All models are broken (but some are useful)

How do you create an operating model to grow revenue? Find out in this episode.

Show Notes

We've talked about having a model to manage and execute revenue at b2b SaaS companies. But we've not really outlined how you build one.

We're fixing that in this episode as we get into how Toni build the first operating model for revenue, what dimensions were considered and how it was used. Hopefully it'll serve as inspiration for you to build your own model to manage revenue.

Creators and Guests

Host

Mikkel Plaehn

Marketing leader & b2b saas nerd

Host

Toni Hohlbein

2x exited CRO | 1x Founder | Podcast Host

What is The Revenue Formula?

This podcast is about scaling tech startups.

Hosted by Toni Hohlbein & Raul Porojan, together they look at the full funnel.

With a combined 20 years of experience in B2B SaaS and 3 exits, they discuss growing pains, challenges and opportunities they’ve faced. Whether you're working in RevOps, sales, operations, finance or marketing - if you care about revenue, you'll care about this podcast.

If there’s one thing they hate, it’s talk. We know, it’s a bit of an oxymoron. But execution and focus is the key - that’s why each episode is designed to give 1-2 very concrete takeaways.

[00:01:04] Toni: Let's see how we're onna piece this intro together.
[00:01:07] Mikkel: It's okay. How do we segue from this into talking about models? Our wives look pretty good, so they are No, no, no, no, no. I don't, I'm not sure they're listening. we can do a snippet for, So they watch it, but we are actually gonna talk. models, revenue models, how to build one, why they're important. we have a bit of a, I'll say catchy title.
[00:01:32] All models are wrong. Yeah. But some are actually useful. That is the quote that is, the intention, so obviously then follows. That is never gonna be perfect. It's never gonna be able to predict down to, you know, 0.2 decimals, how things are gonna pan out. But it is gonna be helpful for you. And we've, we've covered.
[00:01:51] uh, some of the previous episodes, how to miss a quarter, for example, that, you know, you need a model. You need a plan to make sure you don't have a hard miss. Mm-hmm. So today we're really gonna unpack how do you build a model, as a business to make sure you can actually grow a bit more predictably
[00:02:07] Toni: yeah, absolutely. And I think, uh, what, what probably kind of works well here is also a little bit of the. Of the story here behind it. Mm-hmm. uh, so how, how did we end up building one? Why was it important? Why was it useful and so forth. So, so I think this is, this is what we are gonna spend, um, the show on today.
[00:02:27] Mikkel: And maybe just to be clear, it's not gonna be a, you know, episode pitching what we are selling. Obviously we do build some of this stuff, but this is really gonna be. How we did it, What takeaway you can, you know, take with you. I can see a, a funny look on my co-hosts face now. No, you already,
[00:02:41] Toni: you already sold it. Right there. You already sold it right there
[00:02:43] Mikkel: That's it. That's the end of the pitching. Yeah. We're gonna stop it now and go into story mode. Yeah. So, so we've covered a bit of some of the inputs into the model. Uh, in previous episodes we'll kind of, you know, drop some, some markers when relevant. Yep. But really we want to get into the story.
[00:02:57] So how did it happen? How did you, and, and Olafur will come up with an idea to actually build a model.
[00:03:04] Toni: Yeah. So we, we, um, as, as so many times when, when, when things happen, we, uh, we had a little bit of a crisis. Mm. So things weren't going so well and the company. I think we just raised the series B where, you know, at the point of like scale, scale and obviously what we did is because that's, that's what many financial models or budgets are based on is let's just hire more AEs because they each have a quota and they're gonna ramp up and we just need to have a lot of quota there and then they're all going to hit and everything's gonna be fantastic.
[00:03:40] And we tried that. Didn't quite work out that well for us. and by the way, this is what's gonna happen to, uh, probably everyone was listening that still has that kind of approach. really the, just let's do it on, on the quota, on the street, basically. So what we. what we then were faced with was we had aggressive growth targets.
[00:04:02] We were extremely far away from them. we were burning a lot of money at the same time, so time was running out and, uh, the way we wanted to grow didn't happen. So we had AEs, we had a productivity expectation of those AEs. It's 70%, 80%, whatever. we doubled and tripled that team and suddenly productivity of these was 50 or 40%.
