If you're making a big decisions, that forces you to make a lot of decisions. You're going to need this....
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.
[00:01:58] Mikkel: we're back. We're back. We're back. Happy Monday. Recording. Yep. In the studio. And, uh, today we're gonna talk a bit about decisions, decisions, decisions, decisions
[00:02:09] Toni: like deciding which shirt to wear.
[00:02:12] Mikkel: Well, hopefully a little bit more impactful I see.
[00:02:15] Than that, right? So So the thing is, you know, there we've, we've talked about it in the past. There are different kinds of decisions that you need to make. There are some that are. A reflex such as just picking the shirt and then like go, go, go, go. Easy little brain power used on it. And some are a bit more reflective and you know, I'm, My wife and I, funny enough, are in that period right now of a lot of reflective decisions.
[00:02:40] So we made a really big decision to buy a house and this market, I know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But we kind of had to, right. And that's a massive decision.
[00:02:49] Toni: And you had to because,
[00:02:50] Mikkel: we're having a third kid, so, Woo. Um, I can find the applause button on here.
[00:02:55] Toni: or, you know, condolences,
[00:02:58] Mikkel: usually, yeah. That's usually the reaction. People go like, uh, number three.
[00:03:02] Toni: That was a
[00:03:02] Mikkel: Yeah. Yeah. But so we need, you know, we need a house, we need a bigger place. And that's a, obviously a big decision. And the thing is, once you've decided that you're gonna go and get a house, You know what happens? You have a million other decisions to make. And, and some of them are big, some of them are small.
[00:03:22] Like, so this weekend was, Hey, we need, you know, a couch cuz it's gonna be too small. We need a new bed. We need, you know, there's a lot of things you actually need to do, um, along the way. And that's why this is a really important episode. Cause when you are gonna make a big decision in the context of business,
[00:03:39] You actually need a process for it because there is a lot of follow on repercussions of, you know, making a big decision.
[00:03:45] Toni: Yeah. And you, you might ask yourself, what is a big decision? Mm. Let's start there. Maybe. I think for, for my perspective, sometimes it is what is easily reversible.
[00:03:57] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:03:58] Toni: If it's not easily reversible, then it probably smells like a big decision. If it is having a big financial impact, then it probably is a big decision as well.
[00:04:10] And usually those two things, either by themselves or combined, they lead to number three, which is lots of people being involved, in a big decision.
[00:04:23] Right? And, and those are, those are, I think the, uh, the cornerstones of, Oh, oh, this is, this is something that probably needs a process, probably needs to be thought through. I just can't make that decision by myself. and um, that then sometimes becomes complicated pretty quickly.
[00:04:38] Mikkel: Yeah, and I think you will mess. It can have some pretty serious ramifications. So one example would just be a decision is made. You've not been involved, but you actually need to be involved because it really impacts your area.
[00:04:51] And if you haven't been involved, you're not gonna buy into it. Maybe you're gonna resist, you know, whatever decision. So we are gonna get into all that good stuff. Um, and we've had a process in the past, and it's a little. Well, not little. It's, uh, a change in how you approach basically making a decision that I want to get into.
[00:05:09] And maybe you can, you can start us off there. how does it work? When do you need to use this trick?
[00:05:15] Toni: So maybe we give the trick a name first. Uh,
[00:05:18] Mikkel: It's not that sexy.
[00:05:19] Toni: No. So it was never designed to be on a podcast. That idea. You know? So it's, it is a decision document. That's what we started calling it. I think many others out there have other words for it. And, um, and the, the, the basic idea was, mm, you know, when you, when you reach a certain stage in an organiz, You just can't, Hey, let's huddle quickly.
[00:05:47] Let's talk it through, Let's decide in the room and let's go execute. Uh, it, it usually, usually that starts becoming more and more difficult to do it like that. And, and, and one reason obviously is, well, there are many more people that need to be in
[00:06:02] the
[00:06:02] the room. Um, there might be. A lot of things that really need to be thought through fully.
[00:06:08] Um, this is typical thing for revenue operations, right? But it's also a typical thing for any kind of revenue, uh, engine or organization. and, and then the other thing is, which, which really was where this. This, this was born from the pain really was that, a lot of decisions that were made quickly in a room and huddled about, sure.
