Warren Zenna: The CRO Spotlight Podcast, growth Forum production.
Hi, I'm Warren Zena, Founder and CEO of the CRO Collective, and
welcome to the CRO Spotlight Podcast.
This podcast is for Chief Revenue Officers, aspiring CROs and
CEOs who are looking to hire or support a CRO to succeed.
To join me and my expert guests as we debate, discuss, and tackle today's
complex revenue growth challenges, and provide practical insights
to help CROs succeed in the role.
We're really excited to have you with us now, let's get to it.
All right, and welcome to the episode of uh, Sierra Spotlight Podcast.
I'm Warren Zena.
CEO and founder of the CRO Collective, and I'm real excited today.
I've got a great guest on one that, um, looking at for a long time.
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Lot of you know 'em.
Kevin, Katie Dorsey, thank you so much for being here.
So, you know, uh, Katie is, um, I listen to his podcast.
I watch his YouTube stuff.
I certainly follow him a lot on LinkedIn and he's a huge voice in the sales
training, development, uh, community.
Probably one of the tops, uh, the Live Better, sell Better podcast.
I listen to, uh, you know, he's also got some really interesting things going on
that I wanted to have him talk about, but I really would love Kevin for us to talk a
bit about the Chief Revenue Officer role.
And the way it's evolved and how Chief revenue officers, when they're
trying to grab the entire revenue operation and they have to oversee
sales, what your perspective is on how your training philosophies and
your approaches would ladder up to somebody who oversees the bigger
picture and has to integrate marketing and integrate customer success into a
larger sales effort or growth effort.
And that's sort of like the kickoff point, but I'd love just.
Thanks for being here.
Kevin Dorsey: No, I'm pump.
I'm pumped for this.
Cause I love, I love what you're doing with it as well, right?
With a CRO collective.
Cause like the higher up you go, the, the lonelier it is, the
fewer people you can talk to.
That's about what it is that goes on in the day-to-day life.
So I, I love what's, what's happening here?
I'm pump to dive in, man, so let's supposed to do it.
Warren Zenna: Great.
Well, you're right.
Uh, it's funny when I do, I do a lot of events and talking and what happens
whenever I'm finished, CROs come up to me and they say, Do you have a c o event?
Uh, membership community, because this job's lonely man.
Kevin Dorsey: Mm-hmm.
Warren Zenna: I've got nobody to talk to.
You know, when I talk to my c e o, they're just barking orders at me.
You know, they're looking at me like I'm, I got a number on my back.
And when I talk down to my head of marketing and my head of sales, head
of customer success, they're figuring out what does he want from me.
You know, I just, there's no one for me to turn to.
And the other thing too is, as you know, CROs are typically, they come from sales.
They're competitive.
It's hard to get another CRO to tell you what's going on cuz they
sort of like wanna keep their mask on, like things are going great
and things are rocking it right.
When it's not.
It's really tough.
So you're right, it is lonely.
And so I would say when you think about the work that you've been doing,
especially as things have evolved over the last, let's say five years,
I think it's been a huge evolution of things in the last five years.
Covid being part of it, but I also think also I think there's
some maturity going on in the marketplace around this hyper-growth
and how it hasn't been working.
When you think about a Chief revenue officer whose job is to manage and
wrangle together everybody, and also create outcomes for both the CEO
and the board, what are some initial things you think about that a Chief
Revenue Officer needs to be conscious of and from a standpoint of developing
training all, all their organizations?
Kevin Dorsey: Well, so first, it's remembering what the R in
C R O stands for, it's revenue.
Whereas a lot of CROs that I know and speak to still think it's a, you know,
a CSO role where it's Chief Sales Officer, like they came from sales, so
they think about sales and they don't do a great job of thinking about revenue,
where there are different ways to get to the number that they're supposed to.
It's almost always being looked at as like new bookings or new customers.
Whereas a two point reduction in churn and an expansion edition of 5%, you don't even
have to grow your sales team this year.
You could actually expand there.
So it's one just remembering its revenue and how each one of the, um,
orgs connects to that as a company.
But the, the big one man that I'm working on a lot with people and
you know, I just stepped back into a senior revenue role and, you know, I
have, I have all the orgs except for marketing, but I feel like I'll probably
have that one by the end of the year.
Cause I brought my VP of marketing over with me.
Warren Zenna: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Dorsey: So that one's, you know, gonna play out there
is really operationalizing what you're looking to do.
So like I have a leadership methodology that I roll out across all my orgs.
Because it applies to all of the orgs in terms of what we
look at and how we function.
And so I think that's really the key also, is that chief is, you have to kind of roll
out that methodology of how does your team communicate, how do they look at metrics,
how do they understand the data, what is expected from them on a regular basis?
And setting that vision.
That's where I see more CROs kind of miss, is they get so
obsessed just on the dollar.
And they don't think about what they need to do to connect
all the orgs together, right?
Warren Zenna: I you're a hundred percent right.
That is, that is the problem.
I say it's coming from two places.
One, and this is cuz I speak to probably like eight CROs a week, is
most CROs come from sales, right?
So they're, they're leaders already.
They know how to do that.
That's how they've proven themselves and that's how they got the job.
So when they step into this new thing, they're always gonna lead
with their strengths, which is growing sales organizations.
Kevin Dorsey: Right.
Warren Zenna: And they kind of forget that they have to switch their paradigm.
Kevin Dorsey: Mm-hmm.
Warren Zenna: And kind of like, not bias the sales organization, but it's
hard to do when the pressure's on.
It's easier to just run over to your sales organization and just make that work
because you're not gonna get, you know, it's not like you're gonna get yelled at
for that, but it's, it's not on point.