[00:04:23] And we're like, Why is that? Why are they all so lazy? And you know, how can that be? And. And in reality, obviously the, the reason why they didn't close much more was simply because they didn't get any more opportunities anymore leads that they could be closing That. I think that was one of the first fundamental realizations.
[00:04:41] And it always sounds so silly when you talk about it because everyone's like, Ah, obviously Toni, you know, what are you doing? but I can tell you from talking to many, many people out there, this is still the predominant way of thinking about the world. Let's do it. AE times productivity and done. So our realization was, okay, we need to feed those AEs.
[00:05:01] You know, if we can't feed them, then they can't be successful. They can't hit their target. Uh, so it's really about, you know, opportunities and so forth. and then we looked at, okay, so how much, how much do we need to pay for each of those opportunities actually? Um, and we looked into, marketing how much they were spending on, on the opportunities they were creating.
[00:05:19] And we looked into outbounds, and the opportunities they were creating and how they were behaving and what we realized that, um, and that thinking, you know, refined later on. But we realized that roughly once something hits opportunity stage, It roughly behaves the same. It's not fully true. Uh, we learned this a little bit later, but it was, was enough of a, of an understanding to kind of get to the next step, which then was, well, if those opportunities are roughly behaving the same, should we then try and pay the same for them?
[00:05:52] You know, whether or not they come from marketing or from, from SDR or outbound, Right? That was kind of the realization and there, Then we found, And that was a big surprise back then. the opportunities coming from the SDR team were much cheaper than the ones that came from marketing. Mm. Yeah. That was kind of one, one big realization.
[00:06:10] The other big realization was, okay, so now that we have X amount of opportunities Mm, do we actually, and, and this is maybe the leading indicator here, how many AEs do we actually need to work through? Instead of the, Oh, let's have as money A as possible. It became a, Well, we only have, I don't know, a thousand opportunities.
[00:06:35] We know that, I don't know, 10 or 15 AEs are enough to work through those. We don't need more than that. Um, And then we had a couple of, you know, supporting teams around. So we were, we were a little bit, we were a little bit fat on the side, and then we basically realized, okay, wait a minute, if we shift budget around away from marketing, which was obviously, uh, was not only ads that had to be changed, it's also, you know, people and so forth, right?
[00:07:03] So it was massive, massive change in the organization. If we take budget away from there and put it into the SDRs, um, that maybe is gonna be good. And then we can actually also, uh, take budget away from the AEs because we don't need all of them. Mm. Uh, and some of the supporting functions and maybe put them also into opportunity production.
[00:07:22] But now we were like, Okay, cool, that's great. but if we put all of that money into outbound and you know, some of the more efficient marketing channels, that will create more opportunities. At a certain point in time, and then we need actually AEs to be there as well. but we only have so much budget available, so how many ees do we actually then need?
[00:07:42] Mm-hmm. You know, once you rent up. Yeah. And if we don't have that budget available for the opportunities, how much, how much opportunities gonna create? So how many, you know, and you can see that that very quickly became, let's just say computationally difficult to figure out. Yeah. And then we basically started building a, uh, an Excel model around this.
[00:08:03] Mikkel: Yeah. And I, I kind of recall when we started having this obsession around opportunities, also the focus began to shift a little bit. I was in, in marketing at that stage. we've always said, Hey, revenue is the focus, but when you are not, You know, the closing team, that becomes very abstract somehow.
[00:08:22] But opportunities were a lot clearer because it was just the natural next step. And rather than looking at leads, which was, you know, you had more uncertainty for how much revenue would actually come, you had more sources of leads. Opportunities were, were a lot simpler. And that's when we started getting into, hey, actually we can, with trade shows, we can go on.
