Warren Zena: The CRO Spotlight Podcast, pro Farm Production.
Hi, I'm Warren Zena, founder and CEO of the CRO Collective, and
welcome to the CRO Spotlight Podcast.
This podcast is for Chief Revenue Officers, aspiring CROs and
CEOs who are looking to hire or support a CRO to succeed.
To join me and my expert guests as we debate, discuss, and tackle today's
complex revenue growth challenges, and provide practical insights
to help CROs succeed in the role.
We're really excited to have you with us now.
Let's get to it.
Okay, and welcome to this episode of the CRO Spotlight podcast.
This is Warren Zena, the founder and CEO of the CRO.
And, um, you know, it's been a while.
I know that I just released a couple of episodes.
Uh, you'll see uh, one from Steve Schmidt that just came out today.
And then, uh, Rosalyn Santa Elena should be releasing next week.
That's a great conversation.
And, uh, I just wanna like, say a couple things cuz it's been a while since I've
had, uh, an episode, but, One of the things that I'm seeing now that I find
it really interesting is how many chief revenue officers don't own marketing.
It's really interesting What happens is, I'm speaking to a lot of
chief revenue officers, and as you probably all from hearing this, a
lot, a lot of 'em own sales, right?
Only maybe they're given customer success to some degree.
Some own it, but very few own marketing and I it's, it's like the last.
Frontier, you know, they can't seem to grab, and I have
a lot of thoughts on this.
Um, I'll probably get into this a lot with my great guest today, but it's
a really interesting topic and it has to do a lot to do with, I would call
it like a traffic jam that's happening at the C-suite that is, companies
aren't really thinking this through.
And also it's also because, um, there's not a lot of.
Strategic thinking related to C-Suite leadership and how it
implicates itself when companies grow and you end up in a situation
where you have a CMO and then a c.
And you sort of let them duke it out, and that never ends
up winning good for anybody.
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Warren Zena: opportunities don't get updated.
Things get missed and sales can suffer in.
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I'm really excited today to have our guest, Jackie Russo Anderson.
So Jackie is the CRO of Blue Con.
It's a data company.
We'll talk a bit about about that business, but, um, the reason I wanted
to talk to Jackie, she has such a great background and she's a chief revenue
officer and it is a really great story.
So, so she was a partner, a company called Scale House.
Right.
She helped data analytics companies scale there, and before that she was a
Chief Client Officer at Simmons, right?
Where, where she's kind of spearheaded its client first strategy.
And she directed all the sales and client services and then led
the custom research business.
And she helped transition Simmons from like an experienced, experienced sub-brand
to a standalone private equity company.
That's, that's a, that's a big thing.
I wanna talk about that.
Uh, she was at Forrester Research for a while and JD Power and Associates.
Uh, so she's done a lot of really great roles at some really big brands.
Uh, she speaks.
Uh, she, her expertise has been cited in the Times in the journal.
Uh, she's also a member of Chief and, uh, she does a lot of, uh, work in the
relation to National Association of Women and Sales Professionals, et cetera.
So, without further ado, I just wanna introduce Jackie.
Jackie, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me, Warren.
Excited to be here.
Great.
So, um, I'd love you to, uh, expound a little bit on your background cuz I, you
know, peppered with some things, but, you know, one of the things that the audience
really likes to hear about, How somebody becomes a Chief Revenue Officer and even
what that role has manifested for you, specifically what Chief Revenue Officer.
Looks like in your world.
So I'd love to hear
Jacqueline Rousseau- Anderson: more about that.
Yeah, that's a great question.
Um, what Chief Revenue Officer has manifested for me some days
is kind of an identity crisis if we're, if we're being honest.
So, uh, we'll get into that.
But before I took this role back in January, Um, I was a chief customer
officer here, atonic, so I was overseeing everything that happened
post-sale with our customers.
So from onboarding and implementation into, you know, our ongoing engagements
with them, partnerships, training, enablement, uh, all touch touchpoints
across the customer journey.
And my background before this has been really at the intersection
of data analytics products, uh, with a commercial bent.
So if we're being honest, I never expected to get to a CRO path.
That was never something I set out to do.
I didn't go to.
You know, business, school or anything.
My degrees are actually in research analytics methods, so I pictured being
in the back of the house someday.
And then as I got into scenarios and got exposed to different roles, I realized
that I had a passion for just the business strategy of what we do, how we do, and.
Doing it in a scalable way.
Um, so that kind of has led me to the CRO role and I say an identity crisis
because it's interesting, uh, when you're a chief customer officer, a lot of people
wanna talk to you because they wanna know what are other customers doing?
You know, how can we help them, which are the conversations I love to have.
And then you flip over to the CRO title and suddenly everyone
assumes that you're in the room.
You wanna find more money or, you know, you're having a, a tough
conversation and you're gonna try to, you know, add another line item
into their contract or something.
So, I'm not gonna lie, I still think about things the same way and wanna
help our customers, you know, be transformational in what they're
trying to do in their businesses.
But, uh, there are some days where I'm like, oh, wait, you don't, you
know, I'm like, oh, I'll have that con conversation with the customer.
I'll come in and do that presentation.
And somebody's like, well, they kind of wanna talk to somebody
who, you know, fill in the blank.
I'm like, well, I am that person.
I just have this revenue that has somehow become a dirty word in a lot of instances.
Warren Zena: So, so much I wanna unpack.
It's so great.
I love it.
A couple things.
