Why 95% already messed up next year

Show Notes

There are 4 things that might already now ruin your plan for next year. Even before you've started planning. We cover the four challenges, and what you can do about it to help land a plan you can deliver on.

Creators & Guests

Host

Mikkel Plaehn

Head of Demand at Growblocks

Host

Toni Hohlbein

CEO & Co-founder at Growblocks

What is The Revenue Formula?

This podcast is about scaling tech startups.

Hosted by Toni Hohlbein & Mikkel Plaehn, 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.

[00:01:03] Mikkel: it's all about the planning, which is basically what we're gonna talk about today and really why 95% have messed up next year already.
[00:01:15] Toni: Yeah.So out of the 20 people listening, only one of you has got it right for next year. Congratulations. Yes.
[00:01:26] Mikkel: I mean, we haven't even started, but we are also very different stage. Yeah. And probably we have started, so we,
[00:01:32] Toni: we are thinking about the future. That's, that's step number one in planning. You
[00:01:35] Mikkel: We're thinking about planning how we're gonna plan.
[00:01:37] Toni: Yeah.
[00:01:38] Mikkel: No, it's funny, like I've been reading, on a good old book, Rework, you know, this.
[00:01:44] It's a classic. Oh wow. Nice. And, well, book recommendation right there. So it's a great one for, if you're starting a. But basically there was a, a, a part about planning where it's, you know, don't waste too much time on it. Mm. You need to actually execute. And I was like, Yeah, I've been in those meetings where you, you talk for hours and hours and hours about a thing, you know, is most likely not gonna happen because there's, must dos or something else.
[00:02:10] Right. So a lot of planning I at least have found is. Very broken actually. And we, we kind of shifted gears just looking at what are the next couple of things we're gonna do. Very focused conversation on a project. We knew what was gonna happen and, how we were gonna bring it to market basically.
[00:02:27] Yeah. And that's been way more productive for us. Right. But we are gonna talk about not just a small team, but a company mm-hmm. and, basically why planning is broken and potentially what you can do about it. Yeah. And you know, maybe avoiding a kickoff in February.
[00:02:46] Toni: Yeah. Well that's, that's probably the first thing, right?
[00:02:47] Well, you know, if you, if you even get there, because probably you need some OKRs to be set in place for March. So, that's, that's usually then where the first session happens. So, and what we wanna do today is actually go through a couple of things that we've seen in the past. Both, you know, executing this ourselves, but also with, you know, working our customers and talking to a bunch of, bunch of other teams out there. and we have identified four main areas why, why people are messing.
[00:03:16] this up.
[00:03:17] And, and I think, please bear with us when, when too many of these hit home, too well. we're gonna talk a bit about, you know, what you can do about it potentially. but really the, the point is here, if you're seeing those signs, those might be signs that are taking you off track already, which then will make actually hitting that plan.
[00:03:36] Next year pretty difficult, right? So, you know, one, one rule of thumb for me sometimes is if the planning is easy, then executing is gonna be hard. So you almost wanna, you know, turn this the other way around, make the planning really hard, and then the execution's gonna
[00:03:53] Mikkel: So what, like hard to get to the place where you're gonna meet the team and plan or a lot of friction or what, What do you mean
[00:03:58] Toni: have actual fights. Have friction during the planning process. If someone is throwing up a number and everyone was like, Yep, sure, yeah, no, let's do that. then either no one has a clue or the number is too low. and usually it's not the too low part, usually it's that.
[00:04:18] And, then once you then hit next year, then it's like, oh wow, this is difficult.
[00:04:22] We, you know, we are not gonna get there boss. So, you know, now we need to kind of do something else. And, if you have a really smooth planning experience, then it's usually really, you know, it's, it's, it's a sign for, it's gonna be tough next year. and then the, you know, another piece around this is, and we haven't even gotten to the Foy yet.
[00:04:40] No. I'm realizing, the other piece around it really is if all of your planning conversations around anecdotes and gut feel and, and finance, the only team supplying numbers to it, also a very bad. Also a very bad sign. Yeah. So really kind of those two things kind of keep in mind and if, where, where it's easier to create friction and pushback and opinions is when all the different sites come with data to the table and say, Hey, this is what we can do based on X.
