0:01

Welcome to the Revenue Enablement Society

0:03

Stories from the Trenches , where

0:06

enablement practitioners share their real-world

0:08

experiences . Get the scoop

0:11

on what's happening inside revenue enablement

0:13

teams across the global RES

0:15

community . Each segment of stories

0:17

from the trenches shares the good

0:19

, the bad and the ugly

0:21

practices of corporate revenue enablement

0:23

initiatives when not worked , what

0:26

didn't work and how obstacles

0:28

were eliminated by enablement teams and go-to-market

0:30

leadership . Sit back , grab

0:32

a cold one and join host Paul Butterfield

0:35

, founder of Revenue Flywheel Group , for

0:37

casual conversations about the wide

0:39

and varied profession of revenue enablement

0:41

, where there's never a one-size-fits-all

0:45

solution .

0:47

Hello everybody and welcome back to another episode

0:50

of Stories from the Trenches the Revenue

0:52

Enablement Society podcast , where we

0:54

bring together practitioners from all over

0:56

the globe . We talk about the work that they're

0:58

doing , the innovative ways they're finding

1:00

of doing it , and sometimes

1:03

things that didn't go so well , because there's lessons to

1:05

be learned there as well . So we've got another

1:07

great guest for you . This time I'm excited

1:09

to introduce you to Sandy Robinson

1:11

. Welcome , sandy .

1:12

Thank you , paul , appreciate you having me today .

1:15

I'm excited to have you here Now . Sandy is currently

1:17

the SVP of Revenue Operations and Enablement

1:20

at Patra Corporation . Sandy

1:22

, I'll give you a minute or two just to talk a little bit about

1:24

yourself and what you're working on , just so people

1:26

can get to know you .

1:27

Sounds great . So I started at Patra

1:29

in about mid-April in a role where

1:31

there previously wasn't a Rev Ops

1:33

function . This is a 17-year-old

1:35

company , so I've really focused on

1:37

optimizing our HubSpot instance

1:40

revamping comp plans . I mean

1:42

, you name it consultative training . We're

1:44

doing it all . So pull together an onboarding

1:47

program that we brought

1:49

on 15 people this summer so , as I was

1:51

onboarding myself , created an onboarding

1:53

program . I'm sure you get that . So

1:56

prior to that , my experience has

1:58

been in SaaS , fintech

2:00

. I was in insurance for a long time

2:02

and roles in sales

2:05

, sales operations , leadership , rev

2:07

Ops for I don't know 20 or some

2:09

20 , some odd years I

2:11

won't say the exact number , but

2:13

yeah , so I'm again World

2:15

21 Sandy , it doesn't matter . Yes

2:17

, I know , I know .

2:20

All right , all right . So

2:23

I am curious you

2:26

had mentioned that you just got back

2:28

from vacation . You

2:31

have a vacation home down in the Keys . What

2:33

was your favorite thing while you were there to

2:35

do ?

2:36

Oh , I love going to the beach . I enjoy fishing

2:39

, just kind of relaxing in the nice

2:41

warm air . Even though I live in Florida

2:43

, I'm a total baby , so

2:45

the warmer the better for me .

2:48

So sweater weather means go south , got

2:50

it .

2:51

Exactly exactly .

2:53

Yeah , I'm a Florida kid too Not anymore

2:55

, but I remember we would just be amazed

2:57

this time of year when people from St Montreal

2:59

would be headed down to the beach

3:02

in their Speedos and were like , really

3:04

, guys , it's not for people warm

3:06

, but I guess I heard in Montreal it was feeling

3:08

really good to them . Okay , all

3:11

right , so let's get into the Jimmy Kimmel challenge . So

3:14

those of you who haven't heard it before , jimmy

3:16

Kimmel has decided to retire this coming

3:18

year and because Sandy is so

3:20

well connected , she's been offered his

3:22

show . So , sandy , you can have anyone

3:25

you want as your first guest on the couch

3:27

. Who's going to be there and why did you

3:29

choose them ?