One I wanted to point out, maybe we can get into a bit, is the fact that, you
know, one of the reasons, aside from some of the obvious ones, but one of
the other important reasons I wanted to do this with you is because you got
to the path of Chief Revenue Officer, but you didn't get there through sales.
Right.
And that's unusual.
So that's, that's interesting to me because I think there's
a trending on that right now.
We can get into that a bit because.
Sort of like, we can talk about this idea of the sort of sales led
CRO and the data or operations led CRO and they're both like different
sort of, you know, creatures.
Right.
But it, it, it, it's an interesting thing.
Yeah.
And the second thing was that you said some of that really I want to get into
right now and I didn't think about it as much until you said it, which.
It's not just the way your company perceives the word revenue,
but it's the way customers and clients perceive revenue.
And now what's happened as a result of this confusion around the role,
you're having an identity crisis where people think you're looking for
money because the entire industry has been trained to think Chief Revenue
Officer is someone who just does sales.
So how do you manage that?
So you're in a room and you know, or maybe a better question would
be, not only how do you manage it, but what would your advice.
To help someone else manage it when they see that possibly happening
down the road, that can help maybe mitigate some of that perception.
Jacqueline Rousseau- Anderson: Yeah, so I think about it in the same
way that I think about sales, which is another seemingly dirty road,
especially in the SAS business.
Um, you know, everybody just assumes a, that you're trying to, and this
is a broad generalization, right, but that salespeople are trying
to wheel and deal and, you know, especially in the SaaS world, right?
I'm putting a contract in front of you.
There must be some hidden Gotcha.
Either, you know, you're gonna.
Corner me into an agreement that actually ends up overcharging me a whole bunch.
And you can't wait to hit send on that invoice for overages or
it's not gonna perform the way that you're describing it to me.
So from a sales perspective, I think that that's kind of the cornerstone
that, you know, at least, I'm trying to really unpack and bring back.
So we talk a lot about EPE and BCAN.
So it's uh, expertise, partnership, and.
And that's how we show up to our customers, but it's also
how we show up to our prospects.
So I think it really is just showing up every day and proving and building that
trust with our customers and prospects that says, this isn't, you know, a shtick.
I'm not trying to be, you know, the friendly person who gained some trust
and then you know, you know, pardon the language but screws you on the back end.
This.
Really how we operate here.
And so it is just showing up in a very authentic way and not letting
customers know this is how we operate.
And holding the teams to the same accountability because whatever experience
somebody's gonna have with a sales rep is how they're going to categorize you,
or a customer success manager or whoever.
They're gonna remember that experience and the adage of, you know, you, you
remember more how somebody makes you feel.
That's what your reps are doing.
So it's not a magic wand approach, but I think it has to start with how
you structure and the expectations you set for your team when it
comes to commercial interactions.
And then doing the same as a revenue leader.
So when I come into a room, you know, I need to show up.
I need to be on top of my game.
I need to prove that I'm there to truly help.
Prospects and customers be successful.
And that means being able to talk to them about the use cases that are working or
not working within our tool, being honest about what we can or can't help them with.
Um, and just being that leader who shows up with EPE every
day and every interaction.
And that begins to really kind of change the sentiment, um, and also recognizing
that no matter how many times I show up, that way the team shows up the way.
Unfortunately there are people have, that have had such bad experiences or have
such a stigma associated with sales and revenue that they're gonna assume things
and then I can't change their framework.
So all I can do is help 'em be successful in their role and hopefully
eventually we kind of turn that so, I think it, I, I, I truly think it's
a fundamental challenge and what I've noticed, especially, you know, a lot
of Euro guests are in the same, uh, mindset when it comes to revenue that.
Revenue is the byproduct of making your customer successful.
So we talk about in customer success, the job was to make
customer successful every day.
Full stop.
That's what your job is.
And so if we are committed to that vision from day one in the sales journey of
understanding first, what is it that my customers need in order to be successful?
Does our tool help them do that?
How do we do that?
Structuring an agreement that's mutually beneficial to get them
there, and then making sure that we help them execute on it.
Then that should speak for itself, and then the revenue will come naturally
because you're helping them be successful.
And that just kind of works itself out.
It's
Warren Zena: certainly music to my ears, you know?
I mean, I love that, that philosophy, and it's one that I'm kind of pushing more.
I put the customer at the center of the revenue engine, not dollars.
Yeah, exactly.
It's very difficult.
PE and VC organizations to get their arms around that.
Cuz that's what they're looking at.
They're looking at dollars, you know?
But, you know, you and I, I obviously are like-minded here and I think
a lot of people understand that a happy customer equals dollars.
Right?
So that's the goal.
I, I, I think it seems to make sense.
The problem I think is chief revenue officers are usually
led by pipeline growth.
New client acquisition growth, right?
Deal closes, which I, those are obviously critically important components of,
of a revenue, uh, engine operation.
Healthy one, but no one, I dunno, maybe they can, I don't know, maybe not
successfully, but they can maybe argue the wisdom of making the customer experience
the first thing you think about.
As a matter of fact, I think customer experience should be a place where
sales and marketing get most of their insights in terms of how they
should speak to new prospects, right?
Because an existing customer is gonna gimme all the information I need to
make sure that I can replicate that experience through the sales process,
because when someone comes into the funnel, they're a customer, essentially.
Mm-hmm.
Right?
Yep.
So, yep.
A couple things I wanna ask you about this.