[00:05:08] and there will always be anecdotes and gut feeling in there because otherwise, you know, your VP. Shouldn't be getting paid the money they're being paid. Right? There's some really high complex stuff that data won't fix for you, but you need to have it as a backbone of the conversation to you know, mitigate.
[00:05:26] That gap that will form, and finance. And the CEO will always try and pull you up in talking about the commercial teams here. And if you just, there was like, I don't think we can do that. it's gonna be difficult for you to reverse that poll. You need to have some data in order to manage that conversation.
[00:05:43] Right. Otherwise, again, you will probably land them in the wrong space.
[00:05:47] Mikkel: Yeah. And we wanna help people create an amazing plan that they can actually execute. Yep. And, we're gonna get into the four points. Mm-hmm. Let's go into the first one,
[00:05:56] Toni: Number one. And this is, this is, A common practice and we're not necessarily against it, but it's one of the first items where you can probably see this is gonna be difficult. and, and this is CFO and CEO come out of a board meeting and they've agreed on a number. Yeah. That's usually how this is gonna work out.
[00:06:22] And the conversation in the boardroom. Is valuable and it's helpful. And the people sitting there are usually people with a venture capital, background. and even if they have like, an operational pass, that pass is kind of useless five years into this. So usually it's really VC dominated board. And there's one thing that those, and it's mostly guys right now, sadly, but you know, those guys and ladies are really, really good.
[00:06:48] They're really great at being able to tell, you know, the CEO and the CFO and everyone else who wants to listen, how the organization now, the company needs to look like in a spreadsheet to be able to, get more cash in a year or two from now. That's what they're experts in and they're really good at that.
[00:07:07] Right? And they basically tell you, Listen, if you wanna keep your multiple, if you want to, you know, keep, you know this dilution profile, if you want to keep those pristine logos as your investors. This is how your, how your organization needs to look like in a year from now. And, and obviously then the conversation, the board is like, well, well we do wanna look like this in a year from now, so check lock in.
[00:07:32] Let's shoot for 150% a all that's great. Then we also don't need to grow that much on the new BI side and. You know, let's triple because doubling is not enough. And c payback, while let's have it below 12, you know, let's be really efficient. If we had all of these things together, then we are gonna be, you know, the, the next unicorn and waiting, basically happening on the stage.
[00:07:54] And. The problem with that obviously is mm, that, that this, hey, this is how the VC wants us to look like, becomes the actual target for the organization. And I think this is wrong. I think the input from the VCs should be taken for sure. but the people operating and executing, which includes the CFO and the ceo, but also a couple of others.
[00:08:17] They need to come up with how to operationally actually achieve it. And guess what? And many, many VCs say that openly. They don't have an FN clue how to actually do that, that they, they don't. so really, you know, whatever they come up with, take it with a big chunk of salt. try and optimize for it, but don't say, Hey, this is the plan and now let's reverse engineer it.
[00:08:37] Right. And that's usually what we see. you know, CFOs then end up doing, Creating a spreadsheet that, kind of has all of these things and then ends up being the agreed, agreed plan. And, you know, then it's being handed out to the operational leaders and, you know, there's a little bit of a, air quotes feedback session.
[00:08:59] but really it's a feedback session with a gun in. And being like heym, right? You agree to this grow target,
[00:09:07] Mikkel: Right.
[00:09:08] Toni: And if Mikkel says no to many times. Then, you know, this is more of a US thing. It's like, well, don't we need to find someone who can say yes to this? Right? And, and you know, this is, this is I think where, where the first step kind of goes off already, right then.
[00:09:25] Mikkel: Yeah. It's, it's terrible being forced into a target. You is no way you're gonna be able to. This is really a problem cause on a board level that then hits the organization. And if you are then sitting, let's say you're a revenue leader in this scenario and now you know, ceo, CFO comes into the room with, gun in hand. How should you approach it? What should you actually do
[00:09:08] Toni: call it out? Call it out, say, Okay, cool, this is the plan. I get it. but just because you promise at the board. doesn't mean that this actually can be executed. and if we keep going down that route of you just me, you know, pushing me to say yes to this, sure, let's do that.
