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When there's an endless to-do list and lots of requests, how do you prioritize changes to the business? And how do you get those changes done?
That's what we talked with Sandy Robinson (SVP of RevOps at Patra) about.
- (00:00) - Introduction
- (04:52) - Meet Sandy
- (13:35) - What was the purpose of RevOps?
- (16:49) - Beneath the surface
- (18:36) - Driving change
- (21:44) - How do you manage change?
- (26:16) - How do you know it worked?
- (31:57) - How do you get to the solution?
- (36:02) - Going up and down the hierachy
- (42:05) - Communication is key
Check out her show RevOps unboxed
Creators and Guests
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.
[00:00:00] Toni: Hi everyone. This is Toni Holbein from GrowBlocks. You are listening to the Revenue Formula. In today's episode, we're going to talk about driving change through revenue operations with Sandy Robinson
[00:00:12] she is SVP of Revenue Operations at Patra, and I think you're going to like this episode. Enjoy.
[00:00:22] Mikkel and I usually try and be funny now, but it's
[00:00:26] Mikkel: difficult. We are never funny. What's, what's it? So we were talking, we were talking, um, I think two hours ago. Hey, so what are we gonna intro with today?
[00:00:37] And we both just had that empty stare into the void with
[00:00:40] Toni: no idea. We're like, Florida alligators, key West
[00:00:43] Sandy: yeah,
[00:00:44] Toni: Beach. You know what, what else? And we're like, you know, doesn't, I'm not sure, doesn't
[00:00:49] Mikkel: work, doesn't work. It never works. And at least what we haven't done today, all the good intros, they, we, you know, we sit here usually.
[00:00:56] Unless it's like today where you come, you know, right on the money. Too late. Yeah, too late. Um, then we burn all the intros just before we start recording. That didn't happen today because we just got nothing. We have nothing. And I don't want to do kids anymore. It's No, we can't do kids.
[00:01:08] Toni: It's Maybe, maybe you have a good story.
[00:01:11] Sandy: I do have a Florida story. I have a, I have a fishing story, so I
[00:01:16] Mikkel: there
[00:01:16] Toni: you go. Let's go
[00:01:17] Sandy: I do fish, and I live in Florida, and we do spend about half the time in the Keys, so we try to go down there Anytime my son isn't in school, we buzz out of here and we head down to the Keys. And I really like to fish and it's something that I really enjoy doing by myself in particular.
[00:01:35] I go out on my kayak and I got really into trying to catch snook, which in the Florida Keys is, you know, they're in the shallow waters and. Um, I'll have to show you this picture, but I kind of was getting skunked all summer and really frustrated, uh, and annoyed at my, and I like to, I mean, I'm all about the process, right?
[00:01:56] I'm a
[00:01:56] Toni: Yeah,
[00:01:57] Sandy: I'm a rev ops, so I don't like to use life bait. I think it's cheating, like, unless you're feeding your family. Uh, so I use, uh, plastic lures and, you know, I try different colors and they have little tails and all this stuff. So, uh, anyway, so I was like, oh, you know, I need a sign. Like, Something, I need to catch this fish.
[00:02:16] And I hooked a big one and it was, you know, I had it on my, on my fishing pole and I use really light weight. So I don't know if you guys ever gone fishing before. Okay. So like, okay, okay. So I like to use really lightweight tackle. And so when you're, you know, I'm in saltwater, so I had like 18 pound test, um, a short, probably six foot pole, very light.
[00:02:40] And so I hooked this fish and I was like, Oh my God, this is the biggest fish I've ever had on in my life. And I let the drag out. I let it run for about half an hour because I couldn't bring it in on the coral. So I bring it all the way around. I tire it down. I'm like at this point, I'm totally invested.
[00:02:55] I'm like, I got to bring this freaking thing in. I saw part of it. I was like, this is huge. And I'm like that idiot, like it, I'm pulling it up on the beach and it gets like part way up and He's like there in the water and the line snaps because there's just too much weight when he kind of came I'm like, oh crap So I like I run in and I dive on the thing And i'm like wrestling this thing and there's all these people watching and i'm sure i'm on the internet somewhere And so I pick I finally like bring him out and I just like have This fish and I'm like holding him like a baby and I had to bring him over to my GoPro and get the picture So I have this picture.
[00:03:32] It's actually on my LinkedIn.
[00:03:34] Mikkel: Did you get the full thing on the GoPro?
[00:03:37] Sandy: I did
[00:03:37] Mikkel: in? Oh,
[00:03:38] Sandy: no No,
[00:03:39] Mikkel: would have been
[00:03:40] Sandy: I have my GoPro I go by myself So I had it set up on a tripod where all my stuff was Um, I'm sure somebody has it. Cause there were like a ton of people around with, you know, their cameras and stuff. And, um, but yeah, I got the picture and then I let them go.
[00:03:53] But, um, but I mean, I didn't weigh it or measure it, but like if you see me holding this thing is like massive, you know, it's probably three times the size of any snook I've ever caught, but it was, it was the one fish I caught all summer, so I was pretty pumped about it, but yeah, so
[00:04:08] Toni: That's a crazy story. Um, how do we, how do we loop this back to revenue
[00:04:12] Mikkel: operations, Mikkel? I was thinking about my last fishing trip. I was like, yeah, we didn't catch anything. So I was like, that's going to be kind of an end to the fun, the fun part. Looping that back to
[00:04:20] Toni: marketing would be easy.
[00:04:21] Stop it, stop it, stop it,
[00:04:23] Mikkel: stop it.