And then the second part of that is that is enabled.
By the organization who also is feeling the pinch and wants the sales to grow.
Kevin Dorsey: Mm-hmm.
Warren Zenna: And so when you drift over into the sales channel to kind
of keep yourself secure in your job, it's almost like everyone's saying,
well, that's actually not a bad idea.
And then what, what ends up happening with my clients is they get stuck there.
They can't get back to the strategic role because they sort of drifted
to sales to kind of save themselves and they lost the bigger picture.
So what we're trying to do, and I think it'll be interesting to get
your perspective on this, is how does an organization then ensure
that sales doesn't get biased with a CRO role and keep the strategic.
Uh, function going without giving into the pressure of trying to use that
person to grow the pipeline all the time.
Kevin Dorsey: So the, the first answer will be a cop out.
We won't spend a lot of time on it, but like it starts with the CEO and
what directions they are giving and allowing, like how they built the comp
plan, how the goals are being set, all of that cuz CEOs, investors, and boards
are just as bad as everybody else.
Is when things get tight, they do.
It sounds like, hey, we just need to grow more.
So they Yep, push that.
Right?
So that's the cop out answer.
There's not too much we can do about that other than communicating up properly.
If I think about it, like the way I approach it is I
wish more CROs understood.
I made up a word two years ago.
No God, it was three years ago at a conference.
You know, the topic was alignment, right?
Warren Zenna: Yep.
Kevin Dorsey: Similar topic, like how do you align all of your orgs?
And I said, actually, I don't like that word.
Because you can be aligned, but be in different lanes.
The word I changed it to was leverage.
Right?
Leverage was the word that I came up with.
Warren Zenna: Hmm.
Kevin Dorsey: And so if a CRO sat down and said, how can I
leverage CS to improve my sales?
How can I leverage sales to improve my marketing?
How could I leverage marketing to improve CS and sales?
It changes what you look for.
Right, so I'm looking for leverage.
So classic example, okay.
Who tends to know the voice of the prospect better sales, marketing, or CS.
Warren Zenna: CS, I think, in my opinion, the, the,
Kevin Dorsey: So no, you, you not quite the prospect, not the customer.
I'm gonna get to that.
Warren Zenna: Oh, I'll follow you.
Okay.
I gotcha.
Yeah.
So it's gonna be the sales people who know the prospect,
Kevin Dorsey: best sales team knows.
Warren Zenna: Sure.
Kevin Dorsey: The language of the prospect more.
Are they sharing that with marketing?
To make the ads better, to get the objection sheets handled,
to get the testimonials needed to handle the objections.
Who knows more about what customers do and prospects do without us, right?
What their behavior is?
Well, that's with marketing.
What are they searching for?
What are they downloading?
What are those keywords?
What are the long tails?
Well, that makes my sales org better in terms of my prospecting
messaging, my cadence is everything there, and then you nailed it.
Who knows?
The voice of the customer the best.
Warren Zenna: Customer success, obviously.
Sure.
Customer success.
Kevin Dorsey: How can marketing leverage that?
Mm-hmm.
Because oftentimes marketing like rarely talks to CS.
They'll talk to sales sometimes, but they rarely talk.
To see us, and so what I try to encourage people to do is stop asking and looking
for alignment, but look for leverage.
What does each org have access to that the other orgs don't?
That would make the other orgs better because we also know there's things sales
could do that would make CSS job easier.
We know that for sure.
Sure.
Think about it that way.
Yeah.
So I'll pause there, but it's looking for leverage, not alignment across the orgs.
Warren Zenna: That's great.
I really like that.
I would say the thing that's the challenge because you, you are correct.
I mean, alignment is, I, I think leverage is more of a, it, it it's more
of an actionable, or it's more of an intentional way of looking at it, right?
Mm-hmm.
Looking at a way to improve something or do something or utilize something,
um, is that, With the, with the, with the Chief Revenue Officer.
This is what's important about the role.
To kind of follow on that same theme, is that you need, in my view, and I
think this is what's missing in my, when you have silos or misalignment, If
you don't have somebody that's looking at that leverage or responsible for
that leverage, you don't get it, right.
You don't.
It's not like marketing gets up independently, walks over
to the sales department.
Asking questions mean maybe you do sometimes, and most of the time you don't.
They're, they have independent mo, um, KPIs.
They're fighting against each other.
Sometimes they argue with each other.
You know, the stuff that marketing gives, sales doesn't work for them.
So instead of them saying something, they just don't use it, you know?
Kevin Dorsey: Mm-hmm.
Warren Zenna: But if you have this, uh, leader, which we call the Chief
Revenue officer, who is looking to leverage them, that CRO is going to
encourage discussion and create it.
So it's not even as much just a matter of saying, Hey guys, talk to each other.
Kevin Dorsey: Mm-hmm.
Warren Zenna: It also, you have to bake it into the process where the KPIs and
the global revenue, um, goals force.
Leverage.
Kevin Dorsey: Mm-hmm.
Warren Zenna: So that in order for me to hit my goals, I need to
talk to sales in order for, cuz it's all about motivation, right?
How people are incentivized.
And I think this is where a lot of it comes into play, is building a system
that's designed to have people collaborate with each other because the outcomes.
Require it, and that's where I think a CRO is gonna be most effective.
I'd love to hear what you think about that.
Kevin Dorsey: Yeah, I think it gets a little tricky towards the end of like
tying different orgs to different results that they may not be fully attached to.
But I do like, like the concept, whether there's a of company bonus
or team bonus of like, Hey, if we get to this, we go through it.
I'd like it truthfully about setting the expectation and
then inspecting what you expect.
Warren Zenna: Yep.