Because it's great that you have this thought and that you also come from
a non-sales background, and here you are, you're Chief Revenue Officer.
So walk me through what the process was like at your company that the decision was
made to make you a Chief Revenue Officer.
Like how did that, what was the nexus of that decision?
What was the thinking behind it?
Like why did we decide to make Jackie have this title and what was the, what were the
objectives associated with that change?
And why?
Like what were the, what were, what were the business decisions around that?
I'm curious.
Yeah, so
Jacqueline Rousseau- Anderson: what you were saying at the beginning and
the kind of the opening, um, of the podcast is spot on to what I've seen
in a lot of trends, which is companies not being strategic in how they're
thinking about the C-suite structure.
And so you have this mix, especially in scaling companies of legacy sea
titles that maybe were there because.
Somebody fell, we reached a certain level of growth and we needed to
put in ACMO or we needed a chief uh, operating officer, or whatever it is.
And so you have these C-suite titles that don't necessarily
align to the actual strategy and future strategy of the business.
So that's one piece.
And I would say importantly, our business and our leaders at the
time, Were on the opposite side of that scale, and they were being very
strategic about what the company needed.
So before this move, we had a new business sales team.
Um, and BDRs, you know, at one point reported a new business team.
Then they kind of moved over to marketing.
Um, and then under customer success, I own the number, uh,
relative to account management.
So renewals and upsell, cross sell that motion.
As well as, uh, all the engagements we were doing with partners and
what the leaders at the time.
Um, so our CEO is Corey Munch back and, um, our outgoing CEO and Co-Founder was
Bart Halk and they said, You know, a lot of the same things that you were just
talking about where customers aren't customers after they sign the contract.
Customers are everybody that we touch in the initial conversation on, so we
need to really be thinking about how we engage and serve them from day one,
but also how we structure agreements.
Are healthy for the business, both from an initial perspective and
also from an expansion perspective, and roll out the products and
services that actually meet needs.
You made a great point, right?
If you don't, if you don't have any idea what your customers are doing
with your platform, your tool, your service, whatever it is, or what they
need from changing market trends, actual usage, whatever, how are you
gonna introduce new products and services that help drive revenue?
If you have a disconnect right, then I can throw out all the products.
I can, you know, slice and dice my platform and put a whole
bunch of like tack on options.
But if they don't actually address anybody's challenges or needs,
That's such a clueless approach to, to trying to scale the business.
So luckily Corey and Bart said, no, you know, we kind of recognize that
from both a CX perspective and also a business health and growth perspective,
we need one person that kind of.
Is under the spotlight and you know, we have your, their, our thumb on
that part of the business and they're responsible for making sure that thing.
Now it's a very cross-functional role.
Right.
I'm collaborating super closely with the marketing team, with the CS team partner.
I mean everybody.
Um, But at the end of the day, right, when somebody's looking at, okay,
where are we against revenue goals?
I have to be able to speak to why things are the way they are
and what we're doing about it.
That's great.
Warren Zena: So you, you had the benefit, by the way, if I don't mind asking you,
what, at what stage were you at Yeah.
When that decision was made, if you don't mind, like from a revenue a r
r, like what, what was your revenue level at the, at the point that you.
Very wise CEOs decided to make this
Jacqueline Rousseau- Anderson: decision.
Um, I dunno if I'm allowed to say exactly, but under 50.
Yeah, roughly.
We were under 50.
Yep.
Warren Zena: Fine.
That's, that's great.
That's, that's very common.
I'm, I'm thinking that was probably the case and I asked that question and I,
I appreciate, you know, you can't be specific, but it, your answer is exactly
what I wanted to hear is that, you know, what we're seeing, and I suspect you
agree with this, is what happens with, uh, companies is I look at it like they, okay.
So I can, I can make it like personal on this.
We, we just bought a.
And you know, when you buy a house, particularly like an old
house, you know, you sort of have to make it your own house, right?
And so there's things you have to do and invest in, in stages, right?
There's the things you need when you first move in.
Mm-hmm.
And then there's the things you're gonna want to have later.
And there's also other conditions.
It's, you know, things we can do quicker and things that we can afford now.
And then things that we can do later.
Mm-hmm.
And then there's also the time that is required to do these things.
Right.
There's a lot of factors that go into it.
And building a home or renovating a home is very much like a company in that you
have to do things at the right time.
Right in the stage.
And I think that similarly to kind of keep the analogy is if I know that
there's like a longer stage, bigger renovation that I need to do that's
gonna have impact on a lot of other things, then it, it should have an
impact on the decisions I make today.
Right?
So I'm thinking ahead and I'm planning it out, but when does it happening?
Happening?
A lot.
I could see how this can happen in my situation is you sort of end up
with the kitchen that you built as opposed to the kitchen that you want
because now you're sort of stuck with the kitchen that you built, right?
You know, you, you sort of mm-hmm.
Get comfortable with it.
Like, all right, you know, it doesn't have the island in the
middle and the refrigerator could be bigger and I don't like whatever.
But you know what the cost and time associated with and disruption associated
with making the kitchen that we want, we're just gonna have to live with one.
We have, and companies chug along with the kitchen that
they have, and Eve eventually.
That kitchen, it doesn't work anymore.
It can't produce enough food for the noun of, you know, mouths it needs to feed.
And then they come into a really bad problem.
And so the companies that I see succeed really well understand that those things
are sort of an inevitability in the way companies grow, but they're smart at being
able to make decisions to pivot out of those things and make the right decisions.