3:30

I mean it has to be pink . She

3:33

is like a feminist icon

3:35

. I love her . She's humble , she's

3:38

an amazing artist , just a great

3:40

mom , a woman in general , and

3:43

I actually met her once . I

3:45

was on vacation and actually

3:47

sipping Tequila with her

3:49

and she didn't

3:52

know that , or she didn't know

3:54

that I knew who she was and I didn't indicate

3:56

that . So it was just really cool , like

3:58

she's super down to earth . You'd never know that she was

4:00

a celebrity or star , if you just like kind of

4:02

meet her on the side . So . But I'd love to

4:04

like officially meet her and

4:06

interview her . I think that'd be super awesome

4:09

.

4:10

That sounds really cool . So you're able to have just a human

4:12

connection . There was no celebrity element to it

4:14

. There was no . That's cool , yeah

4:17

it really was All

4:19

right . So let's get

4:21

into what we're going to talk about today

4:23

. This is a topic that's probably a

4:25

little overdue . I've been doing this before years

4:27

in March this year and

4:30

so it's coming up pretty quick , actually at the time this airs . Let's

4:33

talk about enablement and rev ops and

4:36

from your title , clearly that's an area where

4:38

you're spending time now , but just from previous

4:40

conversations with you , and that's an area where you've been doing

4:42

a lot of work and you have a lot of great experiences

4:44

let's I want to talk about that , thank

4:46

you . When we talk about , or people

4:49

talk about , revops versus

4:51

, or RevOps and enablement

4:53

, how should those

4:56

teams partner or does it matter

4:58

where they report ? Let's just kind of start

5:00

there with your experience , and then we'll go deeper

5:02

.

5:04

Sure , I mean , coming from a sales

5:06

background early in my career and

5:08

through sales leadership , I

5:10

think it was always just ingrained

5:12

in the way that I looked at things , right . So

5:14

, becoming a sales manager

5:17

, you have to learn how to coach and train and all

5:19

these things , hopefully and so now , but

5:21

yeah , exactly , you think so

5:24

. Flash forward , however

5:26

, long later again I won't mention any years

5:28

when you think about reporting structures , companies

5:31

. We have more and more silos

5:33

throughout organizations , right , and

5:35

the reporting structures can

5:37

be very different across organizations

5:40

and I think ultimately

5:42

we want those teams to

5:44

really work hand in hand and

5:47

they should follow the customer journey . I mean

5:49

, that is truly what I passionately believe

5:51

In . My world , revops

5:53

and enablement is under one umbrella

5:56

and it makes sense

5:58

for what's happening , the size

6:00

of our company . As companies get

6:02

larger , I think it makes sense

6:04

to have those functions have more specificity

6:07

and specific leadership . But

6:09

ultimately there needs to

6:11

be a clear definition of

6:13

roles and responsibilities and how

6:16

they go hand in hand . So , for example

6:18

, if it's under the CRO

6:20

, then you would have , I

6:23

would guess , a little bit easier path of coordinating

6:25

that right .

6:26

So , whether it's all

6:28

called , In my experience at least , it is

6:30

pretty easy yeah .

6:31

Yeah , it makes . It makes it a lot , a lot simpler

6:33

as long as you're not kind of siloed

6:36

out too much within your own organization , which

6:38

does happen . But then when

6:41

it falls out like , say , for example , there's

6:44

a chief marketing officer and a

6:46

chief revenue officer and

6:48

then within that they've got kind of

6:50

different levels of enablement and operations

6:52

marketing , it starts to get more complicated . So

6:55

ultimately , starting with the

6:57

customer journey much like you would do anything

6:59

else and roles and responsibilities among

7:02

within the customer journey to sort out

7:04

who's doing what and how can

7:06

you really partner . But I think you have to be intentional

7:09

about it , particularly if the reporting

7:11

structure isn't under one function

7:13

.

7:15

Yeah , give it a little takes a little more thought . I mean , you're

7:17

speaking to , you know , a big family

7:19

. Talk customer journey , enablement , that is . Yeah

7:22

, that's how I love to look at it too . In fact

7:24

, when I don't know if I told you this , when I launched my company

7:26

about a year ago , I was excited

7:29

to find out no one had trademarked that , because

7:31

I had been using that phrase . I'm sure it wasn't original

7:33

to me , but nobody had nobody had

7:35

had protected it . So , since I was launching

7:37

a brand , I was able to

7:39

grab that , because I look at it the same

7:42

way . It's . How are we

7:44

enabling all of the teams that

7:46

are interfacing one

7:48

way or another with with those customers ? How are

7:50

we trying to create ? How are we creating , should say , an elevated

7:52

experience ? It's risky to try to

7:55

compete on product features

7:57

or price , and

7:59

it's got to be some other reason that people want to do business

8:01

with you . This is and this is it . So

8:03

let's get into some specifics . So

8:06

, taking what you just said , let's talk

8:08

about an approach , let's say rolling out a new

8:11

process , or perhaps it's even

8:13

a full new sales methodology . Walk

8:16

us through what that

8:18

looks like with this , with a healthy partnership

8:20

with enablement and Rebops .