[00:06:29] You had some issues on the fringes of, ah, you know, we forgot to include you because your calendar was blocked. The real problem was that, uh, the people in the room, Kept forgetting what they were deciding like a month later.
[00:06:43] Mikkel: we agree already about this?
[00:06:44] Toni: Yeah, I understood it like that. Right? Um, and, and, uh, this is going against one of, uh, our core principles, which is incremental improvements and incremental improvements.
[00:06:55] doesn't only mean that you get better at 1% a day or whatever, uh, or 10% in order to double, uh, reference to another podcast. but it, it actually. Talks about, and, and the important piece here is that, you need to keep building improvements on top of each other, but if people keep forgetting what they were deciding, and a decision, if you will, in the most abstract sense, is an improvement.
[00:07:19] I mean, that's at least the idea of it. and, uh, if people keep forgetting those decisions and I'm not fully aligned and, uh, and then basically kind of contradict themselves,
[00:07:28] or, and it never happened. I forgot something. Um, then, then you're basically, you're kind of, you know, destroying those 1%, uh, incremental improvements that you have been creating and then working so hard on, and you're staying always at the same level instead of being able to build on top of each other.
[00:07:46] Right. This is, this is why we started, this whole decision document process. I'm gonna talk a little bit about how that works specifically, but really the ability to. Super boring, but the ability to document or maybe a little bit less boring, to lock in specific decisions. Having the ability to, Going back to it, pointing to it, and, and also looping other people in.
[00:08:09] So, and that really is then the, Hey jazz, we need to probably write it down now. Yeah. You know,
[00:08:16] Mikkel: You know, But I think it's also so. So I totally, you know, acknowledge the fact that sometimes you just forget. You can't remember in detail every decision you've made, so it's important to actually get it down on paper.
[00:08:29] Yeah. But also when you consider this being a more reflective decision, because usually big ones will require you to do that and all the follow on decisions you need to make
[00:08:40] Toni: Mm-hmm.
[00:08:41] Mikkel: actually the process of sitting down and thinking what problems will happen if we do this for sales, for marketing, for cs? What, what are the things that we can anticipate and what decisions are there to be made, uh, as a follow on for whatever the big decision is.
[00:08:57] Yeah. Is is critical, right?
[00:08:59] Toni: No, absolutely. And, and then just think about, so let's just say you want to, you know, we, we go to this. Example, many times you wanna roll out a new motion.
[00:09:07] Mikkel: Mm.
[00:09:08] Toni: You wanna, I think the worst possible case here is, Hey, let's just do PLG product led growth. This is, this is not one decision document.
[00:09:16] This is like a thousand of those, by the way. But, you know, whatever you're gonna do, um, some executive in the room will discuss it. There will be a decision coming from it. there will be a clear purpose what, why it needs to happen and so forth. But then, A lot of managers further down, they need to actually execute it and fill in the details.
[00:09:36] Uh, a lot of RevOps professionals need to read it and really try and understand the intent and then build it into the system and so forth, not having anything that is written or documented around it that just doesn't work. Right. And, and again, the, the parallels to running. Uh, product and engineering organization are getting more and more clear to me, to be honest, right?
[00:09:57] It's, those are the exact same problems that product and engineering sees all the time. Uh, they have solved it pretty well by documenting things really well. Um, so all of all of the, the things that we are discussing on the commercial side, they're kind of boring for them because, Oh yeah, we solved this 25 years ago, and, and we are just, you know, we are just a, a lot of grown up sales reps here, really, right.
[00:10:21] No, but, but seriously, those are, those are things that are extremely crucial in order to run a proper organization at a, at a certain
[00:10:28] Mikkel: stage. Yeah. And I think if you also ever experience something like you, you work on a project with whoever. We all agreed goes live. And then someone goes, Why did it end up like this?
[00:10:40] I, I did not agree to making it like this. It's actually a massive problem, and especially if you have a bigger project, there are more stakeholders, more problems to be addressed. And actually, so the, here's the thing. By taking on big projects, you get a lot of exposure. As a professional, this is one of those career shaping, building things you can use to also grow, you know, grow up the ladder.