And they, most of 'em don't.
And what ends up happening is things like we talked about in the
beginning of this, which is, you know, it does make sense at this.
To have somebody oversee the entire revenue function,
cuz that just makes sense.
The level of complexity that we've reached at the company right now
requires more integration and alignment and it needs somebody to oversee it.
But Steve and Bob, or you know, Jackie and Mary are gonna fight because one owns
sales and one owns marketing, and I just don't know who's gonna win that battle
and I'm not getting in the middle of it.
Someone gonna let them figure it out and they don't figure it out.
What they do is they come up with some sort of.
Or structure that accommodates both of their respective survival requirements.
And you end up with half a kitchen, you know?
And I think great leaders just say, look, I don't care about those things.
I need my customers happy, and this particular structure or arrangement
is going to get the best outcome, and I'm just gonna have to make some big,
bold decisions to make that happen.
And the ones that do and know what they're.
Succeed.
It's painful, it's not easy, but you get there and your company seems to
have figured out a way to advance you.
They found the right person who knows how to do this had the right skillsets, and
they put you in a position to do this.
So what were some of the disruptions and things that had to be managed?
To move you from that position into the, from the position you
had to the position that you're in.
Like, I love my, my, my audience loves to hear these transition stories because
they're going through this stuff.
They're trying to figure out like, how do I move into the role?
Yeah.
With all the disruptions that occur.
Kind of almost related to that renovation analogy that I gave you before.
Love to hear about that.
Yeah.
Jacqueline Rousseau- Anderson: First of all, great analogy.
I think that's spot on.
Um, and second.
I mean, disruptions are core and never ending in, in a scale up or a startup or
any part of the business in these days.
Uh, so I think before even addressing the specifics of this situation, it's making
sure that as a leader, you know, as a C E O, you've put together your C team.
Smart, flexible people who are skilled, but also are there to
make the business successful.
And I think that's where a lot of those trade offs can happen.
So, I mean, to be completely transparent, when, uh, Corey and Bart first approached
me about moving into the CRO position, I was a little hesitant, right?
Like I said, I'd never had a career path set on being a CRO.
And I'd been in the CCO role for about a year, and we had
made a ton of great progress.
I loved my team.
I was super proud of the work that we were doing.
I loved being in the trenches with customers and.
I also felt that we still had quite a bit of work to do, right?
To kind of get to the vision of where I had seen us going in when
I agreed to take the CCO role.
And so there's a reflection point that comes as like, oh.
Like, I see why the business needs this, but also it's hard, right?
It's Molly Graham's letting go of your Legos, uh, across the scaling, and
you're like, all right, I gosh, yep.
I gotta give, I gotta give away this Lego.
But it, it was hard.
And so I did soul searching.
I had lots of conversations and I guess, I don't know if.
You know, a personality flaw or strength, I guess depending on the day.
I'm committed to making the company and everybody in the organization, we
call ourselves the blue crew, and I adore every person in our blue crew.
So I knew that this was the right move to make, to set the company up for success.
So I moved over and.
It was a little bit, you know, it wasn't like great everything on day one and
when I move into the revenue organization is, you know, I cut cords, everything
that was on my brain and I was doing moved off to somebody else's plate.
We kind of defined a transition period and we said, okay, for the first three months,
Here's what I'm gonna begin to transition off to other people in the organization.
Maybe here's some of the priorities that we're just gonna have to let go of.
And then here's the way I'm gonna start to get ramped up and figure
out what's going on over here.
And I was.
You know, clear, and we were clear with our board too, that, you know,
we really needed the first half of the year to fully kind of reset and, and
understand what we were doing as part of the organization, but especially
during the first 90 days, right?
I needed to get into the weeds of how things were operating, what
was going on, all of the pieces of the puzzle to understand what
was there and what wasn't There.
And doing that, and also trying to, again, let go of the Legos that
I had on the customer org side.
But also support the team, right?
Cuz I didn't wanna walk away from my leaders on that side of the
organization and kind of leave them to feel like they were hanging.
So it, it wasn't clean, but it was a lot of communication.
And then to circle back to my initial point, that's when having those.
Leaders and hiring fantastic people from the director level on up is so
critical because if you have the right people in all of those roles, they're
gonna jump in, they're gonna help out, they're gonna flag things that might
fall through the cracks, and then you just kind of triage them as as you go.
That's great.
Sounds
Warren Zena: like what, what you're saying it's really helpful is a.
Populating your leadership team with people whom have a flexible
relationship to leadership, right.
They're just willing to do what it takes to mm-hmm.
Make the business work and as opposed to being territorial, like holding their
piece of the pie or whatever it is.
And that's hard.
It's really hard.
Right.
Yeah.
That's competency.
That's like finding people whom from day one know that I may call upon you.
You know, it's like the Godfather.
I may call upon you one day to, you know, do something, but you know, it's
in the best interest of the business.
And you know, of course I'll, I want your feedback and your input
to check if I'm right or not.
But if it's required, everybody needs to sort of figure out that their places
might switch around here, but it's in the best interest of the business, right?
That's.
And the second thing you said too is, you know, kind of preparing for, and
this is somewhat self-serving here, but you're speaking to, what I refer
to and you maybe know from listening to me, is the c r o readiness part of
the whole thing, which is making your company ready for achieve revenue.
Mm-hmm.
That's really what we're talking about right now.