8:23

Sure , I see this a lot and

8:25

you know I've been a part of companies where

8:27

we've had challenges rolling out new

8:29

methodologies and particularly if you're partnering

8:32

with , like a third party to try to roll

8:34

something out . But let's say you

8:36

create a new sales methodology

8:39

, right , you're going to use Challenger

8:41

, you're going to use Command of the Message or whatever

8:44

elements that you create in Bake

8:46

, and I don't side know , I

8:48

don't particularly say

8:51

you know , I'm not married to one or the other . I think

8:53

you just have to calibrate

8:55

and use the best pieces of each

8:58

methodology and calibrate within your own company

9:00

. So that's probably a whole other topic . But

9:03

in terms of you know the methodology

9:05

, I see this all the time where you roll something

9:07

out and then you have the forgetting curve . People

9:09

totally , you know , kind of drift off . They go to

9:11

this like whether it's a webinar in

9:13

person or something . Company spends a ton of money

9:15

and then you fail to do , you

9:17

know , align the process and the systems

9:20

, and a lot of times

9:22

that's because one department is

9:24

touting this one thing , getting

9:26

it rolled out , like hey , we're doing this

9:28

, and they haven't really collaborated with the other departments

9:31

. So I really believe you

9:33

have to connect the methodology

9:35

, to the process and

9:37

to the systems and make sure

9:40

it all works together . If you don't have

9:42

all three of those aligned , your initiative

9:44

will fail . So mark

9:46

my words you will fail . And

9:49

you know , we rolled out MedPick last

9:51

summer . So we had some training

9:53

, we had to train the trainer , actually got certified

9:56

, all this stuff , and so that's great . That's kind of one

9:58

piece of it . And then we

10:01

documented the process . How does that

10:03

work within the customer journey ? What

10:05

do we have to do to align the stages

10:08

in HubSpot ? We use HubSpot for our CRM

10:10

, so what needs to happen there

10:12

? What are the stage requirements ? Putting

10:15

together that playbook , and then we

10:17

aligned Gong , created a board in Gong

10:19

, we created the functionality

10:22

within HubSpot and then

10:24

train the people on the systems

10:26

. Then there's reporting and everything . So you

10:28

have to have that kind of full picture and if

10:30

you don't have enablement and

10:32

RevOps working together or

10:35

whatever that looks like in your

10:37

organization , you're doomed to fail

10:39

. So having all three of

10:41

those components , I think is

10:43

super critical , and enablement

10:46

is really the glue that holds that all together . Because

10:48

, as you know , if you get enablement involved

10:50

and for me it's like put on

10:52

my enablement hat , because I'm kind of doing

10:54

both right now . But if

10:57

you get enablement involved early , they're

11:00

going to figure out okay , where do we need

11:02

to surface these documents in the system

11:04

, and they can work with RevOps and figure

11:06

out what fields and how this works together

11:08

and do we need training ? And that

11:11

training should be a combination of

11:13

some sort of maybe it's a video

11:15

meeting , maybe it's an SOP doc

11:17

, maybe it's a social learning

11:20

, a channel in Slack , whatever it is

11:22

, but it's kind of kind of all worked

11:24

together . And this even

11:26

goes back to like for anybody

11:28

who has a training background , like

11:31

the old school ad-y model right

11:33

, is just really tying all of those

11:35

things together , and you

11:37

know . But we can't forget to do it . We

11:39

can't just like throw something out

11:41

there and expect it to work . You know , it's just

11:43

to get against the wall . We just kind of shove it

11:45

out there , we got the thing done , we did it

11:47

at our kickoff and

11:50

then this thing just goes by the wayside when

11:52

people get back and they get into their grind and their

11:54

email boxes and all this other crap . So obviously

11:58

I get real excited

12:00

about this stuff , but you have to put it all together

12:02

and package it or it doesn't work .