[00:11:02] and if you have a solid process to manage everyone, then you're gonna be even more successful.
[00:11:08] Toni: Yeah. Let's go, um, into some of the details here, potentially.
[00:11:13] Mikkel: So here's the thing, when do you make a decision document? When, when in the process is, is that like, okay, now let's, let's go do this. Yeah. Because there are some steps in the process, especially with bigger decisions.
[00:11:26] It's not gonna be, you know, me as a manager necessarily deciding we're gonna add a new motion. Right. So, so let's, let's start there to figure out when is it the right time?
[00:11:35] Toni: Yeah, I think so. In an abstract world. Again, if you have something that's easily reversible, then maybe that's not super important.
[00:11:43] Uh, if you have something that's fairly cheap or doesn't have a large financial impact, maybe that's not super important. and if it's really only a, a small handful of people that need to be involved. Then maybe it's also not super important that you document that stuff. what I've found though is that over time you will develop a little bit of a gut feel when you really actually need it versus when you don't.
[00:12:03] Um, I started sometimes creating it almost like a, as a memo, Supo super, I feel like. I'm working in the seventies right now, but creating it as a memo, even after smaller things were decided, and then just circulating around, making sure that everyone still is on the same page
[00:12:21] but, but usually, uh, usually for bigger stuff.
[00:12:23] And I think everyone listening will have a little bit of a feeling once you tried it, when it's worthwhile and when it's not worthwhile. Yeah. And, um, uh, and really the, the, the start is, uh, once you.
[00:12:35] Mikkel: start,
[00:12:36] Toni: Once you made the decision to, to have a document helping you with the process, it's extremely important to
[00:12:44] organize
[00:12:45] organize your own thoughts, organize them in a written format.
[00:12:48] and that written format I've learned is ideally, In a Word document, not, not in a slide deck. I totally understand. You know, executive slides is so super important, blah, blah, blah. But at the end of the day, the place where you can probably best organize your thoughts is, is in a written format. Whether or not that's Word or Google Docs or Notion or something else, I don't, I don't care about that.
[00:13:09] But try and write stuff down. It gets really hard for you to skip over your own thoughts, skip over issues. that might be really important when you write things down. Yeah. And, um, and, and it starts always with, uh, what is the purpose of this document? You know, what, what should that decision, achieve or be, or, you know, why, why, why are even tackling this problem?
[00:13:33] Right. That's, that's really important. And, and ideally as a next step, you want to clearly outline what the problem is. It might even be a good spot to have, and it sounds so technocratic by the way. I'm sorry, but to have definitions. What do we mean with this word? Yeah. Just so we gonna make sure everyone is on the same page and is not reading other things into those, to those, uh, deprivations and, and short, you know, short versions.
[00:14:04] Um, clearly stating, Hey, this is what this means.
[00:14:07] and ideally what you want to create in the, in the beginning is obviously, you know, alignment and blah, blah, blah, but you also wanna create a clear understanding of what's the intent here? What, what, you know, why, what's the, um, I think the, the director's intent or something like that.
[00:14:22] So there's this book extreme ownership. This is those Navy Seal guys. Cool. I've read it, I, I like it for a couple of other reasons, but one of the things that they were talking about there, you know, when you're basically deploy into, I don't know, like a battlefield kind of scenario, I don't know, uh, you don't have enough time to call back and be like, Hey, I'm on the street corner.
[00:14:42] Uh, there are two bad guys. What should I do? It needs to be super clear what the original intent is, what you wanna, you know, overall what the mission is of the, you know, what you wanna achieve. Um, and. Things might be unforeseeable, things might change, things might screw up. Um, but the, the different individual actors on the field need to understand, you know, how they can best optimize towards the, the end outcome, right?
[00:15:06] And that is basically what you wanna achieve in the first part of this document, to basically get everyone on the same page, um, not necessarily saying how you're gonna get to the end, but saying, Hey, this is why it's important. Uh, and, you know, this is, um, this is the problem that we really need to solve.
[00:15:22] Mikkel: Yeah. I mean, it can sound very bureaucratic. At the end of, I mean, if you're being very honest, right? Why can't you just go, why, why, why not?