Right?
We're, we're creating a new position that's gonna have a,
like cross-functional oversight.
It's very disruptive.
So you mentioned something that I think is really important.
I'd love to find out out more about this cuz this is the area that
we're looking to help people is.
Getting ready for the chief revenue officer and like we put this
person, we put Jackie in this job and you said it very articulately.
Now you gotta like, like learn things.
You gotta learn like what's going on.
You gotta have access to stuff and you have to be able to assess it and,
you know, know what it is and then be able to optimize it or figure out how
much of it is not good or what's bad.
And it's mostly data and right.
You know, how did you do that?
Yep.
Like what was the methodology and the process that you took to become
smarter about what was really going on that allowed you to then
be able to be ready to start?
Implementing whatever you wanted.
How did you do that?
Yeah,
Jacqueline Rousseau- Anderson: so, um, luckily we had a ton of reporting
and data in the organization already.
Um, and as you know from my background, uh, data and analytics
is, you know, my happy place.
So, What I did was kind of, you know, do a debrief with the kind of team
on, okay, where, where are things?
What are we doing?
And then I basically created a research plan and I said, okay, here's
all the things that I would wanna be able to look at, you know, from.
You know, new business rates, conversions, what's our mql, ql, S A
l, conversion rates, what's the timing?
What does it look like across reps, verticals, industries, every single thing.
Um, and basically created a laundry list of reports that I would need to
see worked with the business ops team.
Um, and also had to work with them because the way that I wanted to look at data and
some of the reports that I wanted to look.
Weren't necessarily how management had been looking at them before.
So we had a ton of reports, which were really helpful, but they
weren't all through the lens of how I would wanna look at the business.
So I kind of had to, you know, take a step back and I was like, I know we have
a lot of historical data, but I wanna look at it in this way because I need
to answer these business questions.
So, It literally created a sheet of here's what I'm trying to sell for and
here are the ways that I need to look at the data in order to get to that.
And then I spent weeks in, um, spreadsheets and analytics just going
through it and then work to create, you know, a bottoms up plan for the
business for our 2023 budget that I felt was actually reliable and that I could
stand behind and that whole process.
Helped me figure out like, okay, here's the gaps that we have.
Here's where we have, you know, um, maybe a bunch of renewals coming up.
So we have an opportunity over here in this particular part of the
business, but you know, maybe we aren't running as many events this
year because of marketing spend.
So how does that impact that whole conversion cycle and
play all the way through?
So it really was a data and analytics led.
Initiative and then conversations across marketing with the c e o,
with everybody to say, okay, here's how I'm thinking about things.
How does this jive with what you're doing?
Um, and back to the CMO perspective, I mean, we very
much had to be in sync, right?
Because their goals about creating the pipeline that is gonna
feed this plan, we had to be.
Thinking about the numbers in the same way.
We had to be speaking the same language.
And I work with a fantastic cmo.
I don't even wanna say his name because then somebody might
try to reach out and grab him.
But he, he's done this a couple times.
He's phenomenal to work with.
And you know, we came to an agreement of what we were looking at and
dealing with, and we just stay in lockstep on making sure that.
Both the assumptions that we built into that initial plan are holding, and then
if something changes, then we need to make adjustments and understand like,
is that a me adjustment because now I need to condense my, uh, conversion
rates on the back end of the deal?
Or is that a you assumption and impact because.
Actually, it's taking things longer to get through from stage one to stage two.
How are we gonna impact that?
And it's a constant trade off and back and forth to make sure that we're
still narrowing in on the same end
Warren Zena: targets.
That's great.
Really great.
So you didn't need any third party help.
Uh, you did this all yourselves.
It was all your own internal methodologies and stuff.
You utilized your.
Internal resources to do this analysis,
Jacqueline Rousseau- Anderson: right?
Yeah.
And we have, um, so we started a partnership with Vista Equity
Partners back in January of last year.
So luckily we have them as a partner too, to kind of check it on.
And they have some great benchmarks that we can use around, you know, how
do our conversion rates look compared to others in the business, or, you know,
what are the profiles of successful reps that they're seeing across other.
Um, they have kind of frameworks and screenings that we can use, but if you
don't have those skill sets in house right then, You absolutely should look
for partners that you trust, and I think also be realistic about the CRO that
you are thinking about bringing in, which is relative to your CEO and the
other parts of your leadership team.
So if you have a CEO who's super commercially focused
and maybe has a pension for.
Sales, then you might need a different profile of a CRO.
If you don't have somebody who is as commercially strong,
maybe your CRO needs to be, you know, more commercially focused.
So I think that's important too, is just to be.
Brutally honest, which not everybody is good at, right?
Of understanding what your own strengths are and weaknesses as a leader,
but also within the organization.
If you don't have a great biz ops team or you know, you don't have
the in-house data, then you need somebody else to kind of help you
figure that out and and be a resource.
And I think sometimes people shy away from that because they don't want to.
Maybe admit the parts of their business that aren't as far along
structurally as they should be.
Uh, and so they shy away from so much easier to work with consultants or
anybody if you're true about what you have to work with and what you do.
Warren Zena: Yeah, that's so true.
That's so true.
So I like what you said before, it's really important is there's a, like,
almost like a leadership profile.
The people who are in place and they have strengths that need to be
reflective of the type of c o that you bring on that has to be the right fit.
You know, because I think the initial feeling is in a
blank slate is that mm-hmm.