[00:10:06] but it's not gonna work out. I'm sorry. and, and that is really the conversation you need to have, and I think the, the powerful move here is instead of saying, you know, Oh, I don't know, and, you know, maybe we can do this and, you know, be, be softer around it. Call them out on the process and say, Hey, you know, let, okay, let's just get one thing straight.
[00:10:24] Do you actually really need my input here? Or is this locked in with the board already? And I can tell you why all of these things can be difficult. I'm gonna be a team player and sure, let's do it. But those are the issues. They're not gonna work out. but also if you go. That path in your conversation.
[00:10:39] Either, you know, use a rev op leader to a revenue leader or revenue leader to, you know, the cfo, ceo. I think you will disarm them a little bit in the process and you will be forcing a more sincere and straightforward and open conversation about it.
[00:10:52] Mikkel: Yeah, I like that. It's also, it's obviously easy to say, just call it out. For some, that's gonna be really hard, especially if you are not, you know, VP or cro or that level, and then not at, level with the ceo, cfo, then it's gonna be hard.
[00:11:07] Toni: Go, go the other way around. Ask a question. So, cfo, cfo, ceo. Cool. Great. I love that Target. Explain to me how you came up with it. Yeah.
[00:11:20] Mikkel: And then they're gonna say, Well, we met with, you know, our investors, they had
[00:11:42] Toni: there's this uni unicorn table. Triple, triple, double, double, whatever. And we earned the tripling phase. So that's what it's gonna be. and you know, this is where you're gonna basically, you know, when someone says that it's VC speak, and to a degree, the board needs to kind of match those two worlds, you know, current and future investors versus what can.
[00:13:34] The, the, the vehicle, the company actually deliver. but that would be your first hook to be like, okay. So it's basically, you know, Oh, I wish to go that way, but we haven't figured out how to actually get there. Right. Yeah.
[00:11:52] Mikkel: Yeah. Okay. Let's, let's move to the second.
[00:11:55] Toni: Yes. So the next one is, the next one is too late.
[00:12:04] So it's, it sounds, it sounds like, okay. Cool, Mr. Obvious. Thanks. Thanks for that one. But, but really the, the problem is, you know, this is, you know, this is October and, you know, some people are planning on doing that, and that's great, but especially if you wanna double, triple next year, really you need to have, quote unquote boots on the ground much earlier than January.
[00:12:28] know, because of RAMP up, because of hiring, because of onboarding, because of all of those reasons, you actually wanna hire those folks in, you know, 1st of October. Yeah. So in the past, Yeah. If not even earlier than that. you know, I, I sometimes see plans with, you know, I dunno, is an organization, 200 people and then General has 50 more people in the plan.
[00:12:52] Mikkel: Yeah. Sure. Good luck.
[00:12:58] Toni: Yes.
[00:12:58] So, I mean, so first of all, let's unfeasible anyway, just think about the, you know, people forget that actually it's, sure, it's 50 new people and, Hey, wait a minute. I need, you know, Toni sometimes, so I, I sometimes say one, one talent attraction person can hire five commercial roles.
[00:13:17] More run of mill roles. So cool. Maybe I need a very large 10 direction team, 10, maybe eight with some agencies and so forth. Cool. But now the next problem, for hiring 50 people. How many interviews do you actually need to have? Oh, yeah. And who's gonna have those interviews? And it's not gonna be talent attractions, it's gonna be all of those people that are trying to figure out the plan for next year, trying to close Q4 on the right way, doing all the other 1000 other things, and just think about, you know, the math of how much time they actually need to spend on this thing.
[00:13:51] And you will very quickly realize, wait a minute, that is actually not going to happen. Yeah. So really, if you want to have those people on the ground in January, you need to start having them in their seats in October, which means they should have started in, you know, a little bit of goal. Right? Yeah,
[00:14:08] Mikkel: No, I mean, it takes time. And also to your point, Q4 people will be very busy working towards the final target to see if you can hit for the year. So that's gonna be the focus number one. And then, oh yeah, we also need to plan and we also need to actually hire with Q1 in mind. That's a tall order.
[00:14:26] Yeah. It's, it's such a, you know, high amount of work and you don't want to compromise either on the, the hiring part. Yeah. Because you need to bring in the right people.
[00:14:33] Toni: No. And then the next thing is also, you know, how can you speed up that hiring? What is a solution to that? Well, you just pay above market. That's true. You can do that. It's the CFO gonna be happy with that. Maybe not. and then number two, you are in general now, not 50 p people started, but maybe 30.