[00:04:23] Sandy: It was a process, man. I was like, I kept putting the leads
[00:04:26] Mikkel: And you were hands on. Hands
[00:04:28] Sandy: get right on, right along the shore and I
[00:04:31] Toni: And the last mile delivery, you did everything, you know.
[00:04:34] Sandy: I executed, I practiced this, you know, so,
[00:04:37] Toni: tools let you down. You got it done anyway. Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's,
[00:04:40] Sandy: Well, they really didn't. I mean, they didn't really let me down. That, that was a big fish. Like, it was, I was way under, under, uh, under prepared.
[00:04:50] Mikkel: There you go. Amazing.
[00:04:52] Toni: Well, you might've guessed it already. We have, uh, Sandy Robinson here, uh, who's SVP of revenue operations at Patra. Welcome Sandy.
[00:05:01] Sandy: thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
[00:05:03] Toni: Wonderful.
[00:05:04] Mikkel: So you, uh, we talked a bit about, about it as well before, you know, someone else arrived a bit late to the party here. You also host a podcast, actually. Um, so you are so vested in Revenue Operations that you have a show that's called RevOps
[00:05:17] unboxed.
[00:05:18] Sandy: I do. It's a lot of fun. I enjoy just getting down with RevOps practitioners, no matter what level they are, and just chit chatting about just kind of the real challenges that you have and, um, you know, the day to day stuff. So, it's, it's fun. Just casual.
[00:05:34] Toni: Nice. So totally check out, uh, uh, Sandy's podcast here. but let's, let's maybe dive into this. So, um, Sandy, you, you kind of, you and I chatted, I feel like a month or two ago, talked a little bit about, you know, you moving to, uh, the new company at, but before we kind of go to all of that story, can you give us a little bit of, um, uh, background kind of, you know, all the different steps you've been going through actually kind of throughout your career, right?
[00:05:59] Because you kind of very much started in sales and then at a couple of really successful gigs and sales ops and rev ops. So I think a little bit of that background would be great for, for the audience here.
[00:06:08] Sandy: Sure, yeah, I mean, I, I started out in, uh, advertising sales, so, Yellow Pages Advertising, uh, Pennysaver, I was in Northern California area, uh, it was a lot of fun, I enjoyed the competition, uh, Yellow Pages was like, hardcore, selling Yellow Pages advertising back then, it was, it was fun, but, um, I, You know, I had an aspiration to be a management leadership and I got really into the sales training.
[00:06:33] So kind of ingrained my way into helping out with the new hire onboarding, uh, landed a sales manager job at like 23. Uh, so that was really interesting. I was managing my peers at that time. And, uh, so I just was in sales, outside sales, field sales for just a number of years and, uh, in went to insurance.
[00:06:55] And sales leadership and directors kind of like moved up through through the ranks and um, you know, I had a great mentor She was like, you know, hey, you're really good at all this Stuff like getting decks together and doing your numbers and your territories. Have you heard of the sales ops thing? And that was in about, I think 2012, uh, where she said, we really need a sales ops leader.
[00:07:20] I think this would be a great job for you. And, um, it was great. Cause I never like really thought about it. I was like, wow. Um, and it was, you know, so that's kind of been the story. And then sales ops was. A lot of everything. I think, you know, what, I think I've always been kind of doing RevOps because I was always doing lead gen and worrying about, you know, our renewals and, and all the things that are happening.
[00:07:45] So, uh, I just love how it's evolved and gotten a lot more, um, you know, credibility over the years in terms of the role, having a seat at the table.
[00:07:55] Toni: Do you, do you think that your, um, commercial past, so really kind of really front lines, um, do you think that that helped you being a better, uh, revenue ops and sales ops leader?
[00:08:08] Sandy: I mean, I, I do because I feel like. I want to put something out there that the salespeople will actually use and it won't actually drive them insane. So, one of the things that I'll take a look at, um, is, you know, what are all the checkboxy things they have to do? Or what are all the things that they have to do that are duplicative in their day?
[00:08:31] And is their managing asking them, and manager asking them for like a secret spreadsheet on the side? Right? Um, and because that happens, I mean, uh,
[00:08:40] Toni: all the time.
[00:08:41] Sandy: I know, and so how can I put something together not to just like oversee and police them, but something that's actually useful. So I try to let all the reps know like, I get it, and you know, don't tell me it's, you know, It's great if it's really bullshit, right?
[00:08:56] Like if you can't use it, um, you know, let me know, give me the feedback. So my goal is to really give them things that make their lives easier and that they can actually use because otherwise just wasting all of our time, in my opinion.
[00:09:10] Toni: And I think this is almost good advice for. You know, people, people on the rev up sales up side to, to request that kind of candid feedback, if you will, but then also the other way around from, from commercial leadership to also give it proactively, right? Like, Hey, this is, this is busy work. Why do we need this in the first place?
[00:09:28] And then, you know, ideally kind of cutting some of this away. I think that's, um, you know, some of those day to day struggles that folks are going through. you kind of then, you know, have been a little bit, uh, or, you know, spent obviously quite some time in the sales of RevOps side.
[00:09:41] what, what I thought was extremely interesting was, you joining your, your current company, right? So how did that actually happen? who was giving, current leadership, the idea of building out revenue operations because, uh, Patra is, obviously kind of a, a mature organization right there around founder, like early two thousands.
[00:09:59] so not this hot, super young startup that's just around the corner, basically. So give us a little bit of that, that story there, because I think this is extremely interesting for, for people listening to this.