Kevin Dorsey: Like it's not even like, Hey, y'all should, it's like say you
were my VP of sales, like Warren, I need you to meet with marketing and
share with them the top five objections you are losing deals for right now, so
they can go create content around it.
Mm-hmm.
Can you do that?
Yes.
Then I meet with Jared, my VP of market on Thursday.
Did you get.
The five top closed, lost reasons right now from Warren on how
we are losing deals right now.
What is your marketing plan and videos to address that?
Hey, VP of sales, did you talk like, so it's, it's coordinating,
like I really view my role in a C R O role as It's almost like an
offensive or defensive coordinator.
Warren Zenna: Exactly.
Kevin Dorsey: We're we're not the ones doing it.
But dammit, we have to be the ones aligning and leveraging
where we ensure it happens.
Because the flip side's also true.
You're my VP of sales and I ask you to bring that to
marketing, and then you don't.
Well then I know where I have a weak link in the chain.
I go to marketing to say, Hey, Warren brought this to you.
What have you done with it?
Nothing.
I know where I have a weak link.
So it's like that.
Like you, you nailed it.
Like that's what the CRO is supposed to be doing.
Yes.
Is ensuring that all of these pieces are working together, not just looking
at the sales org and saying that.
Cause also, by the way, the tips I'm giving will improve your sales org.
If they, if they understood the voice of the customer better, your
sales team's gonna get better.
If marketing was making collateral that actually used, they would get better.
If they knew the top closed lost reasons and how they could get
ahead of that, they'd be better.
And by the way, this also feeds the product because I do not
ask my product team to build things I'm not losing deals over.
Warren Zenna: Yep.
Kevin Dorsey: That happens all the time, too.
CROs listening, you know, you do that, you go to product and you're
like, Hey, like we need this feature.
And it's for like one customer.
Warren Zenna: Yeah.
Kevin Dorsey: And you can't actually justify it, but you go ask for it.
If I'm not losing deals over that feature, I'm not asking for it.
Warren Zenna: Yep.
That's a good point.
So you just made an important distinction, and that is the leaders of
those functions and their competence.
Right.
So when you're evalu, when I, I look at it this way, I, I'd like
to hear you the points in this.
So when you're evaluating your, um, head of marketing, your head of sales, and
your head of customer success within the organizational framework that you
and I are kind of thinking at right now.
The way I look at it is, The best VP of sales, the best head of marketing,
the best customer success leader maybe doesn't certainly have expertise in
selling or running a sales team, but they certainly understand the importance
of how that data affects their job, and they're looking for it, right?
They're actively saying, all right, I'm not just a silo, and I know that.
If I don't go over and talk to my head of sales about the way customers are
responding to things and it's prospecting conversations, then I'm just not doing
my job, cuz that's part of the job.
So if I'm evaluating a head of sales or head of marketing
customer, I'm gonna ask them.
What do you think, uh, marketing's contribution is to how sales works, right?
And the answer that they're gonna gimme me is, gimme a lot of insights
into the way that they think about that organization and it's gonna
gimme insights in the way that they're gonna interact with that organization.
And I think what happens too often is there's, cause I, I work with clients
on hiring and so the questions I usually get looked at around, well check this
guy out, find out how well he's run sales organizations, what his success
track record's been on growing XY.
But what I rarely hear is, Find out what their thoughts are on how they
work with a marketing organization.
They never asked me to ask 'em that question, like, why
wouldn't you wanna know that?
Answer that question.
And I think it's because there's, in leadership, there still exists as silo.
Right?
I, I think that organization CEOs need to have a greater, broader understanding
of the way a revenue operation works.
It's the three most important.
Customer facing parts of your business and they all are related to each other.
And I do think that the rev ops, this, I wanna talk to you about this.
The rise in the Rev ops model, which you're obviously speak to a lot, is
creating more awareness of how data is used to connect a lot of different pieces
and disparate pieces of the process and how you see that being working right
now in your conversations with clients.
I do think that that the rev ops and tech stack optimization model, Is driving a
lot more conversation around awareness of groups and how they work together.
Kevin Dorsey: Ah, you used the word I was hoping you, you would.
So might be a hot take.
I don't love what revenue operations has become because I believe it's lost sight
of what it was actually supposed to be.
Which was the other O word you used, which is optimize.
Warren Zenna: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Dorsey: Oh my goodness.
Have we gone deep in revenue operations?
Warren Zenna: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Dorsey: Tooling the data, the connections, the dashboards.
Like all like we have operations for everything.
Very few rev ops orgs and leaders, to me, I feel, are focused on optimization.
Warren Zenna: Yep.
Kevin Dorsey: Meaning making things better.
That I feel has been lost in, in all of this.
And so one of the questions I asked, like when I'm interviewing Rev ops
people, is like, look, cuz they will, they'll talk about the data.
I can't remember who said it.
Y'all can go Google it.
It's one of my favorite quotes is, you know, we are drowning in
data, but starving for insights.
Warren Zenna: Yep.
Kevin Dorsey: Can't remember who said it, but if you can't find
it, then it's me, quote me for it.
Warren Zenna: Got it.
Kevin Dorsey: And it's so true.
It's like rev ops will be bubbling up all of this data, all these
numbers, but there's no insight.
Aka, what am I supposed to do with it?
Where are my levers?
And so when I'm interviewing Rev ops leaders, what I'm asking them is, can
you gimme an example of when you found the diamond in the data and we're able to
craft a strategy on how to leverage it.
So Rev ops to me, I think initially was, was created because, Also funny
to me is a lot of, you know, VPs and CROs aren't great with data.
No.
Which is surprising to me.
Like I, like, I feel like it's just table stakes at this point.
And so, but you had to create an org apparently to.