12:04

It doesn't yet . Yet so

12:07

many companies still trying to do it that way I

12:09

was talking a couple months ago .

12:12

Oh sorry , go ahead .

12:12

Yeah , that was what I was going to say . I was talking with a prospective

12:14

client the other day and this is

12:16

a head of sales that I've known for years

12:19

. In fact , I used to work with him , respect him in many

12:21

ways . Yet when I talked to them about what they were doing with their

12:23

methodology , he's like oh

12:25

, we had everybody watch some training , some

12:27

med pic training videos , so

12:29

we're good to go . And yeah

12:32

, so again , right , this is a guy

12:34

very , very smart sales leader , very successful

12:36

in other ways . But yeah

12:38

, there's still work to do there . Definitely is they're

12:40

checking the box .

12:42

No , yeah , I mean it's like you're checking

12:44

the box and I hate to say

12:46

it , but sometimes the

12:49

big kind of monster training companies that

12:51

are out there they feed off of that because they

12:53

get you to now sign up for their

12:55

reinforcement program and then sign up for this

12:57

and add more , add on this and this , and

13:01

they're loving that because

13:03

you , as the leader

13:05

in your organization , failed to put together

13:08

a sustainable program and you didn't

13:10

tie those three things together . So I

13:12

think it just goes back to that

13:14

core methodology , to process

13:17

, to systems , making sure that

13:19

all works together , and the offshoot

13:21

of that is the reporting

13:24

, the analytics and the continuous improvement

13:26

from it . So you have to actually do something

13:28

about it , monitor it and make

13:30

sure , and that's where enablement and

13:32

RevOps again can come

13:34

hand in hand very nicely .

13:37

To do what you're just what you're talking about

13:39

, which , again , I couldn't agree more . You've

13:42

got to have the right systems

13:44

, and you've mentioned a couple of times

13:46

is there any more to be said about

13:49

how RevOps and Navelet work together

13:51

and even evaluating and selecting and deploying

13:54

those systems ? So , in other words

13:56

, I've come into companies and you probably have two where

13:58

, yes , we really need a methodology , but

14:01

we don't have the infrastructure ready

14:03

to roll out a methodology and the way that

14:05

you've described and have it stick , and so you have to

14:07

even take a step back and evaluate that . Can

14:11

we talk about that for a minute ? What does that look

14:13

like ? How do those two teams work

14:15

together , or should they work together ?

14:17

Yeah , and that can be tough because they

14:19

might have their own budgets for tech , right

14:21

, and then people want to own the budget and they

14:24

want to . You know , this is my tool , this

14:26

is your tool and those kind of things . But so it

14:28

starts to get challenging . But

14:30

you know , if you think about any

14:32

tech selection , you have to have the right stakeholders involved

14:34

. So it even starts with who's using the

14:36

tool . So like , for example , if you have a

14:39

prospecting tool , you want to get

14:41

an SDR , maybe somebody who is

14:43

like a power user and they're kind of you

14:45

know , into the system . You can use them even later

14:47

as an SME . Get the

14:49

sales leader , marketing leader , enablement

14:52

all the people involved early on in the selection

14:54

process . So I have a

14:56

you know kind of a way

14:58

to go through like a rubric for decision

15:01

criteria and then each person weighs in

15:03

on the key things that you know matter

15:05

to them , to their department and then to

15:07

the overall customer journey . So if you think

15:09

of that , you have to always have the right stakeholders

15:12

, and enablement should have a seat at

15:14

the table early in the selection

15:16

process if it impacts the

15:18

you know in their realm of responsibility

15:20

. So like , for let's just pretend it's , you know , marketing

15:23

, sales and customer success in a perfect world , and

15:26

they have that involvement

15:28

and they're going to be able to think

15:30

of things critically , and then so does RevOps

15:33

, because RevOps will think of things like

15:35

, for example , marketing . I've had

15:37

this experience not

15:39

that long ago . Marketing would

15:41

create , you know , okay , here's our enablement

15:43

tool that we decided to use for the company

15:45

. We've set it up , we put

15:47

all the cool stuff , whatever , whatever

15:50

. And then RevOps is like Dude

15:52

, it doesn't work with the CRM , there's

15:55

no integration , so like that's a situation

15:58

that I'm dealing with and because

16:01

there wasn't a full suite

16:03

of people in the selection

16:05

process , that would catch , you

16:07

know , because every let's side note .