[00:10:12] Sandy: Definitely interesting. I mean, they, they reached out to me, uh, actually around this time last year, and it just caught my eye, um, because they were located in Eldorado Hills, which is, uh, where I lived in Northern California, so that's where the headquarters is, and, um, just started chatting, and, you know, they engaged with Uh, FTB Capital who said, you know, Hey, it might be a good idea to have a, you know, revenue operations, uh, leader in place.
[00:10:38] So that was the recommendation. So they went out on a search and, uh, we just kind of casually started talking and then it, you know, it started becoming more and more interesting to me because one, I have an insurance background, right? So I was at Kemper for like. Seven or eight years, um, in, in a number of different roles on the, on the sales and sales ops side.
[00:10:59] So, uh, somehow drew me back to the business, I guess. It's, it's kind of an interesting business. Um, but I also understand that the challenges and that there's a lot of transformation that, um, you know, has been going on and needs to happen in the industry in general. Right. And so it just, it seemed like a really interesting opportunity to kind of come in and build a function that.
[00:11:22] You know, in a company that, you know, has been in existence for a long time, right? Because I've, I've built it out, uh, and rebuilt in, you know, startups, um, I, you know, built it out at a company that, you know, just didn't really have one before, um, at Kemper, I guess. So it may not have been, uh, too different there, but, you know, now that technology has changed and technology has evolved, it's just, um, I thought it'd be a fun challenge and it definitely is.
[00:11:46] Toni: So I'm, I'm hearing this more and more that, you know, venture capital companies or private equity companies are driving some of this, uh, more and more. Um, and in your case, it seems to be similar, right? Kind of one of the, you know, institutional investors basically kind of pushing this to a degree from their perspective, right, because they don't care about, um, You know, Salesforce boxes that someone needs to check, they don't care about Apex code that's written or comp plans being built.
[00:12:16] Um, why do you think from their perspective, why are they pushing for revenue operations to be present in that particular or, you know, in organizations in general?
[00:12:25] Sandy: Just my opinion, I think it's just building out the revenue engine, looking at it holistically, right? I think, I think it's so easy for leaders to look at it in silos or just look at it as, Oh, well, we need to get a CRM and then that, that'll solve all of our problems versus really how did the, how do you, you know, stitch all these different departments together?
[00:12:44] So I think the, um, that's kind of the understanding and, you know, with RevOps being at the center of that, I mean, my day to day is just usually a lot of, Um, education and teaching around what is revenue operations and, you know, how, how can revenue operations help the business and, uh, just really that fine tuning between rev ops and sales ops.
[00:13:06] But, um, they also offer a lot of support. So, um, I have a rev ops. Partner that I work with, um, and we meet frequently. We bounce ideas off each other. So there's additional resources, which I find to be great. Um, and it, it just kind of helps to, uh, bring support into things that I'm trying to do and teach in the organization.
[00:13:28] Um, and then have also the, the support, um, of our partners. So it's, it's, um, it's been a great relationship.
[00:13:35] Mikkel: I'm also wondering, usually when you go and hire Especially more senior folks such as yourself, you hire them with a specific purpose. There's something you want to accomplish. There's also a mandate that you give that person. What was kind of the, you know, you've, you've interviewed and obviously also worked there now for, for a couple of months at least.
[00:13:52] So what, what's been the, the main goal that they wanted to drive, through those conversations once you started actually talking with Patra?
[00:14:00] Sandy: Yeah. So one of the big things is dialing in our sales compensation plans and what do those look like and to try to drive the right behavior, um, and the other piece is accurate forecasting. And so those are linked to, uh, you know, some, those are linked together. Uh, there's also the systems and, um, you know, what, what's kind of been set up in, uh, my workgroup.
[00:14:27] You know, uh, plans to, you know, take that to the next level and do some cleanup and things like that. So it's really mostly been around, you know, the compensation plan and the, retooling of our systems and updating the sales process. Additionally, onboarding. So I'm, uh, You know, also, uh, revenue enablement extraordinaire.
[00:14:51] So I don't know if extraordinary is the right word, but, um, you know, I recently obtained a certification for MedPIC and, uh, put together an onboarding plan for 15, uh, of our new sales folks. So I was hired and then. You know, we're like, oh, by the way, we're going to hire like 15 people. So, um, can you put together onboarding?
[00:15:14] I'm like, sweet, I'll do that. You know, so I kind of onboarded myself, uh, while creating this, you know, pretty basic onboarding framework to get everybody dialed in and then, um, you know, execute medpick as well.
[00:15:28] Toni: I think kind of, you know, the, the topics that I mentioned, they're so classic sales ops, rev ops topics, right? Commission plans, forecasting, accuracy systems and stuff. To a degree, at least this is my guess or my bet. And you tell me how far I'm off here. but it sounds a little bit, you know, these, these things are kind of on the surface, right?
[00:15:47] Those are the surface level things that someone can see and point at like, Ooh, the sales forecast is wrong. You know, someone needs to fix that. But all of these things are, you know, much deeper and much, much more connected than some people, you know, see at the first and the first moment. Right. And I would almost say, given also that the organization is like.
[00:16:06] Almost 20 years or something like this old, but it's not old by the way. Just want to say that out loud as well, but it's really almost, you know, things have changed in the world. Uh, you know, sure. It might be technology. It might go to market. It might be talent. It might be all kinds of different things.
[00:16:23] And large parts of the organization might have not, right? Especially in your case, the go to market side might have not changed. and it's, it's manifesting itself in forecast accuracy, commission plans and systems, but it's really, well, we need to, you know, take what we've built for the last decade.