You're gonna hire some really commercially brilliant c o which obviously
makes sense cuz that's their role.
But you're right.
If, if you have a CEO who's really strong, You probably need someone who's a little
bit more analytical to fill that slot up.
I mean, I'm not like you, you and I are opposites.
I, I'm less the analytics and data person.
I'm more the, you know, business leader, you know, vision person.
Um, and so, you know, I know like I think the key is here.
And we're sort of, right now, you and I are speaking to like, let's
say, two different people in this one part of this conversation.
That is CEOs looking for chief Revenue officers and people who wanna become Chief
Revenue Officers are two key constituents that are following this podcast.
On the CEO's side, it's know thy self, what type of CRO is gonna compliment
your leadership style best, and to your.
Be honest about that.
Like what really is it?
Like what are you not good at, and what are you good at?
And be willing to be really succinct about that because if your ego takes
over and you're not willing to be succinct, you're probably gonna bring
in somebody that isn't a fit and.
That's not good.
And then the second thing is, if you are a CRO, and I, I tell this, you, you
wanna become, and I tell this to my, my clients all the time, is understand
the profile of the leadership team that you're gonna be plugged into, and make
sure that your skillset stack is a fit for the company that you're going into.
And there's no duplication or redundancy or conflict, right?
Because if you're a superpower, Is gonna be in any way impeded by somebody
else's desire to want to use that thing.
You're not gonna be useful there, you know?
So I guess that's sort of, I want to go with the next part of this conversation
is what would your, and we kind of did it already, but maybe expound on it.
What's your advice to.
Two people that the CEO looking to hire a chief revenue officer, let's just
say for the scenario's sake, they're at the same kind of, well, you know,
20, 30 million in revenues and they're ready to make that sort of jump to that
more scalable and aligned organization.
What are the, what key ways, key criteria or uh, methodologies or ways
you should be thinking about how to bring on a Chief Revenue Officer first ceo?
Yeah.
Jacqueline Rousseau- Anderson: For a ceo, I would say what we were talking
about being, you know, brutally honest about yourself as a CEO and the rest of
your leadership team in what's truly.
Missing.
So why is it that you need a CRO and what do you hope to get out of that role?
Um, I think that one that is crystal clear and then from there you can kind of create
a profile of what you think that person should bring to the table and be like.
Um, the second thing I would recommend is, you know, ensuring that you are really
thinking about a cro r and not an SVP of sales because, You know, back to your,
like one of your first comments, right?
There's a lot of mix up and what is a cro r o really?
And you don't need a CRO if you need an SVP of sales.
This is two different things.
So you could be transparent with somebody coming in and say, listen, I'm trying
to fill this SVP of sales right now.
Oh, I need you to get this sales house in order.
And then, you know, I want to pass this to a CRO.
Or you need to make sure that you've structured for.
You know, that VP level of leadership across your teams and allow the
CRO to really focus on the business of driving and owning the, the
revenue strategy for the company.
Um, and then also I think for a lot of, you know, maybe founder led
or earlier stage companies being realistic on the readiness to.
Take feedback from the CRO, right?
Like do you want the CRO just to say you have the c r o, or are you open to them
telling you that you need to change the go-to-market strategy, or that you need
to make changes to whatever you know, software service product you're selling?
Are you ready to give up?
The pricing method that you, you know, cried in a back room building,
you know, some late night when you were building up the business.
All of those, like more, uh, intangible readiness factors that as a CEO,
especially if you're a founder, CEO, you need to like, get real honest
with yourself how many of those legos you're, you're willing to let.
Warren Zena: Really great.
Thank you.
So now I'm a CRO, or I'm aspiring one.
Let's say I'm having SVP of sales and I'm tired of it.
I'm ready to get take on your role.
I wanna own the whole thing.
In your view, what's the way that someone should approach that role?
What's the right.
A someone who's running a sales organization, which frankly, and
I know you and I probably would agree, this is not necessarily a
good thing, but 90% of the people that become CROs are from sales.
Right.
Um, and I think we agree that's probably not the best thing.
Yeah.
Cause you, you're proving clearly that it might not be, but.
What would a, uh, head of marketing or head of sales who wants to
be a CRO be thinking about as they approach the marketplace to
become a Chief Revenue officer?
I think
Jacqueline Rousseau- Anderson: doing the same kind of self-assessment on
what are your strengths and weaknesses, so what is it about this mythical CRO
role that you think is gonna fulfill you in a way that your job isn't?
And then, You set up best, right?
Making sure that you vet the opportunities that you're going after, that they align
with that because you know, especially if you're somebody who's coming up in
your ranks and trying to make it into the C-suite, if you take, if you move
from, you know, some other role into the CRO role, and let's say you were an
SVP of sales and the particular CEO that you're going to work with wants a more
analytical and maybe operational CRO
if your superpower and your magical ability is to be phenomenal in closing
deals and structuring a new business team or doing whatever, and that's not
fulfilling what the CEO know wants, you're gonna feel like you're failing as a CRO.
But what is actually going on is you're failing in that particular expectation of
the CRO profile for that particular c e o.
And you know, especially for women, you.
I've coached so many women who are trying to kind of make their way up in
different organizations, and I have to constantly remind them that it's, it's not
that you failed being the thing, right?
Whatever it is, it's that that wasn't the role for you in that context.
That doesn't mean you can't be a great SVP of sales somewhere else,
a CRO, like whatever you're trying to be, but you kind of have to be
realistic about how much of that was your skillset for the role versus.