[00:14:49] Maybe you did a good job. So now you have a gap of 20 and you know those people usually have a revenue impact to catch up on those 20 that you weren't able to hire in January. You actually now are talking about hiring 25 extra in February. so basically kind of the gap plus a little bit because you're lacking, you know, you know, you're lacking on some time that they haven't been rammed up.
[00:15:14] And, you know, the, the result is by the end of this year. So you're basically stuck in this catch up game from day one. and, and the truth is you won't catch up. It's just gonna be impossible for you. Right? So basically, Starting too late out of pure math and logic reasons is going to end up, having you fail next year already.
[00:15:36] And, you know, this disease is sometimes even a bit worse in, in large organizations that are starting to think about EBITDA and, you know, in these kind of metrics. you know, actually making money instead of like us just burning it. and the, the problem there is, and I've lived through this myself, the problem there is like, but wait a minute, Toni, all of those hires we're place in October, November, December.
[00:15:57] Especially on the sales side. They're not gonna bring any revenue, right? No. Okay. So all of them are basically gonna. basically negatively impact, right? Yes. Well, sorry. Can't have them in q4. We need to push them into q1 and it's like Yeah. Yeah.
[00:16:14] Mikkel: So what should you do, multi-year planning instead, or how, how do you go about actually this, You know, one thing is you're too late now, right?
[00:16:22] So let's talk about what you can do if you're standing in this situation now, but also maybe considering next time around, how do you preempt this?
[00:16:31] Toni: I think budgeting and revenue planning can be two different things.
[00:16:36] and the CFO and the board needs a budget to be approved in order to do the right governance and it's really important and to have something you can be held accountable to and, and all of these things.
[00:16:49] Therefore it's, it's a, it's a very political exercise also, who gets how much and blah, blah, blah. There's tons of research how budgeting is, isn't really working great. but on the revenue planning side, and yes, those two overlap and they have an intersect interface and so forth. But on the revenue side, you can be much more, ongoing planning.
[00:17:11] You don't need to do it once a year. You should probably, you know, revise it and check it once a quarter. And when you do it once a quarter, you should look at from a, Hey, what about 12 months from now? And basically roll one quarter further all the time, right? Instead of only looking about the, calendar year and so forth.
[00:17:28] and obviously some of those arguments about EBITDA that I just brought up in the end. That will be a decision that you won't be able to make because it's really at that point, the finance organization just rules, especially if you're public, especially if you have some kind of, you know, earning targets you set out, Even your best arguments will just fall on deaf ears.
[00:17:49] And they would No, no, no. Nomel, I understand you. I totally under, I totally get it. I totally understand that this is gonna hurt us next year. but my head is on the line for this number in three weeks from now, so no, we're not gonna change any of this. Right. And and that's, I think then you as an organization are just progressed too.
[00:18:07] Fine. Kind of that side. And then I think the ceo, CFO just need to have a clearer conversation early on.
[00:18:13] Mikkel: Are we going? To three?
[00:18:15] Toni: Let's, try and do three
[00:18:16] Mikkel: So this is one of the things, Toni, you've, you've been observing quite a bit and you had this funny observation around, you know, we talk, so we talk.
[00:18:27] Revenue planning top down. Mm-hmm. So this is really the first point we had there. So target coming from the board, go make it work. Mm-hmm. Right. but we kind of wanna measure it also with, with the bottom up, which is the conversation we have. Yeah. Where you look at how is the revenue engine performing? What can it potentially, if you, if you put this amount of cash in, what comes out the other end.
[00:18:47] Right. And the funny thing is you said, Some people they think, you know, we take the revenue number and then we drill it all the way down to the bottom, and then we've done bottom up because we've reached the bottom. Yeah. So what's, what's the problem here in number three?
[00:19:00] Toni: So one of our biggest. learnings over the years, but also advice to everyone who's, you know, cares to listen is, have a strong top down plan.