[00:16:39] And we kind of need to update this for, you know, the ongoing decade. and that, that's what, you know, revenue ops almost is coming in to do, right? Would you, would you agree with that? Or how do you, how do you see that?
[00:16:49] Sandy: Yeah, I definitely think it's easy to say like, you know, on the surface, here are the, here are the priorities and what I think a lot of folks that maybe don't understand RevOps, you know, it's like, there might be 460 root causes that you need to address. Uh, and kind of peel together and figure out, okay, how do I impact the forecast accuracy, right?
[00:17:12] Like, so, just for an example, like, if deals slip, uh, why did deals slip? Well, there could be a lot of reasons. It could be the, you know, do they need sales trading? It could be, uh, you know, maybe the, the contracts could be the product offering. It could be just the compensation. Uh, the tracking, the reward system, you know, there, there's so many different things.
[00:17:30] Or it could just be simple, something simple in the system that people don't get. Um, so, that's where I think, you know, just really as somebody in RevOps, understanding the, you know, all the aspects and the underlying causes, and then figuring out, okay, like, What's going to have the biggest impact to that?
[00:17:48] So, my challenge when I started, I was like, Ooh, I want to do all this. I can do all these big things. And, you know, but you can't boil the ocean. You can't get it all done. Um, uh, fortunately, we have a great marketing team who's built a nice inbound engine. Um, and, you know, Lead process trade shows. So I've been focused more on the, you know, actual sales ops side of things and to implementations because you know, if it ain't broke don't fix it I'm focusing in on where can I have the biggest impact on that forecast and on the pipeline?
[00:18:21] So that's where I've I've really focused would be that, you know Deal opportunity, sales journey to go, you know, implementation, um, you know, the handoff to implementation. So, uh, that's been my, you know, kind of world here the last six months.
[00:18:36] Toni: so again, I'm, you know, in this case also only guessing here, but, you know, thinking about this organization, thinking about the projects you're working on, This is less so about figuring out what the right forecasting methodology is. If it's, you know, MEDDPIC or whatever, doesn't actually, that doesn't actually matter or a compensation plan to figure out, Hey, what is the right number?
[00:18:58] That's not actually what this is about. It, I mean, it's, it's a lot about driving this change with people, right? I mean, it's like at the end of the day, there's, you're kind of fresh in the organization and, uh. They might be like an immediate resistance. So like, Hey, how's this different from the CRM admin that we had for 20 years?
[00:19:14] Uh, kind of, you know, number one and number two, wait a minute. Sandy is now changing my compensation plan. Sandy is now changing how, you know, I'm, I'm forecasting. I can see that there's a lot of, you know, resistance or not. I don't know. You tell me that you kind of need to work through in order to make that change workout.
[00:19:33] Sandy: Definitely a lot. So one of the discussions I have with my team and I will this afternoon in our team meeting is, you know, getting away from being the help desk, right? So, uh, the catch all, you know, we've got an inbox and they're just, you know, constantly, uh, running around, um, and just doing these one off requests that are not repeatable, not scalable.
[00:19:55] And, you know, We need to answer the question, should we even do it? Like, why do they need a spreadsheet with 54 contacts that, you know, pull them out of the CRM? They don't, right? So, um, what is the root cause of them asking? And so trying to get away from that help desk admin mindset to, hey, we're driving the change.
[00:20:13] We're driving, uh, in being more of advisors in the business. And here's how, you know, we are. planning to move forward with your input. So, uh, I'm in the process of updating our playbook. So, I've spent the last two weeks with my team, daily sessions going line by line, and okay, what needs to change?
[00:20:34] Like, you know, Bant. Okay, so like, how do we, how do we, um, you know, Bring in the elements of medpick. How do we have entry and exit criteria like just like 101 sales op stuff? And then what needs to happen in the CRM and what's linked to it? So, you know, we had 266 fields on our deal. So where do those all go?
[00:20:58] Right? We don't need those. So we're literally going through line by line Okay, we can archive these These are connected to this app, you know, whatever it is. Um, and then from there, taking it to the sales leaders, getting their input, um, and just really having conversations on things like how to use what, what stage one should be into stage two, right?
[00:21:20] Like one, you know, stuff like that, like, uh, using stage one as a lead versus, you know, having a lead, you know, just these conversations because that, those are all the root causes of why. Our pipeline is, you know, uh, you know, why, why we're striving for deal accuracy, you know, and all these other things, um, in our, our, um, forecast, forecast accuracy.
[00:21:44] Toni: And how do you go about implementing that actually, and kind of maybe not necessarily kind of on the, in the, in the system world, but is it basically a, you need to level set with the, the sales leader and then roll it out through the sales leadership or, or do you go directly to the reps? What is, what is kind of your way of, of managing that change through?
[00:22:02] Sandy: All of the above. So I like to, uh, first bounce off, uh, different people individually, like, Hey, what do you think about this? Um, get folks outside of our organization, outside of our silo. So like in the ops world implementations and get their opinions and what problems, uh, do we cause? The ops team, right?
[00:22:22] Um, and then, you know, really working closely with my peers and the leadership to say, you know, Hey, give me your input. Here's, um, here is the recommendations and let's kind of go through and hash out, you know, what that ends up being. So the goal is to have something mutually, uh, agreeable that, um, you know, we, we come out of it and then working, um, with marketing, with operations, you know, and all the other folks that are involved.