16:09

That's a big miss , though .

16:11

Well , every company says every vendor

16:13

, every great salesperson , is going to tell you their

16:15

tool integrates to whatever CRM you're using

16:17

, and that's not untrue

16:20

, right ? Yeah , sure , Everybody's got an open

16:22

API . But you

16:24

know , come on , there are a lot of limitations

16:26

, particularly when you're , you

16:29

know , depending on your CRM . Obviously , salesforce

16:31

has like a ton of options , and then the

16:33

scope narrows as you go down right . So

16:35

that's just an example . Like not

16:38

getting RevOps involved and

16:40

maybe enablements doing that kind of thing

16:42

, and , on the flip side , if

16:45

RevOps isn't getting enablement involved

16:47

, how do you know how ? How are you going

16:49

to set it up ? I mean , these are the folks that are going

16:51

to own the content , own the materials , and they need

16:53

to be experts in the system so

16:55

they can train on the system . So why not have

16:57

them in early ? So you can't

16:59

make the party too big , though , because if you have

17:01

too many people involved , it

17:04

starts getting really ugly and messy . So you have

17:06

to have like a true racy chart

17:08

to determine what your roles and

17:10

responsibilities are in the selection

17:13

process and align on

17:15

like an ultimate criteria . Like

17:17

there's some deal breakers , like my deal

17:19

breaker it always is when I

17:21

ran a Salesforce shop there's got to

17:23

be an app on the App Exchange , right ? That's

17:26

my deal breaker , because I don't want to . I

17:28

don't even want to mess with other integrations , I

17:30

just don't because it takes time development

17:32

and there's plenty of options out

17:34

there . You can narrow it down and that helps narrow

17:37

down your field . So you have to like , have

17:39

your deal breakers and whatever that

17:41

is , and everybody should weigh in and agree on them

17:43

. So maybe there's five key people in the

17:45

selection process that you pick , or something

17:47

.

17:47

So I mean , that's in an ideal world

17:49

. So enough of a group to get , yeah , so you're getting

17:51

enough different perspectives , but you're not getting

17:53

bogged down in , you know , over

17:56

analysis by committee , I guess for lack of a better

17:58

phrase yeah , like if you send a group email

18:01

to 15 sales managers

18:03

like you're gonna , you're never gonna

18:05

get anywhere .

18:05

So you pick the one representative

18:08

sales manager that's going to speak for the

18:10

group and their

18:12

vote is the one that matters , and

18:14

you know , for the various groups . So that's

18:16

the way I do it .

18:18

I've heard this attributed to various people over

18:20

time , but I love the expression that a fool with

18:22

a tool is still a fool , and

18:24

it sounds like you would agree with that . So

18:27

let's talk a little bit about , you know , train the

18:29

trainer and adoption

18:31

and making these things sticky .

18:33

I mean you have to let them use

18:35

it , try it out , break

18:37

it and give you feedback

18:39

. That's huge . I'll just give you

18:41

an example . Last week we turned on

18:43

a bunch of changes in HubSpot . We

18:46

put daily office hours on

18:48

and a form to submit

18:50

to say like hey , first

18:52

of all , if they found any bugs , but second of all

18:54

like just suggestions and things and screenshots

18:57

. And you

18:59

usually you have to get feedback because at

19:01

the end of the day , if it's not set up where

19:03

it's usable , they're

19:06

not going to use it . Or they're going to make a

19:08

spreadsheet and do it on their own . They're not going

19:10

to do it in the system .

19:12

Or their notebook . I've had that one , it's

19:14

all in . Here You're waving a notebook at you

19:17

.