Do this now, but now what you have is you have a data focused org
with a C R O that still doesn't understand how to interpret the data.
Warren Zenna: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Dorsey: Which then, then allows rev op sometimes to carry too much weight.
And I've experienced this where they go to finance and go, Hey, these industries
over here close twice as high, so we should be going after them more.
And then finance puts that into a plan and says, well these close
at a higher two x higher clip, so your conversion rate should go up.
Therefore the assumption this plan should rise.
Warren Zenna: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Dorsey: And you go, if I could just go get them, don't you think I would like,
do you think I'm intentionally not going after the higher converting channels?
Warren Zenna: Right.
Kevin Dorsey: So like sometimes rev ops, again, cause they
don't understand the sales side,
Warren Zenna: right.
Kevin Dorsey: They, they make assumptions that they shouldn't.
So that's my hot take on rev ops.
We're like conceptually, I agree with it in execution.
It's far from optimized.
Look.
Look at where we are right now in the industry.
Like we have gotten so far away from optimizing cuz we've been so focused on
operations that things aren't getting better, we're just doing more of stuff.
Warren Zenna: Yep, yep.
And I, I do think that the, um, busy work is a very good, it hides people behind.
Well, I'm busy and I'm working on stuff and look at me, go and
look at my hand on the keyboard.
Boy am I busy mo about.
Kevin Dorsey: Mm-hmm.
Warren Zenna: And I, I do think that it, we've created a software nightmare.
And I look at Tech Stacks now and I can't believe all the stuff that people have
piled upon themselves and how you could possibly extract any value out of them.
And a lot of these things are bought because, you know, one person in one
department sold upstream to the head of sales and said, we really need gong.
And nothing against Gong, but you know, it's just another one of the things that,
you know, another tool that people use that only a quarter of the organization
actually uses properly and only a.
But if small, minuscule that actually gets anything out of it.
That makes any sense.
And I spoke to the folks over there and they told me people really aren't
using it as well as they should be.
So I think you're right.
I think a lot of this has to do with, um, losing focus on what matters.
Right.
And so to that end, right, i, I, me and I are completely aligned on this.
The idea behind rev ops is it's an optimization system.
It's supposed to be designed to take the data.
Find the data that matters, remove the data that doesn't matter, which
is Des, in my opinion, distractions.
That's all that is.
Because look, let's face it, if I have a mountain of data and I
don't know what data's good, I'm not gonna get rid of anything.
Cause I'm afraid I'm gonna throw out the good stuff.
So instead, I'm not gonna do anything.
I'm just gonna sit, look at a pile, right?
Kevin Dorsey: Mm-hmm.
Warren Zenna: And so I'm looking at a pile all day long.
So a really good rev op function will make sense of that and say, no, no, no.
This is the only stuff that really matters.
And usually, and you and I both know, usually a very small
amount of things really matter.
It's like these things are key.
Yeah.
And if you focus on these things, uh, it's, it's much like the,
the money ball model, right?
I mean, that was a great scene, which everyone knows when he's
explaining to him, you gotta get on base, this guy gets on base.
Cuz when people get on base, that means they can be set up to score.
I don't care about home runs or mm-hmm.
Steal stolen bases.
Those things are all great for vanity and the crowd goes nuts.
We need people to get on base.
So how do we find people that get on base that, that's such a great analogy for the
way I think Rev op should be working is identify your company's key optimized.
Um, events and then build an organization that forces those things
to happen until they don't work anymore and then make them better, right?
Kevin Dorsey: Mm-hmm.
Warren Zenna: So I think that, again, this is kinda leads to a second
question, which you just hinted at.
What makes a better c r o?
Is it a sales leader?
Is it a rev ops person?
Like, what's the profile?
If you were to take, uh, if you're recruiting like a quarterback at
the CRO , what are the sort of competencies that you're looking
for that make the CRO one that you think would probably best succeed?
Kevin Dorsey: So for sure, the first thing I'm looking at is, call
it cross-functional leadership.
Are they able to connect the dots?
Right?
So I'm looking for examples of how have you leveraged
your CS org to increase sales?
How have you leveraged your sales org to increase lead flow from marketing?
So I'm looking for examples of how have they connected the dots between their
org, what is their operating cadence?
That's a one big chunk.
Warren Zenna: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Dorsey: The second is data.
But not just data, it's the interpretation, but then the optimization.
So one of my favorite questions to ask as senior sales leaders, tell me
about a time you identified something in the data that was holding back
your team, or was a potential lever, how you found it, what you did about
it, and what the end result was.
Warren Zenna: Hmm.
Kevin Dorsey: Okay, because this is gonna give me the full scope of one.
Do they understand at it?
And this is where I'm really listening to how they answer.
Well, my rev ops team brought Nope.
Already off.
Someone else found it for you.
Warren Zenna: Got it.
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Dorsey: I want to know how you have discovered this,
but then what you did about it.
Right.
That's like the, the missing sauce for a lot is, it sounds a lot like
this and it starts to get into my methodology a little bit more.
Warren Zenna: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Dorsey: It's like, First, a lot of leaders used results-based language.
Hey, we need more pipeline.
Hey, we gotta bring up our sales.
We need churn to come down.
Okay, that's great.
Right.
So what I teach people is you can't change a result without changing a metric.
Warren Zenna: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Dorsey: So each one of my orgs has their number one metric with them.
Number one metric they are focused on.
But then in order to change that metric, you have to change a behavior,
individual process skill, or you.
So the leadership methodology I roll out to my orgs, it's called BCI Behavior,
individual Process Skill, or you.
That's how we have to solve those problems for that number one metric.
Warren Zenna: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Dorsey: Because otherwise I can't say bring down churn.