[00:22:49] So, you know, it just kind of starts, I think, diving down into the weeds in our world and then getting something consumable we can circulate. to other folks and get their input on it, um, as we, you know, put this into place.
[00:23:02] Mikkel: So you mentioned, um, MEDDPIC, is this, I'm just curious how, is this fully implemented now or is this something you're working on currently?
[00:23:10] Sandy: Yeah, so it, it is fully implemented, meaning, um, we initially rolled out last April and I've... Got, did our second wave cause I just got certified. So I just did the new hire onboarding. So they're currently going through the rest of their training. Um, but I do have it, you know, meshed in with our tools and the, you know, call recording and the trackers and, you know, kind of easy way for them to, um, do it.
[00:23:38] But this is what we're striving to as an organization to have everybody utilizing the same language and, um, getting the system more. you know, more aligned than it is today is, is where I'm going. So fortunately there's, um, you know, uh, call recording tools such as Gong that have this stuff built in that I was easily, easily able to just like turn on, um, and aggregate everything in.
[00:24:03] So since our, our CRM is a little bit. Um, under construction right now, let's just say, uh, so going into Gong was great because I, you know, could just put up a quick deal board and all their calls are there, all the medpick fields, all the medpick trackers, so it's real easy to gauge. Um, how we're doing in our adoption and things like that.
[00:24:24] So it was like something I could just flip a switch on and it was easy for everybody to use. Uh, so, but we need to kind of take that to the next level now and get everything fully integrated into, um, HubSpot and, uh, what we're doing there. So,
[00:24:38] Mikkel: I mean, you have consultants selling a ton of services around implementing and training in MEDDPIC. I'm, I'm guessing here that this was not a small change for the sales team.
[00:24:50] Sandy: yes. And in fact, it was, uh, kind of coinciding with my interview. process, right? So they were already having discussions, um, with force management at the time I was being interviewed. Um, and so we literally the same week started, kicked off MedPIC, uh, in my first week. So, and then it was like, you know, okay, I'm running with it.
[00:25:14] I need to figure this out and how to. You know, implement it and, um, make it all work. But, you know, I've done a lot of sales training. I did Challenger, uh, I did Challenger at two different organizations. One very successful because the whole organization was involved between the products being lined, the systems being lined, um, all leadership.
[00:25:33] I mean, it was, it was very successful, but the other not as successful because it was, you know, more like, okay, that's a. That's a sales thing. Good luck. Um, and so since I've learned in doing these in the past, it's, um, you know, I, I really look at it holistically, right. And how everybody, you know, we've got to do the coaching.
[00:25:54] The coaching is critical. So, uh, I'm trying to work on ways to support the sales managers to have help make it easier for them to conduct their coaching conversations and then align the tools with it. So it can all, you know, kind of work together easily. So, I mean, it's the, it's the whole methodology to process to system, right?
[00:26:14] So you have to kind of make it all work together.
[00:26:16] Toni: So, and maybe kind of, so this is, this whole medpig thing is obviously interesting enough how it integrates. I would actually kind of be curious on. You know, let's just say you've done this now, check mark, you know, the, the organization has moved to a new place. How are you going to, how are you going to judge whether or not that worked out, right?
[00:26:32] Because I'm not sure who has worked with force management. Those guys are not cheap. you know, doing this whole rollup is also taking a lot of management time, and then all the system integration. So at the end of this whole journey, how are you going, how are you going to say. What are, what are the metrics?
[00:26:47] Let's just say it like this, what are the metrics you're gonna measure in order to say like, hey, we improved?
[00:26:52] Sandy: Yeah, so one of those is going to be the, the conversion, the pipeline progression, right? And how do, how do those metrics look? Um, I'm trying to stay away from check boxy. Did you fill out these fields? Which is why I'm looking at, you know, there's some, some new, uh, folks out there that are providing some very specific AI around MEDDPICK.
[00:27:10] So again, going back to like making this easier for salespeople. Um, but for me, for me, success. Uh, you know, ultimately we're, we're driving, um, you know, I mean, this is easy to say a revenue target, right? But, um, having the lingo and the coaching conversations and the, um, the adoption, another indicator is the number of contacts.
[00:27:31] So right now we have an average of one point. really, one contacts associated with a deal. We all know in a B2B buying world, you're, you've got to, you know, that's what, 6 to 10 now, Gartner says or whatever it is, right? So, uh, you can't possibly just be talking to one person. Uh, so if, in my mind, you know, if we, if we have an average of three, uh, contacts associated with a deal, like that's massive success.
[00:27:55] That people have gone out and found three, um, because I think a lot of. Um, and not, you know, not specific to where I'm at. I've seen this in the past is you get the one person you're talking to. You think they're the economic buyer, they're going to do the trick, and you don't really go wide enough in the organization, right?
[00:28:16] Um, for, uh, you know, a larger B2B sale. So, uh, to me that success, if that 1. 1 goes to three, um, and the new, the new hires, so I'm kind of tracking their performance separately. So deals they create, um, so I've kind of got that, not deals that have been handed. So I have a separate report for that. How are they performing?
[00:28:37] and you know, are they closing? Uh, and then obviously, you know, average deal size. Another thing that I'm, um, I have. Uh, uh, sites on to improve is our push rate. So pushing, um, you know, pushing the close date out. So if I can dramatically improve that, I do have some targets. I'm not going to share this, the specific details, but, um, if I can, you know, hit those targets that I'm setting out, like to me, that's, that's massive success.