[00:08:40] You know, buy opportunities at this price. Mm-hmm. That's, that seems attractive rather than sponsoring, you know, a webinar with whoever. Yeah. Uh, so it kind of led also to a shift in, in that kind of prioritization.
[00:08:52] Toni: Uh, and I think I, you know, not to a degree, I don't dis don't, I don't agree with some of that shift anymore.
[00:08:58] I think you made a couple of mistakes there. Mm-hmm. Um, I think it was a great way to think about and talk about. opportunities and focus, the organization around it and become extremely efficient. Yeah, so we went from, and this is in our, five, six years ago more actually. We went from a 25, 27 customer acquisition cost payback number, which is like, took way too long for us.
[00:09:26] Back then, that was not okay. So it took the
[00:09:27] Mikkel: time it took to recoup the CAC
[00:09:30] Yes. uh, we went from that. Did all the changes and we got it down to 12 in two or three quarters. So we, and, and we increased the revenue coming out of this organization, right? So we went from extreme crisis to, hey, this is working out great.
[00:09:49] and, and executing that, doing that, also with the marketing team, that was the right thing to do at that point in time. But I do believe that, and this is probably the, the issue with many models, and there's also a limit, the issue with why I believe that finance and financial models are limited to a large degree, they're only able to tell the story from one specific perspective, which is the finance side and how money flows and so forth, and salaries very often.
[00:10:24] They're not really great at explaining and or managing how to create the revenue that the budget is really based on. Right? So that's why having a revenue model on the site is extremely helpful. But the same thing also. And, back then I think the, the focus was, and opportunities, and that's, by the way, it's super easy for everyone to create.
[00:10:42] That's listening and, and then thinking about that. but what I felt was, then just a. unhelpful was, as you just said, some of the important marketing pieces Oh, yeah. That you just, you, you just don't find the slot in the model where to put a plus one in No. And therefore you don't do it anymore.
[00:10:59] And I think that was, that was a little bit of a mistake, to be honest. Yeah.
[00:11:03] Mikkel: But it is also, and, and maybe it's too much of a sidetrack, but it can get really abstract when you go into the marketing, marketing sphere. We're doing a podcast right now. How does that fit into a model? Some things like, Well, let me show you.
[00:11:13] Yeah. some things are just incredibly hard. Yeah. Okay, so let's continue the story here. Uh, so, so you kind of had found, you know, the solution with opportunities Yeah. Shifted around budgets, then what happened?
[00:11:27] Toni: Yeah. So the first thing is we, we didn't trust ourselves all that much. Mm. So the first thing that Olfo and I, and the team basically did, um, Did a couple of those iterations of the model to figure out what is actually the right approach here.
[00:11:43] Because the, the first idea, you know, we basically used two, three quarters ago data to model out this or last quarters results. Kind of this typical very scientific. Great way of doing it. and we did it a couple of times and sometimes we're like extremely wrong with it. Mm. and you know, until we figured it out and then we hit it and then we felt like, hey, this, this actually can be used going forward.
[00:12:08] Right. So there was a bit of back and forth in the, uh, you know, figuring out what is the truest model, if you will. And again, right. This is, this is one of these, uh, hey, all models are, uh, useless. You know, statement. Mm-hmm. which really, and, and I know, so I mean, it's from Dave Kellogg. He's, uh, he's actually invested in the company.
[00:12:30] what obviously the intent is that don't over think or over believe in, in, in your models. Don't, don't do that. There is a piece of reality that sits on the side of it and model helps. To, you know, think through the future, simulate the future, if you will. It helps you to be much more precise in your execution.
[00:12:53] Uh, and it might even help you depending on which leading indicators you you're following. It might even help you to. Know course correct before something go really wrong or, you know, leading to a hard miss. You know, we discussed that, but there's also the reality of, uh, you know, running the business and the forecast and, and a couple of things that a model will won't be able to tell you.