I have to identify, well, what metric is impacting churn?
Is it utilization?
Is it speed to onboard?
Is it speed to impact?
Is it MPS score?
Is it seats utilized?
Like there's gonna be a number one metric associated to that end result.
That's what I'm rallying that team around.
And then we have to identify the behaviors, the individuals to process
the skills or you as the leader doing the wrong things to impact it, right?
So like that's what I'm looking for is what is that leadership system now, right?
So I'm looking for cross-functional, can they rally people around a
vision and get them to work together?
I'm looking at their interpretation of data, but more importantly,
can they change the data?
It's one thing to know your close rates are too low.
It's another thing to roll out a plan on how to address it.
And then similarly, I'm listening for do they talk about other orgs or do they
only talk about the sales org, right?
Warren Zenna: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Dorsey: And then the last one, truthfully, whether this
is a hard skill or soft skill is like the, the storytelling aspect.
Can they craft a story?
Can they, they, can they communicate in a way that pulls people?
In this is where sometimes when you see, you know, CROs that maybe come
from too much of the data background is they can spit out the data, but
they can't rally a team around it.
And so then nothing changes.
And so I am looking for that.
I does not mean they have to be an extrovert, that's not what I'm saying.
They do need to be able to craft a good story to create that
vision and rally people around it.
So those are the big ones that I look for.
Warren Zenna: Yeah, it's great.
Love it.
It's great.
I think it, I love the idea of being that sort of, uh, Forensic scientists
of asking, okay, what did you discover?
What did you do about it?
How did you discover it?
Those insights are really important, and I think what happens is all too
often I'm seeing with my clients is they're hiring heads of sales that do a
great job running sales organizations.
I think this guy's a killer, or this person's a killer.
Really grow a pipeline, you know, close more deals.
We need someone like that in here.
They get in there and because they don't have the skills that you just
mentioned and they're not being.
Managed against those skills, they end up just running sales.
Kevin Dorsey: Yeah.
Warren Zenna: And they have this CRO title and, uh, it sort of,
the organization doesn't benefit.
From what the CRO could actually do for the organization.
And they can't figure out why.
They still can't make sense of things.
So this kinda leads to another question, which you said something
at the beginning of this.
When you mentioned this, you said you don't have marketing yet.
This is an interesting thing.
When I'm speaking to most CROs, I talk to the last, let's call it Mile, that most
CROs is they, they don't get marketing.
It's like they, it's like the last thing they get is marketing.
I have two questions for you.
Why do you think that is?
Why is it that CROs aren't given marketing?
Just as like right out of the box, right?
When you, you and I both understand that's like the whole thing.
And the second thing is what do they do about it?
What does a founder do when they create what I call the C-suite traffic
jam and they've got the c o and the C M O and the same box, it's like,
okay, I've just created a pretty bad, let's call it leverage problem.
Keep your language.
Okay.
So what are you, what are your thoughts on this one?
Cause this is a really big problem that CROs are having right now.
Kevin Dorsey: So to the first part of the question of why I think it happens,
I think it's a lack of understanding from the c e o role first on how
they are supposed to work together.
Warren Zenna: Yeah.
Kevin Dorsey: In terms of like just their, what they are and
how aligned they should be.
It's like one of those things where, you know, it happens in SAS more
than people realize of how, like the old way has still permeated.
Like you have a sales leader, you have a marketing leader.
That's just what we do.
Right?
Warren Zenna: That's just what you do.
Yep.
Kevin Dorsey: You know, and oh, well, I see CMOs out there, so I
better go get a CMO and mm-hmm.
Well now I got A C R O, so We'll, I guess go get.
That too.
And now what?
The traffic jam, is that what you called it?
Like
Warren Zenna: Yep, yep.
The C-suite traffic jam.
That's what happens.
Yeah.
Kevin Dorsey: But now it's like, well, how do you go take that CMO and say
you'll report to, you know, the CRO
Warren Zenna: major problem, major problem.
Kevin Dorsey: But also a big part of it is how few, I'll say sales
and then, you know, revenue leaders actually understand marketing.
Warren Zenna: True.
Kevin Dorsey: So if you don't understand it, You can't lead it.
Warren Zenna: Right.
Kevin Dorsey: Doesn't mean you have to be good at it, but you
at least have to understand it.
And I was very, very blessed in my early career.
My first like called big sales leadership job where I built my
first almost a hundred person org.
Um, the co-founder of the company was also the CMO, Andy Kinson.
Yep.
And he and I worked in lockstep, like, cause I loved marketing.
Like we, we went to the marketing conferences together.
Like if I wasn't in sales, I'd be in marketing.
And so I learned so much about marketing, branding, funnels, lead
conversion, channel optimization, like I learned a lot there, a lot of sales.
They just never get that because there's already that device.
They don't understand it enough.
Where I know I can go to my VP of marketing right now and I can drill
down into a specific lead channel.
And say, you know, Facebook leads are converting one
third as our earned channel.
I need us to over-optimize here.
We have to stop.
Like I can speak marketing doesn't mean I could go do his job, but I sure
as hell can ask the right questions to ensure the job's getting done.
And I don't think a lot of sales leaders ever get those conversations.
And so to, you know, you talk about the different groups listening,
if you're an aspiring CRO.
Warren Zenna: Yep.
Kevin Dorsey: Start sitting in on marketing meetings.
Just invite yourself, Hey, could I join some of your meetings?
Could I join in?
And just listen to what they talk about, what they're doing,
what their struggles are.
You start to be able to speak it.
So that's what I see.
Like CEOs, just that they build their org, they create the traffic jam.