[00:29:06] So,
[00:29:07] Toni: If I just kind of change the, the words that you said there, right, I mean, number one, more, more contacts per deal that basically translates into a higher overall win rate or close win rate, however you want to call it, right? Conversion rate. Um, you were talking about the push count, which basically talks into sales cycle length.
[00:29:25] Right? Kind of, you know, how often is this being pushed out versus you close it on the first or second push. And then the third thing you also were mentioning is, is specific ACVs, right? Kind of where, where are we landing here, right? All of those are massive, massive levers to pull, massive efficiency levers to pull, right?
[00:29:42] Because it's, you're, you're basically, and that's the crazy thing about those three things. They, they compound each other, if you will. Right. and I think that, that by itself, can obviously improve the efficiency of a single rep, but it can also improve the efficiency of a whole sales and marketing organization, right?
[00:29:56] So there's, it's like pretty big things that are kind of, you know, trying to achieve then, you know, obviously kind of, we're not going to talk about the specific targets here, but I think this is, this is a good way for revenue operations to talk about. Some of those projects and how they are, how they're going to, um, you know, impact revenue overall, actually.
[00:30:13] So it's really, really cool to see how you guys have been, I've been thinking about it and making the decision for it. And then ultimately gonna, gonna try and measure that.
[00:30:22] Sandy: Yeah. I mean, in, in the other, the other pieces, uh, you know, go lives and cancel rate, right? So from sign to go live, um, and that's been a huge area of focus, which is hand in hand with MEDDPIC cause as you're going through the qualification process in our world, it's really important to get with the technical buyers and the ops folks that are actually going to be.
[00:30:47] Um, you know, working with our teams at Patra. So bringing the implementations team, uh, you know, together being more ingrained. Um, they are, uh, coming into our CRM. So currently they're operating out outside of it in, uh, another tool. So we are, um, actually just kicked off a project to, to bring them in. And, um, we'll have that going live at the beginning of the year.
[00:31:12] So that will inevitably bring everything together and having those. Technical buyers. So, so bringing in MedPIC with that and bringing the teams in, in, you know, kind of shifting that, um, accountability. And then as we go through the playbook is aligning the roles and responsibilities. So when, when does the implementations team come in, can they come in sooner?
[00:31:34] And all these things will help us to shorten our time to go live, um, and to reduce our cancel rates if we do all those things together, right? Um, so that's what I'm betting on that if we do all those things and we align everything, we are going to improve it. So it's not just one thing that's going to do the trick and I, to your point, kind of earlier that you were talking about.
[00:31:57] Toni: So, so this is super interesting, right? So, and it's almost, I'm interested in how you got to the solution, to be honest, because it's, you can look at, and maybe you said, Hey, our closing rates or ACVs, whatever, it's not on benchmark. And there's something to improve here. And then, Hey, our cancellation rates are high and implementation is taking too long.
[00:32:17] Was that the level you started at? And then I was like, Oh, we know for this area over here, we could have some sales training, some methodology change, some, you know, forecasting changes for this over here, we could pull them into a tool. Was that how you went about this? or was it different?
[00:32:31] Sandy: No, I just, I kind of looked at all of the, uh, work that was being done outside of the CRM. And we have currently a stage five that everything comes to operate into my team and kind of manually, it's like a holding stage before a close. So it, there's a lot of, a lot of manual work in that. We are causing a delay in even getting it to the implementations because of the manual nature of a lot of the data that's coming over.
[00:33:06] So it just took me a couple seconds to go, well, why do we have a stage five? Uh, well, it's because we have to do this and we have to, you know, make sure this is here and send this email. And it's because everything is in different data silos in different places. So it was pretty easy to see that. I can easily make a difference if we put in a few stage requirements, a couple of automations, workflows, uh, into it.
[00:33:30] We can easily, on our end, without even impact, you know, discussing with other teams, uh, we can clean up our time to go live when somebody gets a deal signed, right? So, it kind of started there, and then I started investigating, um, you know, as to, well, then what happens after? Like, where does that go?
[00:33:49] Toni: And what's that? So I'm, I'm still digging on this one. Sorry, Mikkel. No, go for it. Um, but the, the thing is, right. So number one, I think in general RevOps folks are talking about, Oh, this doesn't make sense. This should be smoother. This should be different. You know, it should be more automated. but really what the impact of that might be is, well, you know, we can, you know, speed up the time to value.
[00:34:11] We can, you know, reduce the cancellation rate, whatever. Metric, does it, and revenue impact is around this, right? you can go about it. Hey, this metric is bad. What can we do about this? And you might land in tooling world or the other way around. It's like, Hey, that doesn't make any sense. And now we need to sell, uh, the change to someone, right?
[00:34:30] Because Hey, someone needs to prove that you should be spending time on this. And then you could actually kind of tie in those metrics in order to kind of build the case. Like, Hey, listen, you know, this isn't. Working as it should be. There's something super inefficient here. We can fix it. And that will drive up X, Y, and Z metrics that you really care about.
[00:34:46] Right? So it's like, you can, it's almost two ways you can go about this actually. And it feels like, um, you at least took one of them actually in order to, in order to, you know, again, drive this change, get this thing approved, you know, move it through the, um, through the, the project process, so to speak. Is, is that, is that right?
[00:35:03] Or am I, am I reading too much into it?
[00:35:05] Sandy: No, so I, I, I actually did kind of both. So, you know, taking the actual metrics in the slide and, you know, where, where can we cut out time, here's how many days, uh, that all went up the chain, right? And so that's my, to my, um, you know, to all the other department heads, to, uh, folks on my team. And then, um, in terms of the people that are actually in, in doing the work, it was like, okay, Let's just dive in and see all the things we shouldn't be doing, right?