[00:15:31] Toni: Yeah. So I tried this a couple of times. And it's really fun until you realize that, uh, number one, every, everything that you build up on the one side you turn around, you just, kicking it over with your own butt.
[00:15:45] I don't know there's, is that a German or Danish saying, or there, there's something like that somewhere. but, uh, the, the other thing is also, uh, and this is a little bit to the point that you made there, um, almost career wise, you're gonna just look stupid un profess.
[00:15:59] At some point you're just gonna look unprepared.
[00:16:01] Unorganized. You're gonna seem like you're wasting everyone's time
[00:16:05] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:16:06] Toni: and you maybe don't wanna do that. And I think this is different from this typical project management approach of where just a. A bystander and, you know, helping things to kind of go along. This one is, okay, I am the owner of a part of this thing here and I want this to happen.
[00:16:24] Now I have a really big motivation for this to happen, and now I need to align everyone around me. Right? And really then the, you know, once, once you have established that, hey, this is what this is about. Then you basically start going to the nitty gritty of things. You basically start going to the solution proposal part of the document.
[00:16:41] Yeah. Um, and there you write out, in order to achieve some of these things, we need to, you know, we need to tackle one, two, and three. And as you write this out, and this is usually what, what happened to me, as you write this out, you will suddenly realize, oh, there's actually four, five, and six also.
[00:16:58] Maybe less are so important.
[00:17:00] Yeah, clearly. But you know, unless we get that done, that will still be on the list. And, you know, we really need to actually care for that. And the other piece then is that first of all, these, the solution proposal that you start writing out, that really is just a proposal that needs to be clear for everyone who sees this.
[00:17:19] Uh, but what's sometimes much more important than the proposal itself and the, the, the meat of, of, of that decision. It's, um, Who should be the decision maker on which part of those proposals. That is sometimes actually the most important thing, and, and this is really, this is the thing that you need to be discussing with the different people in the room when you have that first session, because, If you don't, if you don't align on who is going to make that decision, in the end, you might end up with a, proposal dead in the water because people just saying, No, it needs to be like this, or it needs to be like that.
[00:17:57] But no one is, is able to call the shot and say, Hey, this is what, this is what we're gonna do. Now I understand the ups and downs for both sides, but this is actually what we're gonna do now. So, uh, that's really difficult to do that after the fact. That's really difficult when, oh, this is already clear. We know how the, how the, uh, game's gonna play.
[00:18:16] Uh, you need to do that before the game basically starts, right? So really making clear, hey, those are the different areas. You and me or someone else is the decision maker on this. It doesn't mean that the decision makers necessarily the person that writes out the, the rest of the proposal and you know, does that, but basically this is the person that we all agree is best place to make that decision in the end.
[00:18:36] Right. And in some cases it was, you know, when I was the CRO was, okay, that's only Tony that can really balance that call between sales, marketing and CS and what so forth. but if it's, if it's somewhere else in the organization, might just be other people that are better suited. To, to make that call. And, and the, the idea should be always try and push as many decision as possible down in the organization.
[00:18:59] Yeah. Um, that's, that, that should be the idea and only, you know, pull things up to, um, to the highest level when it's necessary, basically. Yeah.
[00:19:10] Mikkel: So, I mean, so it does, so, so the, this creation of the document and all the steps under. Are not created in isolation. They're created with the stakeholders and the teams that need to, you know, potentially carry out the work in the future.
[00:19:23] And the other, the other thing I was reflecting over is really how does it start, right? Because is it, my experience has been boss comes to you and says, Hey, we're thinking about. Big decision. Mm-hmm. To add this motion or whatever we need to go and figure out how to do it.
[00:19:44] So that make the decision document. Mm-hmm. Could it be the other way around that, you know, you start creating it and it's a proposal where, where's the distinction between the two?
[00:19:54] Toni: So I think the decision document is, uh, is an execution piece rather than it is a, what should we do? You know,
[00:20:02] Mikkel: so it decision has kind of been made. Now we're validating can it actually be made?
[00:20:07] Toni: And, and, and the reason why, why it needs to work like that is, um, the, the decision document itself is kind of useless without having the clear purpose stated and the clear intent behind it. I think in order to, and what you're really referring to is, uh, I'm the marketing manager.