[00:19:09] And that's really useful. You know, the board and the VCs and all of that need to tell you where they want to go, but then need to create a bottom up plan or to match it. And, and then there would be a gap and that's great. And now you can have a conversation how you're gonna close that gap. You're gonna find some more things on the bottom up.
[00:19:26] Are you gonna take some things out from top down or are you okay with the gap? and. The thing is when we then sometimes talk about it, Hey, you need to have a bottom up. People say like, But we do have a bottom up. It's like, Okay, cool. You know, show me, you know, tell me how you, you know, how you created that bottom up?
[00:19:43] And it's like, well, we took, the revenue number where we want to be by the end of the year. We know how much new customers we need or many customers we need. And then the opportunities in MQs. And, we also know, you know, the tech payback that we wanna have and forth is like, okay, all of this is just a very granular, top down plan.
[00:20:01] It's not a bottom up plan. A bottom up plan is about, you know, what people am I going to hire when and what is their expected output?
[00:20:09] what projects are we gonna execute across the revenue engine? Could be improvement projects, could be opening up a new market, could be rolling out a new product, all kinds of things, in order to get conversion rates up or open up a new market and so forth.
[00:20:25] or the last one, you know, executing campaigns on the top end around marketing, right? What are, what are tangible, actual things you can literally do. Next year, what is their revenue output and what's their cost footprint as well. and then if you stack all of these things up, and some of them might be, you know, overlapping with one another and influencing one another, and that's gets really difficult.
[00:20:50] but you know, once you do all of these things, then you have bottom up plan. and many, many folks just, think, hey, once you get to the MQL layer, then, you know, that's, that's your, that's your bottom then we're home.
[00:21:02] it's not, it's not. Right. And, and the other piece around it sometimes is also taking a, an output efficiency measure.
[00:21:11] And in this case we're talking about customer acquisition cost payback. So basically, how long does it take, for the customer court that just acquired.
[00:21:22] To pay back the cost that I invested in order to acquire them. Yeah. And you know, benchmarks around 15 month for B2B SAR can be more, came less and so forth. but basically sometimes CFOs take that ratio, look at, how much revenue they need to grow or they, you know, they want to grow.
[00:21:43] And then basically take that ratio to calculate back how much sales and marketing. Budget you're gonna get. and then say, Well, you know, there go, you know, now we have that number and, you know, this is really the desired outcome. and really what they're doing is they're putting the, the card in from the horse here.
[00:21:58] Really what would need to happen is with all the things you're doing, all the changes you're executing, all the money you're spending, all the people you're hiring, if we do all of these things and things happen like we want them to happen, what is the outcome of that c payback wise? and then you have that number instead of taking it as an input to come up with a budget.
[00:22:18] Right? so that's kind of the, the fake bottom up. You know, third, third item we see go wrong a lot.
[00:22:26] Mikkel: And I guess there is something you can do about this one. So if there is a top down target and plan being set, you could go and do the bottom up, couldn't you?
[00:22:35] Toni: Yeah. and do a true bottom up,
[00:22:38] not the, you know, not the fake bottom up. Do the true bottom up. So, and for sales it sometimes means, you know, what does the hiring look like? How does the ramp up work? And some of these things a bit easier, for revenue operations might be, what projects can we think we can achieve? And, you know, it could be for product to roll out specific things and, you know, building all of this in for marketing to.
[00:23:03] On a higher level, understand how they want to get somewhere. And you know, what the big bets are gonna be for the year. Obviously on the more granular level, marketing won't know six months out what they're specifically gonna do. Right. But really building this thing from the bottom up. and then, you know, matching top down and bottom up.
[00:23:22] And I think once you match it, I think you're set up for, For a really strong start already in that case.
[00:23:29] Mikkel: I think what's also pretty cool is we've, we talk a bit about how the evolution of revenue operations within a company.
[00:23:36] And if you're right now stuck with tools or you're, you know, you're a sales ops functions and there isn't any revenue operations or marketing ops for that matter. This is one of the points where you can actually shift the perception by doing this work. And if you're in sales ops and you do a bottom up approach based on your target, and you go to the VP of sales and say, Hey, Toni, you know, I, I looked at this plan.