[00:35:35] And you know, why are you doing this here? well because I have to do this because it goes to this system and you know, So I really did both because you have to do a lot of right selling internal selling with other stakeholders right that are in you know, C level or other VPs and SVPs of the organization and but then you kind of have to talk to the people that are actually, you know grinding and Doing it every day.
[00:36:02] Toni: I was, so this is my last final sentence and Mikkel can, um. Real the fish in. It's, no, no, no, no, no. It's already there. It's already there. I'm just kind of summing up here for my own sake, I feel. No, I mean, it's, You started this out with like, Hey, we need to understand, or you need to understand the revenue engine end to end.
[00:36:17] You need to understand how this organization is making money. Over here, marketing, everything was kind of fine, you know, sales and implementation of whatever it might be. There were some, you know, opportunities to improve, um, and then, Hey, here's some solution proposals that are connected to metrics that management cares about that then have a revenue impact.
[00:36:35] And for me, it's kind of, you don't only need to go end to end in terms of the revenue engine. You also need to go up and down the hierarchy chain, right? Kind of, it's like, you need to be able to talk to the ones that are actually implementing this thing. You need to be able to. Um, you know, talk to your peers and make sure that, Hey, they're actually, they're a okay with doing this.
[00:36:53] And then, you know, talk to your, to your boss or whoever, whoever sits on top and sell that project there. Right. So this, this, uh, you know, RevOps, especially kind of RevOps leadership role. it's pretty darn difficult if you think about, you know, what, what every, you know, what all the things I need to know and understand in order to be successful in that role.
[00:37:12] I just wanted to kind of make that statement. and maybe, maybe this is over to you Mikkel. Well, I
[00:37:17] Mikkel: mean, close to what I was going to ask, actually, because one of the things I mentioned to Toni before we hopped on the call with you, Sandy, is when driving change... One of, I think maybe this was McKinsey or something, they said, well, if there's people who are unwilling to embrace change, you let them go.
[00:37:35] And I was like, well, so number one, that's a pretty cold or binary worldview to have, number one. Number two, if, if you're in revenue operations, you might not have the authority to, you know, force people to follow a new process or, you know, follow the change you want to drive. So how have you kind of navigated that?
[00:37:51] Because even, even with MEDDPIC and if you want to change forecasted or commissions, you know. That's a very sensitive thing to a lot of folks. They're going to people who's going to start barking. So I'm curious what you've done there, uh, what some of the struggles were and how you navigated that part.
[00:38:07] Sandy: Yeah, so I, I don't know if you've seen any of my content on, on RevTech, but I, I try to align everybody on this idea of revenue technology, right? That it is focused on the customer. Um, and one of the first things that I'll show in the presentation is, is, you know, a quote about the status quo, right? And how, you know, doing the, if you're, you know.
[00:38:31] continue with the status quo isn't, you know, sustainable, right? So we have to challenge the status quo. And, uh, being that we all just did MEDDPIC, it's also very helpful because that's a lot of what you talk about in the, you know, decision criteria and all the things about, you know, you really, you're in your competition, your biggest competition is a status quo.
[00:38:52] So I try to start out with that. And just challenge people to say, okay, you know, is there, is there a new way of thinking about things? And it's, you know, people understand a CRM system. People understand that, um, we need all the contacts and we need all of the information about the relationship. So I think that's a very common understanding that everybody acknowledges that we don't have that today.
[00:39:18] Right. And so it's, it's just, I think, listening and just understanding that. Um, you know, change isn't easy, and I know it's not going to happen overnight, and I'm, I'm not coming in here, uh, saying I'm going to change the world in, you know, 90 days or anything like that, but, you know, what are the things we can agree on to beta test and to pilot?
[00:39:38] Um, I like using those terms. It seems, you know, it's less risky with people. So, uh, we did do a pilot. Uh, with getting, uh, our implementations team in Gong, and they liked, uh, being in the calls, and, you know, I was able to work it out with, with, you know, a two week free trial to kind of get them in and to see, so getting people, um, engaged, and then...
[00:40:01] They tell their leaders, so, I don't know, I have a way of just trying to, you know, go around and, um, you know, it's much like in, you know, talking to an economic buyer, you're talking to them about what they, what do they care about versus the technical buyer and, and, you know, the things that, The things that they care about, but I mean, I agree with what you said, Toni, it's, it's, um, you know, there's, there's, I've got to flip the switch so I can, I can talk nerdy, like totally nerd out about, uh, you know, all the system stuff and what's happening at least, at least enough, right?
[00:40:33] Like I'm not, I'm by far, I, I hire, um, I have a great, um, amazing admin that I just brought on board. Um, and so she'll, she'll figure out exactly how it needs to be done, but. Um, being able to kind of flip the switch because nobody, no CEO wants to hear about, uh, you know, how do these systems integrate and how are they going to work in the background?
[00:40:56] Like, they don't give a crap about that, right? They just want to know, like, how much is it going to cost and why do they need to do it now? Like, why, why do, why can't we just wait till next year and budget? And, uh, so that's really, you know, picking my battles. And what do I, you know, what do I think is going to have the most impact that we're going to realistically be able to get in place, uh, is, is huge because there are a lot of things I really want to do, uh, but I don't know that I want to try a bunch of them out right now, right?