But truthfully, I don't think a lot of CS or VPs understand marketing enough
other than where are my leads, Warren?
Warren Zenna: Yep.
Kevin Dorsey: Where are, where are my leads?
They're, they're, oh, they don't have budget.
Warren.
These leads don't have budget.
Oh yeah.
Cuz marketing can just go get people with budget.
Right.
Let's make that the ad.
You have budget for our tool opt in today?
Warren Zenna: Yep.
Look, you're a hundred percent right.
And this is, we're, we're seeing is the reason why we created what we call the
CRO Readiness Program is the CRO Readiness is the, The readiness that a company
is for a c o are you ready for one?
And there's a lot of factors that go into it.
One, the first one if I were to codify the steps is, do you know what one is?
So, you know, we speak to a head of, head of, I mean the founder
or c e o, and you know, I have a very quick little questionnaire and
it, it, it, it reveals to me very quickly what they think the role is.
Kevin Dorsey: Mm-hmm.
Warren Zenna: Which would then lead me to understand left
alone, how they would manage one.
So if they think that it's their head of sales, then that's,
that's what they're gonna do.
That's just how they're gonna manage it.
Right?
So the first part is to kind of course correct that and provide a little more
guidance as to what a CRO does and why this is beneficial to your company.
Why should you look at it that way?
Why?
What's the benefit?
And the second part is okay.
Now you know what one does.
Is your company ready for one yet?
And what that mean is, is that what happens usually is you bring on a chief
revenue officer or even with the knowledge of what they're supposed to do, but
to you and I earlier conversation, if I don't have the proper data analysis
of what's working or not, And I have the c r o like off running off on
a task to try and figure that out.
They're probably not going to, cuz they're not gonna have enough
like runway to get that finished.
That's a pretty big job.
They're probably gonna be tasked with trying to get some other r
o ROI on that hire pretty soon.
Mm-hmm.
So we do that, but the point of making is the key part of it.
The first part.
Is making sure the CEO O knows exactly what the utilization of this role is and
the benefit of the company and why they need to position this person properly.
Now, most of the time when we hire, we get someone to hire a c o, and and you
probably know this too, for some reason, they seem to always promote their heads
of marketing to CMOs really early.
So they've already got a CMO in place and now they gotta deal with that traffic jam.
And that's not an easy one because now you're sort of usurping someone who's.
Achieved a C-Suite title, and now they have to deal with
this weird sort of other thing.
And that's what makes the CRO role so challenging.
So in your case, right, so you said you just brought on your own head of
marketing, so this is someone that you know and you've got a relationship with.
What, what would you suggest?
If I'm a C R O and I'm in a situation where I've been put into the job.
I've been told that the company is aware of the fact that the c o is a revenue
leader, but there's a C M O what might be sort of a way to navigate that so that it
can result in what you and I are talking about without being too disruptive.
Kevin Dorsey: Mm-hmm.
Warren Zenna: You know, because this is a common thing.
This happens a lot with, like my clients.
Kevin Dorsey: Well, it depends on what the, the end goal is, right?
If the end goal is just to have a great relationship with marketing
that leads to higher sales.
The CMO doesn't have to report to you
Warren Zenna: Sure.
Kevin Dorsey: To do that, right?
So like, I would still encourage like to like build that relationship,
learn what they're focused on, but share and share insights.
None of this bs.
Hey, marketing, the leads aren't good.
That doesn't help anybody.
Right.
You have to understand why are they not good?
Like, why are they not good?
What's wrong with them, right?
Like, where are they coming from?
Like, so share insights with them of like what you can do,
but also not just on the leads.
Leverage marketing in your mid-funnel, the bottom of the
funnel, the kickoff calls, right?
Like there's all sorts of places to leverage marketing.
So like that's just build a stronger relationship.
If it is trying to understand the dynamic of like, basically how do I
get the CMO to either report to me or understand the, the hierarchy?
Warren Zenna: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Dorsey: So to speak, one that actually starts, just like any
sales process, you have to start with the decision maker in this.
You need to actually be working on the CEO first.
That they see your point of view in this as well.
That until marketing is rolling to this revenue org, there will
always be a budding of heads, right?
Or that the comp plans need to change.
The bonus plans need to change.
One of the reasons why I love working with Jar, he's one of the few marketing leaders
I've worked with where he's like, Almost over optimizes to revenue, funny enough.
Warren Zenna: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Dorsey: Where like, he'd be like, Hey, like, yeah, we're,
we're behind on our lead count, but we're pacing the revenue.
I'm like, yeah.
Yep.
I love that, but I still need those leads.
Mm-hmm.
I still need tho those leads.
That means we're overperforming in conversion.
Yeah.
In different places.
I still need that, but he thinks revenue first and works.
Back.
Got it.
Right.
Yep.
Mm-hmm.
That it's having those conversations.
But again, to the earlier point we're making, you have to be able to communicate
it to marketing, in marketing speak.
Yep.
What is that conversion rate by channel?
What is the conversion rate on blog versus earned versus direct versus paid
versus social versus influenced, right.
Like speak to them in that matter and say, Hey, we closed these ones
great, but we're struggling here.
Yep.
They're probably earlier on that Buyer'ss journey.
So you need a different type of sales process for those.
Right.
My pitch for the Facebook ads are very different than my pitch for someone
who Googled my company or Googled.
Right.
Like the problem that we have.
So that, I don't know if that answered the question or not, but
it's like still build the relationship where they wouldn't feel like.
Slighted by this.
Like, I, I truly believe if, if Jared got the call tomorrow and said, Hey,
you're not rolling to the c e O anymore.
You're rolling to kd.
Be like, yeah, like.
We talk about this stuff all the time, doesn't, doesn't even matter.