19:18

Yeah , it's in my Google Tasks

19:20

or whatever , and it's like you

19:22

know it's so . It's a responsibility

19:24

I think , of RevOps and enablement

19:27

to make sure or the user

19:29

experience , our internal user experience

19:31

, our customers are

19:33

able to do what they

19:35

need in a timely manner , see

19:38

what they need to see , know what they need

19:40

to get accomplished . The

19:42

worst thing you can do is ask for their feedback

19:44

and not do anything about it either . The

19:49

tools they don't just magically work . The sales

19:51

leaders need to use them . In prior

19:53

worlds , you know I

19:56

had this one sales leader that I would work with

19:58

and you know this person just would

20:00

never actually show up for the trainings

20:02

, didn't know how to do it themselves , and

20:05

you know we would chase

20:08

around in the CRM to update

20:10

this person's stuff for them and

20:12

they couldn't train their

20:15

own team and it's the manager

20:17

has to own

20:19

it . So not just the RevOps and enablement

20:22

, revops , enablement is to support

20:24

the managers , train the

20:26

trainers and they need to

20:29

own it and they

20:31

need to hold their teams accountable to

20:33

using it and getting the feedback

20:35

. So that's why I always say train the trainer

20:37

. It's like we've got to teach the managers . Get

20:40

the managers buy in , because if the managers

20:42

do it , their team sure as hell is not going to do it , that's

20:44

for sure . So that's , that's

20:47

the way I look at it .

20:48

I don't know . Good for you , not for me . Never works

20:50

, never works .

20:51

Right , exactly . Yeah , I like that

20:53

.

20:55

You reminded me of someone I hadn't thought about

20:57

in a long time , when I won't say names , but when

20:59

I was at Vonage we actually had a

21:01

sales . He was either VP

21:03

or was he one level up from that . He had two VPs

21:05

reporting to him . Now that I think of it , and it

21:07

was a point of pride for this individual

21:10

that he had never opened up Salesforce

21:12

. So I mean

21:14

, like , like , like , yeah , it

21:16

was a point of pride . It was like I don't need that

21:18

. Right , I know how to run a sales territory

21:20

. I don't need , you know , blah , blah , blah , blah . And so

21:23

you can imagine that created all sorts of compliance

21:26

issues within anybody that reported

21:28

to him , because they're all like well , he's not using

21:31

it , so why should I put anything in there ? Because he's not

21:33

going to look at it anyway . And , yeah , it was crazy .

21:35

Well , not to mention the rest of this

21:38

person's managers and RevOps

21:40

, sales ops , whoever they're having

21:42

to probably build spreadsheets and

21:44

decks and stuff on the side for this

21:46

person because they refuse to actually

21:48

look in the CRM , which may have all the information

21:51

right there . So , yeah , that's crazy . Yeah , doesn't

21:53

make sense .

21:53

Yeah , yeah , he was managed

21:56

out eventually , so it got better . All

21:58

right , so not

22:00

by me , but by the powers

22:02

, that be All right . So One

22:06

of the other things when

22:08

you and I were talking that are so critical when

22:10

you're rolling out Things together is

22:12

also the reporting . How are you tracking

22:15

that adoption ? How do you know if

22:17

it's even meeting the objectives ? Me you

22:20

clear ? Well , hopefully you had clear outcomes

22:22

and problems that you were trying to solve for

22:24

when you selected this piece of tech , this

22:27

program , to bring it in . But how do

22:29

you start reporting and measuring

22:31

to see if it was , if it was the right choice

22:33

, was successful ?