[00:23:57] I match it with how our engine is performing, and there's a. Gap. We need to talk about this. Yeah. He or she is really gonna value that input to a very important conversation because it's gonna help them down the line.
[00:24:09] Toni: Yeah. And if you are, and he or she will say it, I'm just saying it right now as well. If the answer's gonna be, well, well, you know, then marking just needs to come up with a gap. No, that's the wrong way about it. Yeah, that's, you know, already there. Already there. It's, it's, you know, it's gonna be terrible for you because obviously, you know, you are now in a sales operations kind of role and, and your master is the VP of sales in that sense. and now you're just, you know, giving, handing the problem somewhere else in the organization.
[00:24:40] You know, the answer could also be weld. You just need to have better, you know, churn rates or something like that. and you know, I think you as a sales op person, should then actually step up and be the rev ops mind. Yeah. And be like, Wait, a, but we can't do that either. but you know, I can talk to the marketing guy and see if you know what he thinks about it, and then maybe come back and facilitate.
[00:25:02] But that, you know, that should really be the immediate default instead of like, ah, cool. Yeah, let's just push it over to marketing and be done with
[00:25:10] Mikkel: I think it's also a point where, Rome wasn't built in a day, right? So, so you, you kind of, this is just a starting point you can take to be a bit more strategic and impactful towards the revenue.
[00:25:20] obviously this kind of exercise works really well if you look across the entire funnel and, and we, kind of did it in one of the previous episodes on, you know, 10% improvements in seven places of the funnel. You want to have an approach where you. Across the entire journey. So you don't end up in this situation where you hand down the problem elsewhere.
[00:25:39] let's jump into, number four.
[00:25:42] Toni: Yeah, let's do that. So you alluded to it, in the beginning. planning on all of that stuff is great, but it will only get you so far. And, our mantra on my mantra is, it really only gets you 20% of the way. So what's the other 80%? The other 80% is execution. getting all of that stuff actually done next year. and, everyone was like, Well, duh, obviously.
[00:26:05] Thanks Mr. Obvious. But the point here is that, you know, create a strong plan. created in a bottom up way where you can actually follow up on things like, you know, hiring people, executing projects, executing campaigns, and obviously the metrics that are tracking around this. and then use that as your guardrails for January, February, and so forth.
[00:26:26] And check in and understand, okay. Some of those people weren't hired, who was responsible for that? Oh, it's Michael. Hey Michael, what are we doing about this? have a conversation and. Oh no. This gap here, in March, we can see that this is gonna be half a million by the end of the. Unless we fix it.
[00:26:45] can you fix it Mikkel? And then, you know, you might say, I actually, I don't think I can. I'm sorry. And then, you know, we can ask the rest of the organization, can you fix it? You know, do we find a way collectively to close that half million gap? Because otherwise that's gonna be an issue. And if we can't find it, We probably need to approach, you know, at least the CFO and be like, Hey, you know, this is what we are seeing.
[00:27:07] and if you do this, really well, if you do this in a way where it doesn't become finger pointing in your organization, if you do this in a way where, people genuinely wanna, optimize for the revenue target and help each other, and there's no, there's no. Uncertainty where the gap is coming from and why the gap is there and what we need to do to fix it.
[00:27:33] If you can solely focus on fixing it, then your execution will be much easier in that sense. Right. And, and really, we, we all know that every plan, gets ft at some point in your, in your, year. There's this, you know, everyone has a plan until they get kicked in the face. Yeah. And it's true. I mean, all of us operators know that that is exactly what's going to happen, and you just need to be able to see it immediately, understand the severity of the issue.
[00:28:01] So are we talking. half a million are talking 5 million wherever you are on your revenue scale. and if you're talking 5 million, then okay, wow. Now we need to ring those alarm bells in March instead of in November. Right. And then you actually give yourself the chance to cost. Correct. You will always.
[00:28:18] That's kind of the cool and the funny thing about it, you will always find another path to get to that number. There will always be something, maybe spending more money, maybe shifting things around, maybe being creative, maybe being.