[00:13:17] Right. It's other, other tools in order to. Optimize, especially for the short run. Uh, much more capable in doing exactly that. For example, forecasting meeting and not just, Hey, well the model said X, Y, and Z. No. In reality, there will be, uh, deals that, you know, suddenly drop out and maybe you kind of. You know, this, this deal didn't work out.
[00:13:37] And, and then from a model perspective, you were, well, the conversion rate dropped. No. In reality, someone didn't execute that sale really well. Right? Yeah. So it's really important to, uh, live in both worlds equally well. Yeah. And, uh, and as Dave also agrees, you do need a model to make some of those diff uh, decisions to, to build a plan around.
[00:13:58] To figure out what your options are really, especially when you add, uh, cash and cash and all of that stuff to it. and, uh, but not get overinvested, uh, in, into, into model world. And to have a, a model induced hallucination, I think was one of his quotes on this. Yeah.
[00:14:15] Mikkel: And so you, you did a couple of iterations.
[00:14:17] You said you simulated, Hey, past quarter, how did it actually go? Uh, and we've referred now to the model a couple of times. Can you just put some words. What was the model? What are we in a spreadsheet here? What, what was the build? What did it, Yeah, what did it actually look like roughly? Try and paint a little bit of a picture there.
[00:14:34] Toni: Yeah, so we are on a spreadsheet. we are on a spreadsheet for sure. And the, the way, the way we started doing it, we basically tried and figured out what are the important. Dimensions here for the business. What is, what is important? and we realized that the different markets were important in that sense.
[00:14:53] It was, uh, the Nordics, it was, uh, German speaking region. It was UK and was the us. all of those are different leaders and, and, and slightly different behavior and, uh, ACVs. So average contract value and um, and conversion rates and so forth. We had, you know, that was one split, and the other split was inbound versus outbound.
[00:15:14] So we, at that point, we then realized, oh wait a. we can't just throw inbound and outbound together. Those are separate streams, separate buying journeys, really. and they look different. Yeah. Uh, outbound usually, has lower conversion rates, uh, has longer sales cycles, but has higher ACVs because your targeting is much better.
[00:15:34] and, uh, marketing is basically inverse. Yeah. Higher conversion rates, converts much faster. But because you're targeting sometimes a little bit all over the place, ACVs on average are a bit smaller. Right? And we basically mapped it out. So Nords inbound, outbound, dark inbound outbound, US inbound, you get the picture.
[00:15:53] And then we basically took the historic data and I said, Okay, how many opportunities were done in January? And you know, each of these, how many were done in February and so forth. how did they convert? For how much money, how long did it take? We calculated all this thing out and basically what I just mentioned there, this is what we started calling the revenue formula, which is coincidentally also the name of this show, which is, uh, in our number of opportunities times conversion rate times average contract value times time.
[00:16:25] So there's sales cycle equals revenue, right? Mm-hmm. and if you kind of build this out in the spread, And yes, it's gonna be probably pretty messy and pretty dirty and, you know, I think your revels professional will be the best person to potentially do it. Um, then we landed at, hey, this is, you know, this is the way we can actually model out revenue.
[00:16:44] And, and now a big shift in addition to that happened, which was, Okay, wait a minute. We now understand there are opportunities that are being created by outbound reps, and that highly depends on how many outbound reps you have. there were some, you know, based on historic data, there was an assumption, okay, Every rep after two or three months should be doing 10 opportunities.
[00:17:09] And if we add more reps here, that means we get more opportunities on the outbound line for nordix, for the outbound line and dark and so forth, wherever you hired them. we obviously knew that there wouldn't be sitting in their seats for forever, so there was a, you know, an attrition basically kind of build in.
[00:17:27] and this helped us to model out how future opportunities gonna look like on the marketing side. Back then we were a little bit more stupid about it, so we had a very simple, I don't know, 2, 3, 4, 5% a month growth or something like that approach, which kind of worked out actually nicely. and this is basically how we had the supply.