22:35

Talk to us a little bit about that I was like to start

22:37

with some sort of an objective , like what

22:39

you said . What problem are you trying to solve

22:41

? So , for example , with our

22:45

hub spot we're calling it hub spot

22:47

two dot , oh , we're making , you know , made a bunch

22:49

changes and it was kind of solving

22:51

for a number of Challenges

22:53

that we are having prior to me joining company

22:56

, and so the objectives

22:58

are to reduce a cancel

23:01

rate I won't get into the exact numbers but

23:03

reduce , reduce our cancellation and

23:05

reduce our push rates , because reps are

23:07

pushing deals consistently from

23:10

like the thirty to the fifteen

23:12

, to the thirty to fifteen , things like

23:14

that . So those are like

23:16

the objectives , so they're pretty

23:18

simple to track right , because those

23:20

are kind of out of the box . Hub spot report

23:22

. So I but we're getting down to

23:24

the rep level , seeing where the behavior

23:27

because it's usually driven by two

23:29

, three , two , three , four people that

23:31

are , you know , really driving the number and

23:33

then that's where really enablement

23:35

comes in , because where now , what

23:37

do you do about that ? Right , you've got this data

23:39

point , this information , and

23:42

how do you then go back

23:44

and address those issues with

23:46

particularly , let's say , there's four people

23:48

that are pushing those bars way over there ? You

23:51

don't need to deploy new training for the whole

23:53

team . You just want to address those

23:55

people and find out why are their deals pushing

23:57

, what ? What's happening there ? So I

23:59

think , but you have to look at that frequently

24:01

. It's not good enough to just be like , oh

24:05

, here's an objective , will check it at the end of next quarter

24:07

, see how it , how it went , like I want

24:09

to be in front of it , look like literally

24:11

every week , every month , and and how

24:13

can we get in front of these things in real time ? I

24:15

mean , it's so great , most of the data

24:17

and and all these tools available in

24:19

real time , right . So yeah

24:21

, it's , you can adjust and

24:24

iterate and but yeah

24:26

, you just have to make the reporting aligned with

24:28

the key objectives . You're pretty basic , but

24:30

don't over complicate it , because

24:32

you over complicated , it's gonna make it Too

24:36

much of a bear to try to figure out

24:38

and everything . So , just what are

24:40

those ? You know , kpis , it's

24:42

, it's key is a reason . And

24:45

what are ? What are the leading indicators

24:47

from that ? Right , like , how do you detect that ahead

24:49

of time ? And just

24:51

a line about narrowing those down sandy

24:54

.

24:54

If anything , you're right . There's so

24:56

much data and so much available in real time

24:59

. If anything , I can see people getting

25:01

bogged down in it rather than not having enough

25:03

. So any advice for

25:05

those people listening on again , you could measure

25:07

a thousand things . How

25:10

do you pick the right ? As you

25:12

say , the K is for key , what

25:14

are the key actual keeper for its indicators

25:16

, etc . What process do you follow

25:18

to get to that ?

25:19

I always think of my job is driving revenue

25:22

. So what is gonna have the biggest impact

25:24

to revenue now this year ? And

25:27

because revenue recognition of you

25:29

know if anyone's in SAS , that's the

25:32

key thing on your mind . You can sell

25:34

all the ACV you want , sign

25:36

all the contracts if you want , but

25:38

if it doesn't go live , nothing

25:40

matters . Right , there's no revenue .

25:42

you say clawback . At least that's exactly

25:45

that's what I think of all those years in SAS

25:47

sales clawback , yeah clawback

25:50

exactly what that in the goal ?

25:52

Oh , yeah , yeah , writing a comp plan with that in it right

25:54

now . So , anyway , if you go

25:57

, you think about that . So what

25:59

are the things that are gonna have the biggest impact ? Is

26:01

it ? I mean , when I looked at our org

26:03

, I mean I have , I have a list like that goes

26:06

a lot like this list , it's like

26:08

probably three , four pages of All the

26:10

challenges that we have , but what are the ones that

26:12

are gonna make a material impact and

26:15

that are gonna make a material impact

26:17

sooner versus later ? So how can we

26:19

impact this years

26:21

plan number ? and then , translating

26:23

that to a sales person , how can we impact your

26:25

paycheck now , right , and

26:28

so I think that's what you have to narrow it down

26:30

to , because you have to sell

26:32

, you have to sell the stuff upwards to

26:34

write , you have to not just justify your

26:36

tech , but they want to know that this is

26:38

Adopting , that this initiative

26:41

we've we put out is actually

26:43

working . So what do you ? Does

26:45

this align with your company blueprint or

26:47

whatever that is ? And and pick

26:49

those impactful ones , which

26:52

is why I picked cancel rate

26:54

and push rate , because those are two

26:56

direct impacts of

26:58

go live , which is revenue faster

27:01

, which means more revenue in

27:03

year and anyway

27:05

. So that's just . That's the way I always look at it . You know

27:07

, if you're in the revenue business is

27:09

how do you ? What's the biggest impact

27:12

of revenue ?

27:13

You're talking about pushes in Salesforce

27:16

or CRM . The longest

27:18

, the oldest deal I personally

27:20

can remember ever encountering when doing some audit

27:22

and cleanup was just under 1100 days

27:25

, like a thousand eight nine days

27:28

, and I just wanted to pick up the

27:31

phone and call the rep and say

27:33

so are you thinking

27:35

it's going to be day 1190

27:38

? You know , is there something fundamentally ?

27:41

or should we just take this ?