[00:28:30] but you can only put yourself into the position of actually achieving that if you have enough time.
[00:28:36] If, if this is something that comes up November versus in March, there's very little you can do. And basically the only, the only recalls will be, let's hope this big customer closes. Right? and, that's why you should do a plan. Do it bottom up, do it, data driven, use all of those advantages you. and you know, if you do it like that, following through and tracking what happens in reality toward those plans, it's extremely simple.
[00:29:04] and when you don't, seeing the gap, quantifying the gap for the end of the year and then taking recourse, extremely simple as well. And this is, you know, the right hope. We are sometimes talking about, it's very easy to talk about this in theory. It's very difficult to do it in practice. We as grow blocks are basically trying to fix that exact thing, right?
[00:29:26] The intersection of data driven, bottom up planning with, in our daily, weekly, monthly execution and really creating, you know, one tool that combines those two things instead of having the Excel spreadsheet with finance and the Salesforce dashboard with sales.
[00:29:43] Mikkel: And I mean, the reality is gonna be, in some companies, they won't be able to see that they're falling behind until it's too late.
[00:29:50] right? They might not have the infrastructure yet, and obviously that's, then you have a clear case to why you should go and approach building that infrastructure. But I like the point around, well, when there is a gap, you want to talk about it immediate. I had a coworker at some point saying it's not an issue that we, created or face a problem.
[00:30:10] The issue is how do we fix it? That's, you know, how you go about solving a problem tells a lot about you. So I don't think you have to sit and be worried that you can see that a trend or something is going off track. You should worry if you're not actually voicing it so you and the rest of the organization can cause Correct.
[00:30:27] Toni: Yeah. And it's also a really good tool to, discuss with the top down plan guys. Like, Hey, we are already going off track here. want us to get there in order realistically to still do it. It would take those five things.
[00:30:45] Are you willing to pay that? are you willing to have us go for it? Because the thing is what happens with those gaps and you trying to catch up?
[00:30:55] They usually become more and more frantic and crazy and distracting from the, 90% of the value that you need to create in order to get to 80% of the target anyway. And then you're basically, starting to have a conversation, Okay, how much are we going to let those. Closing those last percent distract us from getting to the 90% in the first place.
[00:31:21] And that's a really cool conversation to have. And I feel too few organizations, organized and are mature and are honest enough with themselves to actually have those conversations. Right. and, and it starts with having a solid, foundation to remove this whole discussion around, well, we don.
[00:31:40] Well, maybe we can still hit, maybe we just need to really, you know, order a couple of pizzas and figure this out together. and know, moving on from that point, talking about the gap, talking about the proposals, talking about the likelihood of those, and then, then have a really grown up conversation, Well, what are we, what are we gonna do best now?
[00:31:58] Yeah. And, and getting yourself into that position is, it's really tricky, but I also see public companies not, not having achieved that, by the way. So this is not a completely uncommon thing.
[00:32:09] No, it's pretty hard to achieve. Which is also why we know that 95% of you, already mess it up next year, you know?
[00:32:16] Mikkel: But, you know, there are things you can do and I, I at least hope that some of the advice we've covered.
[00:32:22] Mikkel: can help put you on the right path. Yeah, it is a lot of work and I think just one important piece is when you go and talk with those people above you, they're used to being thrown curve balls and they also know there are things happening now that can be beyond your control, causing whatever deficit or gap is happening.
[00:32:42] If it's yourself, that's cost it because something didn't go as according to plan. That's fine as long as you address, then what can we do to fix
[00:32:51] Toni: Yeah. And try and stay away from the pessimistic corner. Like, ah, it's not gonna work, blah, blah, blah. That's also super draining. Use some data, use some reality.
[00:33:02] try and use that to build your case. But then there's also always a point where you will have to buy it and just give it your best. And you know what? Sometimes you were wrong. Sometimes it seemed impossible, but it was possible in the end. Happens very rarely, by the way. But it's really important to still stay a team play in the end and really kind of try and pull it off together. Yeah.