[00:17:47] Of the revenue model now-ish. Done. Yeah. Right. So opportunities from the past, you roll them forward, you understand how they convert, you understand your inputs that it can tweak. So adding more SDRs led to more opportunities led to more revenue. that was the supply side of things. which then, and I'm just gonna keep talking here.
[00:18:06] Yeah. Go. Which then led us to realization, to the realization that, you know, I mentioned earlier, or which led us to modeling the realization that I mentioned earlier, which is, well, the sales reps, the AEs themselves, they rarely create opportunities themselves, like two or three a month or something like this.
[00:18:26] And on and off. Uh, we accounted for that, yada yada. Uh, but the realization was that we only need as many AEs as we have opportunities not the other way around. Yeah, we don't need, It's actually really inefficient for your CAC payback to have too many AEs sitting around with too few opportunities. Yeah. So what we then did, you know, I just explained the, the supply side opportunities then into revenue.
[00:18:55] What we then did on the flip side, we did the, uh, demand side, call it. Terrible naming potentially, but that's really the capacity model. Yeah. Right. So we understood. Okay. We have, in, uh, the Nordics, in German speaking region in the UK and the US we have so many reps. you know, after accounting for, uh, ramp up and junior, senior, all of that jazz, we had so many, so much quota on the street in each of these different areas.
[00:19:23] And that is usually a, uh, a revenue number. It's usually a dollar number or a Euro number. Okay. You know, it's a million for the Nordics or something like that. okay. How many opportunities, and, as a result, how much revenue on the supply side do we actually have, uh, for the Nordics, or it's only 700,000.
[00:19:43] Okay. Well, that means we now have a problem here. We have too few opportunities for the reps. Number one. This will lead to, And you can't just change quotas quickly because then everyone in German speaking regions, like, why are their quotas done? Uh, I want the same. So you have a problem here now that, uh, basically none of none of the reps on the team is gonna hit target.
[00:20:05] Right? So that's a problem. and you know, you could have the opposite problem as well, which is, too much. Too many opportunities for the quota that they can carry. And what you will see in then opposite problems, also inefficient because your conversion rate will go down. They will start be like, ah, you know this, I don't know.
[00:20:23] This guy didn't seem right, so I, I threw it away. so you really wanna balance it out in it of the most efficient machinery you can build. And that's what we use the, uh, supply and demand side for leaving it out every quarter, making sure it's right. And whenever we got more money. and obviously there's a, uh, there's a process around that as well, but it was really easy for us to figure out where the next inefficiency was about to arise.
[00:20:51] Mm-hmm. uh, was it in, uh, in the uk? Quota on the street side, was it, Hey, we need to grow more so we need to put more into opportunities. Was it? And we built this even further to like, uh, okay, now we need a manager here for this now. Right? And if we don't have a manager for this, then something else is gonna happen.
[00:21:10] So it was actually very easy for us. To have a, a straightforward conversation about the revenue engine, you know, represented by the revenue model, seeing exactly where efficiencies have arised or are going to arise. Right. Even to a point of what if that guy leaves? Yeah. and then being able to play around and, and shift around and, um, that enabled us to have a extremely scalable and, um, efficient and, uh, predict machinery actually, which then helped us, you know, this infamous 12, 12 quarters in row. Right.
[00:21:44] Mikkel: I'm just thinking if you're listening to this episode and you're gonna go now, okay, I'm gonna create this wonderful model. Yeah. In a spreadsheet. I'm gonna go to my boss. Hey, I built this thing, I tested it, It, you know, it hit the previous quarters to a high, you know, percentage. So I'm fairly confident this is gonna work.
[00:22:10] I wonder how they will, go about accepting such a thing. Because after all, it seems very simple. It's just a, a spreadsheet. Right. So how did, how did you end up in a place where, you've been in a, a meeting room with Ola, who you've, you know, mapped all these things out and you go, Hey, here's a model in a spreadsheet Yeah.