27:43

out . Yeah , it's amazing how these

27:45

deals get life , develop a life of

27:47

their own sometimes .

27:49

Oh yeah , I mean I've . We just

27:51

did a major cleanup over the summer . I mean there

27:53

were some deals that were , like you know

27:55

, 395 days

27:58

, 460 . I think the average

28:00

was like to 218

28:03

or something . It was crazy . So we did

28:05

a lot of cleanup , but a lot of that

28:07

really went back to . That's

28:10

why rolling out something like MedPick or another

28:12

qualification process is so important not

28:14

to go down a rabbit hole . But you have to qualify

28:16

deals out of your pipeline too and

28:18

, for whatever reason , reps just want to like hang on

28:20

to it and and it's like , well , they

28:23

need that 2.7x .

28:25

Whenever the boss looks , there's got to be 2.7x

28:27

in there , never mind if it's it's like ghost

28:29

opportunities , right , but it looks good . Yeah

28:31

, yeah , no , it's

28:33

it's . I think back to my days

28:36

as a sales rep , and , if I was honest

28:38

, my main objective in a weekly pipeline

28:40

review was just to you know , keep

28:42

the boss happy for another week , right

28:45

, keep your job . Yeah , yeah

28:47

, exactly . Well , this

28:50

has been fun , but we are actually running up

28:53

on time , which is which is amazing , because

28:55

it doesn't seem like it . But , thank you . I

28:57

don't want to let you go , though , and

29:00

without having you drop one more piece

29:02

of knowledge or wisdom on us , and

29:04

this may or may not be related to what we've been talking

29:07

about , but if you were given

29:09

the gift of time travel , with

29:11

the couple limitations one , you can only go back

29:13

and visit some younger version of yourself , and

29:15

, number two , you can only coach yourself

29:18

in one area , what is

29:20

the number one thing you wish you'd understood

29:22

earlier in life or in your career ?

29:24

I think it's being a great collaborator

29:27

and coming from sales

29:29

as an individual contributor , you're

29:31

you're hunting and running out to close

29:33

the next deal and everything , and

29:36

I think the the

29:38

value in later

29:40

on in learning how to apply my

29:42

sales skills to internal

29:45

collaboration and working with other

29:47

leaders , managing up working

29:50

with other teams , working with peers and

29:53

understanding how

29:55

best to communicate

29:57

with them , but also be effective

29:59

, right and get results , because

30:01

these things don't work if you don't

30:04

work together across silos and departments

30:06

, even within your own team . So

30:08

I think that that would be . That would be the

30:10

advice and I always go back to

30:13

. Like Steve and Covey , I'm

30:15

kind of an old school . Seven habits of

30:17

highly effective people person learn

30:19

that way back in the day but

30:21

seek first to understand , then be

30:23

understood . So that is huge

30:26

when you're working with

30:28

other people , because , first

30:31

of all , sometimes they might view

30:33

you as a threat or a change

30:35

in their world and things like that . But just

30:37

really trying to understand their world

30:39

, whether it's the teams that you

30:41

serve , your peers , other

30:44

departments within your organization it's

30:46

always great to you know to really

30:48

take that approach .

30:50

All right , thank you . Thank you for sharing

30:52

that . Thanks for spending

30:55

your time and have this conversation with us . I'm

30:57

excited for this one to drop in

30:59

the next month or so Anything

31:02

else before we go .

31:04

No , I just I'm excited about this . I

31:06

really appreciate the conversations that we

31:08

have and this whole idea

31:10

of RevOps and revenue

31:13

enablement just really working together

31:15

hand in hand .

31:15

Yeah , me too . It's the only way that

31:18

it can work , and I've been in both . I've been in situations

31:20

where the teams worked very well together and situations

31:22

where there was almost an adversary relationship , and

31:25

it's tough . You make it work , but it's

31:27

not easy , so all right . Well , thank

31:29

you to everyone who's spent the last half

31:31

hour with Sandy and I as well . We appreciate

31:34

your loyalty . We appreciate you investing

31:36

your time with us , and we'll be back in

31:38

two weeks with another great episode .

31:40

Thanks for joining this episode of Stories

31:43

from the Trenches . For more revenue

31:45

enablement resources , be sure to

31:47

join the Revenue Enablement Society

31:49

at resocietyglobal

31:53

. That's resocietyglobal

31:56

.