Yep.
We already have that relationship.
You
Warren Zenna: got the right culture and the right relationship already for that.
Yeah.
Kevin Dorsey: If not, you have to build the relationship.
You have to build the culture, but you actually, you have to get the decision
maker on your side, which would be exactly the CEO and why it will help
the overall revenue of the company.
Yep.
Warren Zenna: Th that's exactly right.
And I agree with you, and that's why we do the C readiness program.
It's really, frankly, it's targeting the c e O.
Mm-hmm.
Because the CEO ultimately is gonna make the decisions around how
these things are gonna get managed.
Right.
They're like, let's call it, For all I intents and purposes,
they're the adult in the room.
They're gonna manage the way the kids are arguing with each other and they're
gonna make the big decisions about things.
Then they have to set the vision for why we're doing this.
Like why are we laddering up to this right now?
Why is this disruption happening?
Why is this better for the business?
Right?
And I think those are the important things.
And I think we're seeing a lot of younger founders, or maybe even
like product led founders don't have the commercial capabilities
to talk about things that way.
And so they're kind of undermined by their own focus on maybe product
development or renovations or engineering.
And that's a big problem when you're getting with product led organizations
who are sort of like struggling with figuring out how to make a
successful commercial op operation.
Whereas if you have someone in there who's more of a salesperson who
built a company, they more likely inherently understand these sort of
Kevin Dorsey: things.
Yeah, and I wanna touch on that real quick and again, back to the earlier
points you made y'all, that is also the Cro O's job is to properly manage up.
You need to help teach your c e O what this actually means and how this
actually works because especially depending on the stage, They may
have never had a cro r o before.
Yep.
In fact, at the end of the day, the c r o role, you, you'll
know this better than me.
How
Warren Zenna: new is this?
10, 15 years?
Maybe the most, I think the first one was in 2000 and,
uh, 14 or something like that.
2010.
Right.
Was like the mention of it.
It was in Silicon Valley and they were heads of sales and they came in
and they mostly had big Rolodexes.
Mm-hmm.
And they closed big deals, you know, so it's sort of, Did save the day.
It brought commercial expertise to technical founders who didn't understand
how to run businesses in Silicon Valley, and they were brought in to kind of
actually commercialize a business and make it, make it a big thing, you know?
That's basically how it started.
So now we're talking about a
Kevin Dorsey: role.
There's only a decade old anyway.
Yep.
That has changed significantly hu huge over the last five years.
Mm-hmm.
And so most CEOs haven't even, even had one, let alone had one in like the new,
call it selling and revenue environment.
Managing up is so important and just as important in a C R O role as
like getting all your orgs together.
Is, are you, are you helping your c e o understand how a revenue org should look?
That's why they hired you.
And also part of your vetting process if you're being interviewed
for the c r o, best Believe.
Those are the questions I was asking coming in around what, what,
luckily for me, I knew the, the c E O at my new company as well.
So it was kind of like he, he knows, he knows, I know he gets it.
He is like, Katie, go, go do what you do.
Right?
Like, Go do what you do.
I'm like, thanks jp.
That's what I'm gonna
Warren Zenna: go do.
Good, good.
You got that sort of relationship.
I mean, the, I, I do.
In fact, I have a, I'm building right now a second course on interviewing for the
c o role because it's a critical thing.
What ends up happening is I look at it like a bad marriage.
You know, if you take the job.
That's not the right job.
You just can end up in the wrong job and it's hard to fix
the job when you're in the job.
You have to actually get the right job to start.
It's, it's really hard to do.
It doesn't usually work.
Say
Kevin Dorsey: that again.
It is hard to fix the job when you're in the job, y'all.
That is the absolute
Warren Zenna: truth.
Yep.
So the idea behind this is to make the job the right job or.
Don't take the job if it's the wrong job.
Mm-hmm.
And that's not hard.
That's hard to do.
I mean, if I'm getting vetted for a Chief Revenue officer role, and I could
be making at least a half a million bucks outta the gate, you know, it's
very tempting to just say yes to it.
And I'm trying to tell my clients that that temptation is the danger,
because you just say yes to something with the idea to I'll work it out.
No, you won't work it out.
This is not the kind of job that you can just sort of fix, you know?
Yeah.
And so you have to know what you're getting yourself into.
And to your point, you have to first have the right questions and the
right way to get the right agreements.
And the four things I, I.
Tell my clients they need is they need authority, autonomy, runway,
and resources to do the job.
Mm-hmm.
And so that means that you need to, you have to interview your C E O.
You have to interview the ceo.
They're not interviewing you, you're actually interviewing them.
And so, mm-hmm.
You know, this is sort of a different paradigm for this particular job.
And you're right, you do need to understand marketing.
You have to come in with a love for marketing and a respect for marketing.
Mm-hmm.
And what it does.
And you have to be a customer-centric person really.
Talk to customers.
What are they like?
Why did they buy, why did they not renew?
All the stuff that's critical for a chief revenue officer to know.
And if you're not in those things, if you're biasing yourself in
the sales organization, you're not gonna get the whole picture.
You're not, you're gonna be sort of relegated to becoming a sales leader.
So anyway, I, I wanna make sure we kind of touch on some things that are going
on with you before we, we close out.
Cause this has been an amazing conversation.
So you mentioned the beginning of our conversation, some things you're up to.
I'd love to have the opportunity to tell listeners what's going on.
Yeah, no, I mean,
Kevin Dorsey: aligned with, it sounds like some of the stuff that
you're, you're working on as well.
So like what's, like I get asked some of these questions like, you
know, like why is it the way that it is with a lot of CROs and Yeah.
Bottom of it to me is we're never taught how.