[00:22:26] For how we should approach it.
[00:22:28] Toni: So I, I, I was asked though to figure something out, and it was, so we were in Q2 when this happened. It was, Okay, Toni, we want to get two x by the end of this year. We have so much budget available. Can we do it? That really was the question. And I think not in all cases will this question be brought to you that's maybe listening?
[00:22:54] I think if someone is a revenue leader, then this is an absolute question you, you're going to get asked. and the, uh, the result was that I came back. Was, um, Hey, we can hit this revenue number with the budget that you are giving me. If you want me to hit the revenue number that you really want, you need to give me this budget.
[00:23:15] Mm. And suddenly we had, and this was a cfo, ceo, and I think I was a sales ops manager at that point kind of conversation. And we are trying to figure this out and, um, and very quickly, so first of all, I had to convince them that it's not about Quota on the street. That was, again, it was a big revelation. It was a big thing was quota doesn't matter guys.
[00:23:38] It's opportunities, opportunities matter. and um, you know, obviously the realization why that is and, and how it's important and so forth. but then basically the ability to clearly say, this is what we can achieve with this budget. If you give more budget, I can achieve that. And suddenly we had a clear back and forth conversation between the cfo and I.
[00:23:59] Which, which was really helpful because if you only have a budget, if you only have a financial model, that doesn't explain how you actually create the revenue piece that the whole thing is based on. Yeah. It's very difficult to have that back and forth. It's very difficult to have a data driven, logic driven conversation to figure out where can the organization actually land versus the, Hey, we told the investors we wanna land here.
[00:24:23] and we should probably roughly be able to do that, right? which usually comes from the cfo, CEO side, but then there's very little ability unless you have a revenue model, like something like that. That's at least my experience. And, and, and also my belief by now, it's very little ability to sense check, cross-check, push back, and or present alternative options.
[00:24:45] To some of those plans and desires, right? And if, if you're listening as a rev ops person, I think, I think what could be extremely helpful and, and, you know, in Q4 now, so some of that thing is done. but use it as a way to, for now maybe just understand, okay, if we want to get to this revenue level by q2, by Q4 next year, how many, how many opportunities does it actually need.
[00:25:13] and, and by one and from whom? maybe even how many leads from which kind of sources. I think that's maybe just another complexity level that we haven't touched up on, but really kind of build those out and then understand super early on, you know, what can we do to actually get to those opportunities?
[00:25:30] Yeah. You know, what are the inputs we need to have and are we having those inputs in their seats? Because that's what you will need to have done in order to hit that number in q2. Right. And I think once you have done this, and this will be more of an analysis than it is an ongoing tool for you, once you have done this analysis, I think you should approach your, uh, revenue leader of choice and be like, Hey, you realize that those are the things you actually need to do and we actually need to hire these people today.
[00:25:57] Um, if we don't do that, I think we are gonna land here instead of what you just agreed to with the cfo. Let's, let's discuss what we can do in order to close that gap. Yeah. and I think unless you have a revenue leader as a complete moron, sorry. there will be, you know, there will be a little bit like, Yeah, yeah.
[00:26:13] Your Excel spreadsheet. There will be that. I've done that myself. But once you get to the point, Hey, there's a gap of half a million here that I think is unaddressed. Uh, the only way to fix it, from my perspective, those two things here, but we are not doing any of this. What, what do you think? How, how, how do you think we are gonna fix that once you have that, uh, fear?
[00:26:36] Yeah. Installed, And by the way, this fear is universal with everyone who's carrying a, a, not their own quota, but like, uh, a couple of quotas and, you know, being responsible for the whole engine. It's always the, how do I really know that all the things that I'm planning to do. Are actually adding up to the revenue number I'm asked to deliver.
[00:26:56] Yeah. Lot of people are,