Your skillset compared to the expectations of that particular role profile.
And that's a big, big difference.
That can sometimes send people spinning, quite honestly, for a while.
It's
Warren Zena: so, so astute, and you're so right and you
have to find the right partner.
Right?
I mean, it's like any long-term committed relationship, right?
I mean, yeah.
You know, some people.
Have two marriages, one ended horribly, the other one is ma massively successful.
So obviously it was, you know, you need to find the right partner
to, to, to fulfill on the way in which you were able to participate
in that particular relationship.
And you're right, uh, you know, the, the main thing I see happen with Chief
Revenue Officers who don't make it is they come out thinking like, you know, well,
Natalie only, they think it was their fault, but the CEO always blamed them too.
Oh, it was the wrong person.
God, I can't believe I hired this idiot.
It was like, no, we.
The person was actually incredibly qualified, just wasn't right for
your company, and you didn't know that you, you did a bad job of
assessing the person properly because you took a great candidate.
And put them into a non-winning situation and then you kick
them out and blame them for it.
And you know, this is a very common thing.
And so what happens is people come out of these CRO jobs, like they're
all beaten up and they don't want to take the next one because they look
back at, at the experience, they're like, why would I wanna do that again?
It's like, well, look, you just picked the wrong partner.
What did you learn?
What did you learn from that engagement?
That you could bring to the next opportunity.
There's probably 10 additional questions that you have now that you should
ask that you could take from that experience, and you'll probably get
a lot better opportunities, right?
There's no like, like dating, you know, I mean, you just, you figure
out how to like vet things better.
And I think that, you know, what I try to tell my CEO clients is it's not about
finding the perfect candidate, it's about being the company that's ready for one.
And the reality is, if you're not, no one's coming in here to fix you.
It doesn't work that.
You've gotta be ready.
You gotta know what you're looking for.
You gotta have the right understanding of your environment and you gotta
know how to find a person that's a good fit and make that person win.
And I, I'll repeat some things I say.
You have to have, you have to be able to willing to give the c r o
the autonomy, the authority, and the runway and the resources to succeed.
Yep.
And if they have those four things, Those things don't just come because it's magic.
They come because they're a fit and that those things can, you can afford to give
them to that person without concern that it'll knock the ship over, you know?
Mm-hmm.
And when you put a stressor on a CEO that says you have to give the
person these things, they're gonna vet them a lot differently than if they
don't have to give them those things.
So it's almost like you up the level of commitment level that
they have to take, and it forces them to be a lot more scrutinizing
of the kind of person they hire.
A lot of times, unfortunately, these.
They, they're trying to fill 'em as quickly as possible, you know, and they
make some very superficial decisions.
Oh, he had a job at the other company that I liked so much,
or our competitor liked him.
You know, it's not the right reason to hire somebody.
I mean, it might be, but you know, no.
How about just doing a competency assessment of your
organization and match it up?
That's a tough thing.
So I think CROs.
Need to be a lot more battle worthy than CEOs do because they're the
ones going into the buzz saw.
So anyway.
Mm-hmm.
I love, love this topic.
So anyway, I wanna kind of float here.
So what I want to before we close up is, I know when you and I spoke pre, the
pre-conversation is I know there are a couple of things that you're particularly
passionate about in the role that you have, and I wanna make sure that I
have an opportunity to address those so you can get a chance to talk about.
Um, you know, what, what would be like a topic that hasn't been touched on
on this conversation yet that you just would love to expound on a little bit
that you feel is important to you?
Uh, I
Jacqueline Rousseau- Anderson: think one, you know what we were talking
about with e p E, so the expertise, partnership and empathy that we
bring to all of our interactions as a way to really reframe sales.
Um, you.
I mean, CROs are kind of like CMOs, right?
I think the last Sta I heard was, you know, the average CRO
is in seat for about 18 months.
So yeah, it's about that.
Yeah, I, uh, I just hope that, you know, if I'm granted 18 months, if I'm
granted more than that, that when I leave, you know, At least sales won't
have, you know, maybe such the, um, stigma as it does sometimes today.
Like, I want to leave the industry a better place where customers feel like
they can truly be honest about what they need and feel like the providers
that they're collaborating with are there to help them get that done.
And you.
That goes back to not just having a different profile.
I will never be, you know, the maybe typical salesperson who
walks in and is, you know, chatting up the whole room and, you know,
trying to cut deals here and there.
But what I will do is listen and ask really maybe qu more qualitatively
research driven questions to a customer.
What is it that they're trying to achieve?
Um, because especially so our space and customer data platforms, it's
a transformational technology.
So, you know, you're going through a major SaaS implementation and the
more honest, open, and transparent our customers are with us.
During the sales process, the better we can devise solutions
for them on the backend.
But if there's no trust upfront, then you get through the sales process and
a customer's like, oh, but I forgot to tell you that we actually need to connect
these three other marketing systems.
And I also forgot that one of those contracts is going
to expire in three months.
And so everything has to be connected, you know, before that happens.
And so then our teams have to react and they're super frustrated
because you've gotta condense like a four month project into six weeks.
And the customer is super frustrated cuz they're like,
why can't you do what I asked?
And it's like the whole myth is perpetuated again.
It's like, well, cuz you as.
Salespeople were saying, well, you weren't transparent with us.
And they're saying, you know, that's because you sold me something.
That wasn't what I expected.
And so again, if it's, if it's six months, 18 months, if it's five years,
I just, I want people to say that.
Sales chief revenue officer, whatever, could be a career for me because I'm
passionate about helping customers.
So that's one of the, one of the things that I'm super passionate about.
And also making sure that, you know, access to revenue roles and you know,
especially new business sales roles where there's a lot of upside if you do.
That shouldn't be limited to a certain type of typical profile.
Um, and like I said, I certainly never imagined myself in any kind
of sales role growing, growing up.
And I feel like there are a lot of people.
Um, there's one woman that I mentored who was similar.
She's like, I don't have a sales profile.
And I was like, well, can you do these five things?
And she's like, yeah, I love those.
I'm like, great.
You are gonna be a phenomenal salesperson.
I'm like, let's.
Talk about how you put this into action.
So I think that that's important and I think it's really important that we
introduce that to people, especially, you know, non-traditional profiles
earlier in their careers to give them a shot and an exposure to that.
Warren Zena: That's great.
Love it.
And I'm agreement, I think that the sales culture that you speak of, in
my opinion, I mean, if you share the opinion, I think it's getting worse.
And the reason why I think it's getting worse is because, Companies
have adopted these mass messaging and automation processes, you know,
SDR groups and automation platforms.
It's just too easy to just spam huge groups of customers or prospects now.
And um, I also think the growth at all costs, sort of cultures mm-hmm.
That have pervasive in the last five or so years have resulted in
deploying these sales strategies.
Are so counter to customer experiences that it's so wonder
people are sh turned off.
You know, and I, I talk about this a lot and um, a lot of the people in my, you.
Universe or ecosystem are very pro SDR groups because they are
SDRs, they run them and stuff.
Yeah.
And I don't wanna single them out, but it's, that's a, I think
it's a symptom of the issue.
The SDR group, it's a, it's an outcome of an effort to try and do whatever
we can to get as many people inside of a funnel as humanly possible.
Because I think people have lost the focus on, well, how do customers feel about.
You know, like, I dunno if anybody asked this question.
I, I don't know if they do.
And, and I think it's incredible to me and as a result, and I
think you agree a hundred percent with this, is companies that do.
They have a great opportunity, I mean a huge opportunity cuz it's
refreshing for customers these days to go, wow, that was a really nice sales
conversation I just had with somebody.
Mason's really giving shit about me and you know, that's really bizarre, you know?
Wow.
I'd learned that could make a big difference.
Right?
Because let's face it, a lot of the products and services
in the SaaS industry are.
Competing with other ones.
There's other platforms that do the same thing.
They're just, you know, minor, you know?
Yep.
Little differences and stuff.
So the differentiators aren't necessarily gonna be features.
They're gonna be more like the way you go to market and the way that you talk to
people because it's, yeah, it's, people are hiring you at the end of the day.
So I just think it's great.
Your, your, uh, your passions, your, your focus on those
things are very similar to mine.
I mean, I started this business for the same reason.
I think that Chief Revenue Officers are critical because, They look at the
whole thing and they, they move away from the sales function as a single
spear that's targeting the market all the time and looking at more the way.
Mm-hmm.
You surround a customer with the right sort of experience so that you
can build value and the organization shares information about that customer.
So anyway, I really appreciate that.
So how can people get in touch with you and tell us a little bit
more about what you're doing and some of the things you're up to.
So, you know, if anybody wants to reach out to you, you sound like you coach a
lot of people, you mentor a lot of people and talk about a little bit about your
business and um, let's make sure that you get a little opportunity to get a
little bit more, you know, exposure on
Jacqueline Rousseau- Anderson: this.
Yeah.
So, um, LinkedIn, um, LinkedIn, Prova, it's Jackie r a or you know,
find me Jackie Russo Anderson.
Uh, Jackie Blue chronic.com.
Shoot me an email.
I'm always happy to chat, especially with folks who are thinking about
this path or having questions.
Um, wanna talk about, you know, building their skills as a consultative seller.
Uh, or if they're already phenomenal consultative sellers and they
wanna work in an environment where that is appreciated, uh, just
reach out and I would be happy to
Warren Zena: chat.
Well, great.
I learned a couple things here.
Great.
So thank.
I mean it.
I mean, I did, I got one really great insight I got on this conversation was.
The profile of the CEO e o needs to match the profile of the CRO.
And even though I thought about it, it's the way you articulated it,
had me think about it a little bit differently, and I appreciate that.
Um, and the other one was really insightful is the revenue part of the CRO
role doesn't just affect the way people hire them, but it affects the people
that they interact with on customer side.
They think they're dealing with a sales leader.
And that's, that's a really great insight and it's one that CROs need
to be really mindful of, is that that perception precedes them and they have.
Responsible for it.
They can't just ignore it.
They have to understand that that's probably what's going on and they
have to speak to it so they can work through that instead of just like
being perceived as someone who's gonna try and, you know, get a deal.
And that's a really good insight.
So thank you for that.
Yes.
Um, and thank you for being here.
This was a great conversation.
I loved it.
And, um, Uh, hopefully have a chance to speak again and, um, thank you so
much for taking the time to talk to me.
Yeah,
Jacqueline Rousseau- Anderson: anytime.
Happy to come back.
Happy to chat.
Happy to chat with anybody who needs a support group for,
you know, CRO identity crisis.
Uh, reach out and I would love to
Warren Zena: connect.
Alright, great.
Well, well, thank you.