It's actually comical if you think about it.
Yep.
Most sales reps are never taught.
That's right.
Who become managers who are never taught.
Yep.
Who become directors who were never taught you.
Warren, did you sit through, you know, you know, l t V to C 3 47 in college?
Of course not.
What about like working with marketing two 12,
Warren Zenna: like, Nope.
All on the job training.
Like all on the job training.
It's, and
Kevin Dorsey: training is also a strong
Warren Zenna: word.
It is true.
Whether it's training, it was all on the job.
I guess it's not trading, it was more like, you know, on the job experience.
I was say like punching bags, right?
Like you just, you just, and hand combat, hand hand combat.
I learned how to fight by getting punched, basically.
Yeah.
Like think, think
Kevin Dorsey: about like at a high level, how ridiculous that is.
I agree.
You have individuals who are responsible for generating
hundreds of millions of dollars.
And their only training is basically either getting things wrong long enough
and surviving to figure out what's right.
Yep.
Or even worse, they've been doing it wrong and they don't even know because
they were blessed with a timing or opportunity of a certain company
that they think their way works.
Exactly.
So like, I'm trying to change that from like the, the bottom of like, can we
help educate, can we help teach them?
So like I'm launching something called the Sales Leadership Accelerator, which
is more so designed for like that manager to director level of like truthfully.
Cause that's also where a lot of it goes to die.
Have the best ideas in the world as a C but if your managers aren't
strong, it doesn't matter, right?
Like that's how I view my role as like my role is to develop my leaders.
Their role is to develop their leaders.
Their role is to develop the, the individuals on their team.
So I'm building a program called the Sales Leadership Accelerator.
It's like 20 some hours of of content training.
All of my templates, all of my blueprints.
You know, cuz something that I am proud of in my career is I've built three.
I mean, now I'm on my fourth highly successful like revenue
orgs in different industries.
There's been no overlap in the industry, so I know these processes
work when building an org and developing managers and developing directors.
So sales leadership accelerator is something that I'm working on.
And then obviously taking bench to, to new heights, you know?
Yep.
Like I've got, I've got the, the five orgs under me now.
I've got, you know, one to two to go and I, I got the whole squad
and you know, we can get out.
That's awesome.
Warren Zenna: That's great.
Yeah, we are very similar missions.
Uh, I agree with you.
The reason I started the CIO collective is cuz no one's training CROs,
which is preposterous and so mm-hmm.
You know, we're doing that.
We have a really great program for it.
And then also to your point, training CEOs what a commercial
organization should be run like.
Under the guise have achieved revenue officers to help them close those gaps.
Mm-hmm.
And you know, I was talking about this before with a, a person on the phone
before we were talking today, and that is companies that are between,
let's say, 10 and 50 million in revenues are a lot like teenagers.
You know, they're not at fault for what they're doing.
That's just what teenagers do.
That's the, that's the stage they're at.
And so you, you have to understand that it's not like they're flawed.
It's.
That's what young organizations, how they operate.
Mm-hmm.
And so if I, if I, I have teenager, I one teenager one has already grown.
But at that stage, what you do is you hope that the mistakes that
the teenager makes aren't ones that they're gonna have to pay consequences
for, for the rest of their lives.
They're gonna make ones that they can fix.
So similarly, I go to an or a younger organizations, I understand
that this is why you do things when you're at this stage.
I get it.
But if we can provide you some education that may accelerate.
Your growth, you won't be 30 and regret the 10 years you wasted.
You'll be at 22 and be ahead of the game.
And that's what we wanna do.
Mm-hmm.
Is understand where you're at, not judge where you're at, but give you tools
to accelerate where you want to go.
And we do it through building smart revenue operations focused
on the Chief Revenue Officer.
So you and I are really kind of solving very similar problems.
Um, but, uh, is there anything else you'd like to share before we sign off?
Um, no, I
Kevin Dorsey: think, I think we, we nailed it.
I, I really do.
I just think sales leaders, you actually, this one you need development too.
You need it?
Like, invest in something, invest in a program, get mentorship, drop the, the
ego nonsense, like you need it as well.
Learn from people.
Here's what I end with.
I had a mentor tell me this early on.
Um, he said, experience is actually the slowest way to learn a skill.
Hmm.
Why take 10 years to get good at something?
If you can learn from someone who's been good at it for 10 years.
You can learn a lesson through experience.
I touch a hot pan.
I know not to touch that.
Again, you can learn a lesson, but skill experience is the slowest way to learn.
Yeah.
Surround yourself with people that have the skills that you want.
It, it's the greatest hack possible to your Yeah.
Warren Zenna: It's a, it's a, i I refer to this as, um, modern day time travel.
Mm.
I like that.
And the reason it's time travel is.
I'm 58.
Okay?
Which means that if I talk to someone who's 25, I'm a time traveler.
I'm going back in time and I'm saying, I saw your future.
I've already been there.
I'm coming back to tell you what you to expect.
So here's five things not to do.
Or else you could get to 58 and make the same mistakes I made.
Mm-hmm.
So why wouldn't you want to take the advice of a time traveler?
I can save so much time.
Right.
So this is, we do actually have the ability to have time travel.
You just gotta meet people who have been there already and learn
from 'em and you can save time.
Right.
So I agree, man.
This is, this is, this is the way we can manage time, uh, and kind of
break the bind the binds of what you say is the slowness of experience.
It's great.
Great analogy.
I love that.
Katie, thank you man.
This is so great.
I know that the audience is gonna get so much out of this.
Uh, really appreciate your time and, uh, excited to see more what you're
up to and let's just keep talking.
I really appreciate it.
Sounds good, my friend.
Kevin Dorsey: Appreciate you having me.