[00:26:59] Mikkel: you know, you wanna make sure the target doesn't become a target on
[00:27:02] Toni: your back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just saying, I've been doing this for a couple of years and it's, it's a little bit of a nightmare sometimes. Yeah. So, so I think if you as a RevOps professional can ease that pain a little bit with something like that, go, totally do it.
[00:27:17] And, um, and I think your, your boss will be extremely happy about it. This then also ties back to some of this QBR MBR stuff. Once you kind of decide that, you know this is the way to go, it starts to become then increasingly easy for you to create, um, an MBR or QBR and say, Hey, it should have been so many opportunities.
[00:27:37] It should have been so many hires. We should have been in so many, opportunities Per person. Marketing should have been X, Y, and Z. You can sum it all up in the MBR QBR. You can step back to a degree in terms of, oh, this should have increased by 30%. Yeah. and, and just, just point, just have the numbers speak for themselves.
[00:27:56] Right. Marketing lifted up 20% month over a month, which is massive, extreme high. Awesome. Congratulations. But for you guys to get to the place where you wanted to go, it actually should have gone up 30%. Yeah, sure. Celebrate all you want. But we are still behind now, and it's not, you know, downer Debbie coming around the corner be like, Oh, you missed by 10% points.
[00:28:19] It's, um, it's not an opinion of anyone. It's, it's, it's there If you, if you're not getting to that milestone, you just created a problem for yourself in the future, and you need to take proactive action. Right. You know, un unless, unless you wanna have a hard miss and have it really hurt. Right.
[00:28:36] Mikkel: And I think you, you mentioned the other day, the benefit of focusing on opportunities is the fact that you have, you have time.
[00:28:45] All of a sudden you can see, oh, oh, it's going the wrong direction right now, and that's gonna cause a problem in the future. Versus if revenue was the scale. you was, Oops, we missed. Yep. Now, okay, now we need
[00:28:58] Toni: to and to, and to be clear, I think, I think opportunities and pipeline and, qualified opportunities and qualified, you know, all of that stuff is a great measure for marketing.
[00:29:08] Mm. I think in order to do deep dives into why marketing didn't hit the opportunity in emba, you actually need to peel the onion back, go on the lead level, go on the traffic level, understand what's actually going on here. Sometimes that's really intimidating because they're about a gazillion different metrics in marketing and it's really difficult from the outside to figure out what is important, what's not important, and sales, it's kind of easier.
[00:29:31] and unless you have a, a good structured way around that and be like, Hey, this is, this is, I think what's going wrong here based on, again, my data, the model, whatever, it's very easy. And I've seen this myself and I've been victim of that myself. It's very easy for a marketing leader to deflect. And, you know, push it to someone else, and basically kind of keep that part of the funnel and the organization hidden and confuse everyone with numbers.
[00:29:56] Yes. Yeah. It works
[00:29:58] Mikkel: really well. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's, uh, it's the perfect way to do it. You know, if, if, if you miss a number just. Pull a lot of others to look good. change some
[00:30:07] Toni: definitions, well's really good. Uh, brand impact. Yeah. You know.
[00:30:12] Mikkel: Yeah. No, but I think there's a future episode there because it's so, we talked a bit about, right.
[00:30:17] All models are wrong, but some are useful. There are some complex realities out there Yeah. That are really hard to anticipate. Yeah. And it's very clear, you know, just from my experience, at least in marketing, that's really difficult. Yeah. and. Why I like this approach, trying to simplify it, um, start simple, um, and build it out from there, like you said.
[00:30:37] So, you know, hopefully, hopefully this is a, mental model you can turn into a spreadsheet that can actually become helpful for you and your planning and execution. Yeah.
[00:30:47] Toni: Wonderful. Thanks for the episode, Mikkel. Yeah, thank you. I hope everyone took a little bit your way, and, and learned from our mistakes and, uh, hopefully doesn't make the same mistakes as, as we did.
[00:30:58] Yeah.
[00:30:59] Mikkel: Now go build a model. Yeah. And hopefully it's useful. Yeah. Thank you, Toni. Thanks Mikkel. Uh, and thank you. Wonderful listener. Have a good one. Bye. A good one. Bye-bye.