[00:41:25] So I want to, I want to get the sustainable, biggest impact, you know, change in the system or, or, you know, to be able to show that, Hey, this is something that's actually going to pull people together. It's not going to be some extra. Box check that you want to do, uh, and, and things like that. And, and in the, the C suite isn't going to hear people whining about, they don't like, you know, the tool they have to use or the thing they have to do.
[00:41:51] Mikkel: Maybe. So I'm wondering just at least the last question for me, it's kind of a take, take it home, I guess, almost question we can squeeze in yours in the end. I see. Okay. But, but no, one thing I'm
[00:42:03] Sandy: Since you were late,
[00:42:05] Mikkel: Yeah, I said you were late. That's true. That's true. No, I mean, so I, I checked your experience on LinkedIn and you mentioned in the beginning, you've kind of been all the way from sales, you know, yellow pages time, uh, to now SVP revenue operations and, and obviously driving change as a, at a larger, well established company also with a lot of history, right?
[00:42:25] I'm wondering for the listeners out there, what are some of the things actually you've learned in that process, um, that might not be so obvious to folks that they should be aware of if they're going to go and drive change or really succeed through revenue operations? Because you, what I really liked so far is you've talked a lot about the revenue side and not just a, yeah, let's connect this tool with that and then, boop, done, right?
[00:42:46] It's very much minded on the full revenue, uh, engine, basically.
[00:42:52] Sandy: Yeah, I mean, communication, I think is huge internally, like being able to talk to people, have them understand. I tend to talk fast and get all excited, but I don't want to lose people, right? So you have to, I think, really establish like, Who is your audience? Who are you communicating to? What message do you want to get across?
[00:43:13] Be very thoughtful about that when you're, uh, working with whether it's peers, it's subordinates, or, you know, cross functional leaders, the C suite, whatever it is, um, I, I think I've learned a lot over the years. I've been through mergers, acquisitions, new leaders, you know, understand that. Everybody at the end of the day is worried about.
[00:43:35] They're jobs. I mean, let's just be real. It's not like when I sold Yellow Pages, it was like, Oh, you know, I'm the hero if I sign on the dotted line and like, oh, you know, it's just, it doesn't work that way. And, you know, you care about, like you said earlier, Toni, like, well, you know, we've got kids. We're not going to the bar.
[00:43:51] We're going home and hanging out with our kids. Like, that's what people... Care about, right? And so if I'm coming in there and potentially talking about something that might disrupt their world or it might change things, it's a risk for them. If I'm going to the head of operations and saying, you know, Hey, I know you've been using this tool.
[00:44:13] I need you to get on the trust train with me and like, let's do this together. So how do I establish that? Is the biggest thing that I've learned that, um, taking that, that fear, everybody has that, you know, Well, this new person's coming in and they're going to change stuff and everybody has that and clam up.
[00:44:33] Well, this is mine. This is my budget. This, this, you know, I don't give a shit whose budget it is. I really don't. All I care about is, you know, how, how does this work together? So I think it's just communicating that I'm not a threat and I'm really here to learn about the problems and here to help. I don't care if it reports up to the CRO org.
[00:44:54] It doesn't matter to me. Um, it's really everything that impacts the deal, everything that impacts the life cycle of the deal. And whoever the people that touch it and the technology that touches it. And a lot of people don't think of it that way. Um, you know, I even talk to, I love getting with CIOs. My husband's one, so I can say this.
[00:45:15] Uh, so I always test stuff out on him. Cause he's like, you know, they, they only think with their left brain. You know, they don't really have a lot of, uh, at least my CIO husband. Um, but anyway, so I, but getting with the CIO and it's like, well, what's your, what's your process for evaluating tech? Right? Oh, well, we have a, we have a procurement, we have this and you know, we just, well, how do you, how do you decide, should we, where's the business case in that and how, how do we take that and have that as a discussion?
[00:45:44] Can you be the point that says, you know, Hey, should we, should we do this? And how does this affect the broader company and the customer life cycle? If you bring in a second project management tool, just because you like one that looks pretty and the other one doesn't, um, You know, should we do it? So who's going to answer the should?
[00:46:01] Uh, so, I don't know. It's just, it's a lot of people, you know, working with people, understanding what they're about, understanding that, you know, they may have brought in a process or a tool at some point for a period, you know, a period of time and, you know, maybe that does need to change. But it's not a reflection of them, right, it's just where we are in the times and how can we work together to make that better, not how can you look Like, you didn't know what you were doing in the first place because that's totally untrue, like, technology has changed so quickly over even the last couple of years since COVID, uh, with AI and all the things that are out there, we have to, uh, I think approach it that way, that we're, we're kind of all in this together.
[00:46:45] It doesn't always work, and some people don't respond to that, um, I try to focus on the folks that do, and, you know, people see over time that, you know, You know, actually, you know, Oh, maybe I should, you know, get on, get on board. So that's just the way I, that's kind of how I roll.
[00:47:01] Toni: Sandy. I think this was a perfect way to end this episode. I'm going to, I'm going to shut up. You're going to cut yourself off. Yes. Sandy, thank you so much for spending some time and, uh, spilling some of your wisdom here.
[00:47:14] Sandy: Awesome. I appreciate you guys having me and letting me tell my fish story. That's
[00:47:18] Toni: Yeah.
[00:47:19] Sandy: I'm going to send you a picture. I'm going to
[00:47:21] Mikkel: Yeah. Please. You
[00:47:22] Toni: have to, you have to. Yeah. Thank you so much, Sandy. Thank you so much. And thank you everyone for listening. Have a good one. Bye bye.
[00:47:28] Sandy: All right. Take care.