[00:20:22] I wanna do something that is maybe a little bit above my pay grade. I wanna have an, you know, I want to push an idea that we should, I think we should totally do as an organization, which is. Sometimes the right thing to go about it. how do I now get everyone on the same page do what I wanted to do?
[00:20:39] I think that is a process that happens prior to this decision document. it doesn't mean that only the boss can create a decision document. That's not what this is. But this is really a, I have an idea and we are kind of aligning around that idea and let's give it a try. So, okay, now it's here. The stuff in between, that's your decision document, right?
[00:20:58] or obviously part of that, that's really just the written format of this. Sometimes the way I've been referring to a decision document is, um, is like passing a bill through Congress.
[00:21:09] Mm-hmm.
[00:21:10] Know you need sponsors and then, you know, need to give it a fancy name. And then there's, you know, lots of texts that no one reads in the middle, and that, that, that is a little bit sometimes how this decision document feels and, and, and, and around it.
[00:21:23] But, so one, one great example. This is still a decision document that's in circulation now, uh, in, in brand watch. Basically the, you know, the company that, that's using this stuff now and it's the, uh, rules of engage. Uh, that I created with the, with the leadership team, with the sales leadership team. So what are the rules of engagement?
[00:21:42] Um, those are basically, you know, once you come to a certain size of an organization and you have many, uh, sales reps, There's gonna be questions basic. The, the basic question is who gets paid? Yeah, let's just, let's just boil it down. It's not about who you know, uh, you know, alignment and taking the same customer at the same time unknowingly.
[00:22:01] No, it's who, who gets paid what commission And this, and it really added up like a legal text. Uh, and that getting, getting to the point of having rules engagement in place at a, you know, and we were 50, 60 reps with a lot of people that had a lot of money hanging on
[00:22:16] Mikkel: this. Mm.
[00:22:17] Toni: This is not just a, uh, boss sits in the corner, drafts something, and then lobs it over the line. This is a, everyone needs to agree and buy in.
[00:22:25] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:22:26] Toni: everyone obviously always has some kind of a massive quirky outlier, but what about this scenario?
[00:22:34] Mikkel: you could go on long
[00:22:35] Toni: um, and, you know, for, for, you know, one of the ways you can see those super outlier scenarios as.
[00:22:43] You need to be able to solve everything in a super systemized way.
[00:22:47] And some, some outliers are one in a hundred and you should probably care for those. Some outliers are one in a thousand and maybe it's not yet time to care for those. You know, it takes a little bit longer. But, you know, finding that balance, um, and going through that process, I think a decision document.
[00:23:02] And the process around it was, um, was probably one of the reasons why it ended up working in the end. And whenever anyone came to my, So it was in the end, you know, it was vp ea, VP US came to my desk. This Dous Mine And, and the cool thing then there was, uh, well, you know, what's the decision according to the rules of engagement that we agreed on?
[00:23:24] And, um, why does the other person disagree with that? Right? And then usually, Usually suddenly the conversation stopped and the the problem was solved. And that is, um, that is then another way to, you know, again, hey, we agreed on this. It's written here. This is how we came to that conclusion. Both of you agreed by the way, and now use this to solve your problem.
[00:23:44] And it worked out right. And, um, and that is maybe, you know, one specific case where that process was really, uh, really helpful. and then a very similar case was really, I mean, it really was the product led growth. We didn't know yet that this is what it's gonna be called in the end, but basically a part of the platform accessible through the website, through a, uh, credit card sign up and so forth.
[00:24:07] Tons of people involved, tons of emotions involved. and uh, it was not just a, Hey, let's get everyone on the same page and it's do it. It was a, Okay, here are one gazillion problems Yeah. That we need to manage now. Let's go.
[00:24:21] Mikkel: And we even had to figure out, you know, before we could make the decision, how is the business flow gonna work?
[00:24:26] We actually had to, as part of that exercise, create a business flow. Yeah. I, I wanna take, um, You know, a, a, a step back here because we kind of talked about, Okay, then you go into almost the execution part here, right? But let's say we have a listen out there. They've, you know, now done the steps, written out the purpose, you know, outline all the decisions, uh, last with stakeholders.
