Zane Ravenholt

This is some of the best advice for job seekers I've ever seen. Geared toward #SaaS, but relevant to most industries. Study this! #hiring #jobsearch #jobseeker #jobseeking #career

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The skills to be an effective SaaS CRO have changed. That's not my opinion, but that's basically the crux of what bona fide CROs, and those that hire them, are telling me. Just a few years ago these were 5 desired skills when hiring a CRO. --Proven "scaler", which often meant doing more with MORE (people) --Willing to take calculated risks to and set ambitious goals --Ability to thrive in unpredictable environments with frequent changes (sadly lots of change was caused by literal CRO changes) --Laser focus on achieving revenue targets no matter the cost  --Inspire and motivate large sales teams These are 5 desired skills when hiring a CRO today: --Analytical with the ability to interpret data and identify trends to make decisions --Deep understanding of sales methodology, customer segmentation, and pricing strategies  --Financial acumen to understand unit economics --Customer focused to build long term relationships and loyalty  --Cross-functional relationship builder That said, in MY opinion, the skills needed few years ago are still necessary, but the trick is finding people, or becoming, the person, who straddles both profiles. Those people are also known as The GOATS of Growth, or at least well on their way.

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Is your SaaS company a feature, product, or platform? I remember the first time one of Northpass' board members challenged me with this question. My gut response was: "Of course, we're a platform! We have so much functionality and serve many use cases, and we will conquer so much more! Eventually, developers will want to build on us!" Classic, right? But after humbling myself and objectively approaching the question, I decided we were a component of a much larger ecosystem. For us, that was customer success. That realization brought tremendous clarity to our product, marketing, sales, and exit strategies. This question is critical for founders approaching 20-30M in ARR. At this stage, your company is at the prime size for a strategic acquisition as a tuck-in feature or new product within an integrated suite. However, once you cross this ARR threshold, M&A interest can go dark until you scale to $100M ARR or more. The reality is that the buyer pool for companies with $10-30M ARR is significant but dramatically shrinks after that. So, if you decide to be a platform, you're signing up to go big, which means you're also signing up to go long. Embracing the feature/product path is not a demotion. It's a strategic move. I've been part of two startups where we recognized that we were ultimately add-ons to larger platforms and that awareness led to solid exits. Platform, product, or feature: the only proper way to answer this question is to be brutally honest and intentional. Play forward the various scenarios and consider all the implications. I found that once you decide, you and your leadership team will gain tremendous clarity, alignment, and motivation. It's exciting. What do you think? Are you building a feature, product, or platform? How does this perspective shape your strategy? #SaaS #Startups #founder #Entrepreneurship

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Speed to lead might sound simple, but the architecture behind it is anything but. ZoomInfo's demo routing is powered by Zoominfo Enrich, which we used to create a system of models and workflows for SDRs to connect prospects with closers (AEs). As always, our goal is to optimize outcomes while maintaining equitability for reps. Let's break it down: ⚖️ Balancing Model: Designed within Salesforce, this system prioritizes demo allocation by evaluating the number of eligible events over their event quota over a rolling period to ensure a fair distribution of leads among AE cohorts. 📏 5 Tier Prospect Scoring Model: Dynamically assesses and assigns prospects to a tier based on channel, segment, win rate model, and title department rating collected and enriched at the time a prospect fills out a form via ZI form complete.. 🏆 Win Rate Model: Leveraging ZI enriched data points, this model refines demo allocation by categorizing prospects and accounts into win rate cohorts based on thousands of ZoomInfo’s industry-specific and title data points, such as # of sales employees and recent funding activity all help pinpoint the best meeting. ✅ AE Tiering Eligibility: Based on segment and ACV quota, AEs are eligible from anywhere from 1 to 4 tiers of demos. The demo router matches eligible AEs to a prospect tier to determine whether or not an AE is best suited for this particular meeting. 🗓️ Availability Integration: Through direct integration with Google Free/Busy API, we prioritize speed to lead by matching AE availability with the time the SDR coordinated with the prospect. This way we can book more same-day and next day meetings. The magic is that an SDR simply has to hit a button to initiate this process and schedule a meeting, making the handoff and tracking practically seamless We're continuously refining our model to adapt to nuances like PTO, market changes, and shifting demands to keep our leads flowing as quickly and smoothly as possible. See what Steven Bryerton, our SVP of New Sales has to say about Speed to Lead 👉 https://lnkd.in/gSQ5JyrD 

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Is your team effectively using your MEDDIC fields or is it a checkbox exercise? Lots of organizations have MEDDIC requirements in Salesforce that need to be filled out before advancing the deal to the next stage. The problem is for most teams this becomes a check box exercise. Reps fill out what they can quickly, so there is information in there to move the deal forward. This information never really gets used or analyzed retroactively. When more time is spent properly filling out this information in detail - it has the potential to be utilized as a high leverage tool to help understand how and why certain types of deals are closing. Learning from the MEDDIC information from similar deals is a super power that some of the best reps lean on, but can be hard to find or access in your Salesforce. Is your team analyzing and evaluating your MEDDIC information, or is it another unused field because there isn't enough information properly filled out?

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The path to $10MM ARR is about finding your repeatable, scalable sales motion. The formula is simple, but not easy. It looks like this: Effort + Enthusiasm + Messaging + Lead Quality = Results When you are scaling a sales team, your job is to manage the inputs. Those are the things on the left side of this equation. If you can reduce the variability of the inputs, you will have more consistent results. Put another way. Consistent inputs leads to consistent outputs. Let's break it down... 1. Effort is the driver for your sales performance. You cannot scale without consistent effort. Effort includes the velocity of sales activity (phone calls, emails, meetings, etc.). Effort also includes the way that you execute your sales activity. This is your sales process and sales playbook. You can improve the quality of your effort with learning and development. 2. Enthusiasm is an amplifier for your effort. You have to act like you want to earn the business. A little enthusiasm goes a long way in closing more business. I've found that you can't teach enthusiasm. You must hire for it. 3. Messaging is how you get prospects to believe what you believe. Your messaging is your value prop. It's how you approach your ICP. It's the way that you convince customers that their current version of the world is no longer acceptable and they must make a chance. The best messaging illustrates the consequences of inaction. 4. Lead quality drives your conversion rate You have to stay focused on your ICP. The more variable your lead quality, the more inconsistent your sales results. The best effort, enthusiasm, and messaging are helpless if you are focused on the wrong accounts. This is the formula for predictable, repeatable, scalable sales. Manage the consistency of your inputs and you will have consistent outputs. What about you? What's your formula for repeatable results?

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F*** is my favorite four-letter F-word. F*** = Free...obviously. 😏 Speaking of free, here's something I'm really excited about. Over at RevOps Co-op, we've got not one, but TWO complimentary RevOpsAF conference passes to give away courtesy of our friends at Enlyft. 🎁 Maybe you're a revenue operator in between gigs who wants to expand your network? 🤝 Or an employed RevOps pro who wants to attend #RevOpsAF 2024 in San Diego but your company isn't able to sponsor you? If this sounds like you then throw the 🙋 emoji in the comments and DM me to toss your name in the literal raffle hat. Sound like someone you know? Tag 'em on this post and have them do the same! Big shout out to Michael Schultz and Phil Gray from Enlyft for making this happen. ❤️ PS - learn more about RevOpsAF 2024 at revopsaf(dot)com #revops #revenueoperations #salesops #salesoperations #marketingops #marketingoperations #mops

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A great post from Santosh Sharan below. The most important part: 'WE STARTED SELLING BEFORE THE PRODUCT WAS DEVELOPED' AI and DeepTech startups - PLEASE listen to this. You can't just build, build, build. You have to SELL! #ai #innovation #sales

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The more I sit with the term "GTM (Go-to-Market) Ops" the more I feel like it is a better description of what we "do" at CS2. I have been pretty vocal about how both MOps and RevOps were not perfect fits so we ditched calling what we do and instead focused on naming what we deliver (aka revenue growth architecture.) But the term GTM Ops was always the one in the back of my head that I felt like fit the best. But the more we hone in on what our biggest value prop is which is building the foundation and processes to support a unified go-to-market strategy the more I am a fan of it. Here are some of my thoughts prompted by an image  Andrew Nadeau  shared and I agree Andrew that GTM Ops might be a better "target." And I am more confident in us leaning into that name. But what do you think? Are you a fan of GTM ops? Do you think this better represents the work you are delivering to your org? #revenuegrowtharchitecture #gtmops #gotomarket

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True or False: You should scale sales quickly after achieving product-market fit? From my POV, this one’s false. Before you can scale your sales team, you need to spend some time in action with your customers. You need to learn from them, relieve friction, and craft repeatable GTM processes. In other words, when you build without laying the proper foundation, customers and deals can fall through the cracks. Do you agree with Sales Myth #10? Please let me know in the comments! #Sales #GTM #GoToMarket

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HLTH Code gets an A+ from me on their subscription management for customers. Most companies just want subscriptions to slip through every month and take their recurring revenue. I get it—recurring revenue is the holy grail of business. But this company, which sells amazing health and protein shakes that I really enjoy, sends me an email a few days before every renewal of my subscription and makes sure I know it’s coming. I have twice skipped the delivery because I still have leftover product, but I am happy to stay on the subscription because they make it extremely easy to skip and they keep me informed. Follow this example—make it easy for the customer to be in control and be excited every time that order goes through. If you do that, you’ll make way more money in the long run.

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Are you evaluating GenAI software? If I was you, I’d look for an actual, meaningful trial of say 3 months prior to committing to a 1-year term with any vendor. That will flush out potential issues. Here are the types of things I’m hearing from those after they buy: 1️⃣ Quality Issues. I’m hearing more and more feedback around less than ideal quality coming back from ChatBot type products. This of course also features hallucinations. People still don't fully realise that certain use cases are wrong for GenAI & are to some extent expecting silver bullets. 2️⃣ Security Issues. If you’re dealing with sensitive info (which is the world VisibleThread plays in), nothing can go outside the firewall. Vendors often fall over on this one. 3️⃣ Latency Issues. The classic challenges of handling load, what happens when multiple people hit the app, is the LLM infrastructure built out to “load balance”. This is the old “4 lane highway becomes a 1 lane road” argument. It happens way more frequently than you imagine, and never shows up on sales demos (which are effectively staged). 4️⃣ Usability Issues. While this is the last one in this list, it is probably the hardest one to nail down in a sales demo. Many of the newer GenAI apps are effectively thin veneers over an LLM. And while the founder breezes through the demo, wowing everyone, many products have confusing user interfaces. Here’s the test for this: Show someone the video the founder did as part of the sales pitch. Then ask one of your team to do the same task. Can they do it? Gen AI tends to demo well, and has some excellent use cases for creating and editing content. But you do need to do your diligence. Don't over commit, make sure it's right for what you're trying to automate. #GenAI #Evaluations #NoSilverBullet

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Hey RevOps - here's a hack for you to eliminate all the time and money you are spending on your sandbox environment 👇 Test in production. 😏 Follow me for me RevOps hacks...and have a good weekend y'all ✌️ #revops #revenueoperations #salesops #salesoperations #sfdc #salesforce #salesforceadmin #sfdcadmin

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“It's about tailoring the metrics to your business” - Nick Mehta, talking about Gainsight Benchmarks Nick knows how to talk! And with this quip, he really got it right!😁 Now.... What does this have to do with my usual LI content on SaaS Metrics?🙄 Everything… For Gainsight's world, we produced something that allows CROs & Heads of CS to answer the most fundamental questions: "Where do we stand?" "How can we improve?" Get a flavor for how we did it by turning through the pages in the graphic. Beautiful, unique... Amazing data! Now imagine having a similar application for SaaS Metrics…. How valuable would that be?!!! That's precisely where we're going with BenchSights! "How do we rank?" and "How can we improve?" -- but for CEOs, CFOs, Investors asking questions about their SaaS Metrics. Same platform. Same UI/UX.... focused on the metrics that people following my LI posts love... And --- as Nick says --- it's about tailoring the answers to YOUR business! Coming soon.... 🥳 #SaaS #Metrics #Benchmarks

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The Director of TA's team at this SaaS platform was at capacity with a large # of GTM hires coming in.... She took the proactive step of implementing a plug-and-play embedded talent solution. The result? → A highly cost-effective hiring model that ran at 68% less than traditional agencies. → World-class hiring manager and candidate experience → A strategy agile enough to suit SoSafe's ever-evolving needs. The real story goes like this: ↳ Prior to partnering with us, SoSafe faced significant capacity challenges ↳ Juggling a myriad of roles with their awesome in-house team at capacity. ↳ They sought a recruitment solution that was aligned with their operational nuances. And that's where we came in. Upon finalising the partnership: ↳ We deployed a squad consisting of Talent Partners, Sourcers, and Coordinator ↳ Dived deep into understanding SoSafe's specific hiring needs and challenges. ↳ A custom-tailored service was developed to blend with SoSafe's internal team. ↳ Utilised talent intelligence software and a robust sourcing strategy. The ROI? - SoSafe filled 56 positions in GTM roles - average time-to-hire (TTH) of just 4.3 weeks - Savings: 68% Full case study link in comments below 👇🏼

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📣 Here are all the top LinkedIn posts on CS operations from 5/22 to 5/28. Marley Wagner - leveraging automation for an internal audience - https://lnkd.in/gWy7TUdF Rosalyn Santa Elena - what it means to be more strategic and less tactical in revops - https://lnkd.in/gJDDsGaj Sagar Shukla - the worst metric for CS - https://lnkd.in/gg45frsV -- 🚨 Did we miss a post? Let us know in the comments to make sure others don't miss it either ❤️ Was this helpful? Make sure to follow the Matik page to continue seeing these weekly roundups! -- What is Matik? Matik automates the personalization of content, including data-driven elements like tables, charts, and insights. Compatible with Google Slides, Microsoft PowerPoint, and emails. See it in action: https://lnkd.in/gmWedmqb #revenueoperations #revops #customersuccess #csm

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One reason RevOps isn’t strategic 𝗟𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗼𝗳 𝗮 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗢𝗽𝘀 𝗥𝗼𝗮𝗱𝗺𝗮𝗽 Let me break this down. 𝟭. 𝗔𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗧𝗼𝗽 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀 RevOps defaults to a reactive whack-a-mole, fielding a flood of inbound requests. This leaves no time to work on strategic priorities. A RevOps Roadmap starts with top priorities or OKRs (Objectives and Key Results). - What does the Revenue Team want to accomplish this year? - This quarter? - What’s our sales target? - What do we need to do to get there? - Improve Close Rates? - Sell larger deals? - Generate more pipeline from outbound? - From inbound? - From renewals and expansion? What are our priorities as a team? 𝟮. 𝗢𝘂𝘁𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝗜𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀 The next step is to align priorities with specific initiatives in RevOps. Say we want to improve our close rates. - What will we do? - Define our sales cycle? - Set clearer qualification and stage entry criteria? - Build reports and dashboards to track this? - Improve our pipeline review and/or forecasting process? - Provide more enablement? What are the most important initiatives to help achieve our objectives? 𝟯. 𝗚𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗦𝗽𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗼𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 Now we get feedback, revisions and sponsorship from leadership. At the end of the day, are they in full support of RevOps prioritizing these initiatives and trying to help the Revenue Team achieve these Objectives and Key Results? If not, what are we doing here? If everything is a priority, nothing is. 𝟰. 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀 We have specific Key Results for the revenue team to achieve. - Are we tracking metrics related to this? - Are we reporting this to leadership on a regular basis? - Are we updating leadership as to whether or not we’re on track? - And if we need to make adjustments to get there? To me, RevOps isn't RevOps without Insights. It's just systems admin. 𝟱. 𝗦𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗻𝘁 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 The Roadmap comes to life in sprint planning. Over the next two weeks... - Which items on the Roadmap will we tackle? - Which fire-drills and inbound requests do we have? - Does leadership want to delay items on the roadmap? Things change in growth-stage companies quickly. It’s okay to pivot and tackle emergencies if they are truly more urgent than what’s on the roadmap, so long as everyone is aligned. 𝟲. 𝗤𝘂𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗹𝘆 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄 The Roadmap needs reviewed and updated quarterly. We show what was done and not done, what OKRs the revenue team achieved and didn’t achieve. We then leverage this to set OKRs and Initiatives for the next quarter. We want to maintain alignment here. What would you add? What’s working with your Roadmap? 🤔 More on this here: https://bit.ly/3W8fhCq ✌️

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More focused sales targeting = faster growth. Most companies stall out around $5MM in revenue and never get beyond $10MM. I learned this the hard way. Let me tell you a story. When we hit ~$1MM in revenue, we were getting buying signals from across the market. We were signing up new SMB customers every day. We had enterprise customers coming inbound. It felt like we had the tiger by the tail. But something happened around $5MM. Churn ticked up. New revenue from new customers slowed down. Growing 100% each year felt impossible. