekly newsletter: Newsletter

Refine Labs has changed the course of B2B marketing over the past few years. Challenging conventions on attribution and funnel tracking and championing new ways of generating demand, this agency has broken pretty much every mold and driven the conversation and debate. Today we're joined by SVP of Marketing Sidney Waterfall, who produces much of the Refine Labs IP and brings together both deep demand gen and RevOps expertise. In this in-depth discussion we unpack the nitty-gritty of the Refine Labs methodology. Thanks to Our SponsorMany thanks to the sponsor of this episode - Knak. If you don't know them (you should), Knak is an amazing email and landing page builder that integrates directly with your marketing automation platform. You set the brand guidelines and then give your users a building experience that’s slick, modern and beautiful. When they’re done, everything goes to your MAP at the push of a button. What's more, it supports global teams, approval workflows, and it’s got your integrations. Click the link below to get a special offer just for my listeners. Try Knak About Today's Guest Sidney Waterfall is SVP of Marketing at Refine Labs, with responsibility for GTM strategy, demand generation, product marketing, product strategy, and ultimately driving revenue for Refine Labs services and products.https://www.linkedin.com/in/sidneywaterfall/Key Topics[00:00] - Introduction[01:02] - Sidney's background and how she joined Refine Labs.[02:25] - Issues in B2B marketing today. Many people still running a lead gen approach. Lack of focus on data structure and operations, although macroeconomic conditions forcing people to become more data driven. [05:19] - Defining terms - lead gen, demand gen, demand capture, demand conversion. [07:47] - More companies implementing this approach in recent years. But some still struggle with making the transition. How Refine Labs helps companies make that strategic shift. First step is accepting that buyer behavior has changed. Requires deep alignment at the leadership level. Changing measurement and KPIs, from lead generation to higher intent pipeline. This provokes terror in some. Overcoming objections. Indicators to look at. [15:22] - What it means to run a demand creation campaign and how to do it. You don't need a huge evangelist in your company. Only 20-25% of Refine Labs clients have that. It starts with the content that's on your high-value product and solutions pages. This gives the campaign strategy or angle. You take that and package it for both paid and organic. This content communicates problem awareness. You can also work with content teams, take assets like blog posts and repackage them for social. Distribute it in a buyer-centric way - un-gated, designed for the platform, unique. You need some offer in the middle, like a podcast or live event series, that people can engage with. [20:35] - Whether this approach can work for everyone. It requires a basic repeatable sales process and the ability to talk to prospects. If you don't know how to convert a buyer when they are in a sales cycle, you won't know how to create demand. [22:13] - The role of ops in a demand creation GTM strategy. Ops is pivotal. There's a strategic side and a tactical side. If ops is a strategic function in your org, you will have a powerhouse org. They need to offer not just data but insights - that's the step up there. Justin notes that ops leaders need to be revenue leaders in their own right, not just in service of others. [28:13] - How to configure systems for attribution. First step is standardized UTM values. Important to track session-based UTMs - so first touch but also tracking UTMs for each session that results in a conversion. A conversion is anytime your sales team is working something. Tracking meetings and sub-stages, opportunities and sub-stages. Definition of HIRO pipeline - opportunity stage that converts at 25% or higher. Source (offer) is what they engaged with - the destination. Campaign is a detail of that. This is more predictive of outcomes than the channel that referred them. [36:34] - The new Refine Labs funnel model. Traditional demand waterfall is ingrained in everything - an assembly-line approach. This new approach un-blends the funnel into pipeline sources. It's built built around what the customer is doing vs. internal departments. Ability to track how people come in and out of the market at different times. With opportunities, they look at the originating contact as the source. Separating the funnel questions from account journey questions. They are distinct, require different data sets. [47:07] - Definition of "conversion". Different companies have different thresholds for when leads go to sales. This model enables comparison between different conversion sources to evaluate their effectiveness. [50:48] - Looking at the account journey. It's about pattern recognition, seeing what things are more common for personas and stages, and using that to optimize in-channel strategy. This is more loose vs. funnel tracking, which should be black and white. Focused heavily on topics, not just formats. There is no perfect, beautiful account journey. [55:15] - Discussion of The Vault and WatchTower. Resource LinksRefine Labs - Official siteThe Vault - IP database of Refine Labs methodology, including frameworks, experiment reports, playbooks, and community. They have a paid membership, but I highly recommend signing up even for a free account, as there are a lot of valuable resources available to all. WatchTower - Conversion tracking and hybrid attribution solution built on the Salesforce platform. Chris Walker on YouTube - Hundreds of hours of educational content and podcasts. Learn MoreVisit the RevOps FM Substack for our weekly newsletter: Newsletter

In a world where we have so much tech, it's amazing that revenue planning and forecasting remain relatively primitive in most companies. You could have literally a million dollar tech stack and yet still be creating your business plan with a spreadsheet and forecasting results with a best guess from sales. Today we look at how to go beyond the spreadsheet paradigm with the CEO of Growblocks, a revenue planning and analytics platform. We'll explore whether it's possible to have a truly predictable forecast and how operators can spot and fix issues before they become million dollar problems. Thanks to Our SponsorMany thanks to the sponsor of this episode - Knak. If you don't know them (you should), Knak is an amazing email and landing page builder that integrates directly with your marketing automation platform. You set the brand guidelines and then give your users a building experience that’s slick, modern and beautiful. When they’re done, everything goes to your MAP at the push of a button. What's more, it supports global teams, approval workflows, and it’s got your integrations. Click the link below to get a special offer just for my listeners. Try Knak About Today's Guest Toni is the CEO of Growblocks. He spent years as a B2B SaaS CRO and revenue operator, achieving multiple exits. Through this experience, he created a revenue operating operating model that helped his company hit targets 12 quarters in a row. This model was later on used as the basis for Growblocks.https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonihohlbein/Key Topics[00:00] - Introduction[01:33] - Toni's background. Founding Growblocks. Sharing a focus on data-driven, system-thinking approach to revenue with his co-founders. [04:27] - Most forecasting tools focus on only on the opportunity forecast, ignoring the rest of the funnel. Why there aren't more companies building software for full-funnel planning. Forecasts are split into silos. Once you forecast the full funnel, you can identify how a gap in one stage translates to revenue impact further down. [07:40] - How Toni explains this vision to the market and what benefits people are connecting with. When people finally see their actual revenue engine end-to-end for the first time, it's a huge impact. [10:09] - Flaws with the planning process today. How the planning process should take place: top-down and bottom up meeting in the middle. [14:09] - The impact of the tech bubble on the planning process and how it has distorted expectations and behaviour. You can only be efficient once you are predictable. [18:00] - The factors that lead to predictability. The first comes from understanding your sales engine as a whole through the entire funnel. Not relying on sales people that can pull rabbits from hats. The second factor is proactively spotting issues and jumping on them quickly. [21:39] - Issues with marketing and sales alignment. Why marketing will hit their number but sales misses theirs. Toni doesn't have an issue with MQLs, so long as the company splits handraisers from non-handraisers. Then marketing can't just hit their number with low-intent MQLs. [25:24] - Outbound is still alive and kicking. Think of it as the delivery mechanism for a message. Importance of choosing channels that work for your audience. Someone may not be on LinkedIn but they are listening to the radio all day. [28:32] - Starting to dive into the Growblocks platform. Growblocks works with any kind of funnel design and is also configurable across different dimensions. Solving for garbage-in-garbage-out problems. If data points are missing, it's best to go up a level and exclude that step, then circle back to it when better data is available. [32:58] - Identifying factors that may influence funnel performance but that are not themselves funnel stages. Toni calls them "monitoring notes" - akin to gauges on a machine that show you certain indicators about its performance.[36:00] - Growblocks can connect to different data sources and mash them together. It applies sophisticated math and statistics to forecast results. They are incorporating machine learning, but Toni is trying to keep it as transparent as possible so customers can have trust in the results. [39:30] - Main value props of Growblocks. The first is more predictability, less choppy results. The second is showing things that were invisible to enable to teams to make changes and improve. [42:21] - Toni's vision for the future of the product. Resource LinksGrowblocks Official Site - The Growblocks website. The Revenue Formula - Toni's podcast. The Revenue Letter - Toni's Substack. Learn MoreVisit the RevOps FM Substack for our weekly newsletter: Newsletter