[00:24:47] When are you done and effectively ready to go? When does that transition happen and what, what, what do you need to do if you've, you know, taken the effort to create this document?
[00:24:55] Toni: Yeah. So what I've found is you can start implementing, once you have, and this is, you have those different, um, chapters.
[00:25:07] You know, topics one through six, uh, they have different names. Each of the chapters might have different decision makers. And, um, in the beginning they're all in proposal stage. Yeah. Hey, this is a proposal, let's figure this out. But as you move through this, you might get to, and this is, you know, this is pipeline. That's how I saw it. You might get to decision stage.
[00:25:30] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:25:30] Toni: with some of those chapters. And in reality, You can probably start implementing once you reached a decision stage on one or multiple of those, and then you start implementing that specific piece. and sometimes there might be things that block you from doing that because something else really is kind of more important upstream.
[00:25:50] But that's basically how I went about it. Once you had agreement in one area, you could basically kind of take that piece and give it to, I don't know, your RevOps team or someone else who's then creating a specific implementation document. Probably around this, you know, it. Very technocratic, I don't know how to say it, but basically that's then how you can manage the process right as you move through.
[00:26:08] Because many times, uh, you will find new things that then need to be played back and it's like, ah, does it all still make sense? And so forth. And actually on, on this point, that's why the purpose is so important. You wanna have, you know, once you have so many people involved with this, there will be decisions.
[00:26:26] And, and that can be so silly that you know, Hey, should we do a, or should we do b? and if you're down in the weeds, you just don't know anymore. No, it says, I don't, I don't have any clue. So really what you wanna do is you wanna be able to go back, ask the question. That is one of our favorite questions, which is, what are you optimizing for? What do you want to achieve with this? And that answer, that question is answered in the purpose. And if ideally, that person that is making a decision very far down in, in the organization or in this process, Can reread the purpose and can then be like, Okay, if this is what we're trying to optimize for, then it's pretty clear that we need to go for A instead of B.
[00:27:10] Yeah, yeah. That's really what you actually wanna do. Um, so that, that's, that's how it then sometimes ties together
[00:27:16] Mikkel: And it's the decision document only for work, because I was reflecting, I could use one as well. It's very much a personality thing. So sometimes I will forget stuff, you know, And then
[00:27:26] Toni: me, tell me what you wanna tell me what you wanna have a decision document on with your wife.
[00:27:30] I would love that
[00:27:30] Mikkel: Oh, I think, I think maybe it's more about getting the decisions that I want, you know, the whole negotiations or, ah, should it be this, uh, fabric for the couch or what, like, you know, there's, you need to pick your battles.
[00:27:42] Toni: Yeah. I mean, and once decision stages reach, you can go execute.
[00:27:46] Mikkel: Yeah. Yeah. Talk about that. And the problem is, if the decision, you know, I don't agree with it, I still have to support it, you know, we still have to actually do it.
[00:27:55] Toni: honey. I, I, I don't, I I don't recall that we were discussing this, Uh, particular
[00:28:01] Mikkel: always happens. Always happens. But you know, bringing it back to the business, I hope this very, you know, it didn't, I hope it didn't seem too bureaucratic.
[00:28:09] I hope it's actually something you will. For some of the bigger decisions that you might be involved with at some point, it's gonna be incredibly helpful. Uh, I can say it from experience, having those decisions, knowing what is decided, locked in, what is not. Yeah. Very helpful. Yes,
[00:28:24] Toni: I can, I can also only recommend it I can only recommend it after I tried it a couple of times, if, if someone on a, on a, on a show like this would've told me, Tony, this is what you need to do.
[00:28:35] I'll be like, forget about that. I can just say it's, it's really powerful. Yeah. Uh, so, uh, yeah, try it out. If you have any questions, uh, hit me up on LinkedIn or, or Michael and, um, maybe we can, we can help and or learn something. So thanks for listening.
[00:28:51] Mikkel: Thank you so much, Tony.
[00:28:51] Toni: Thanks Michael. Bye. Bye.
[00:28:58] Mikkel: Go make a document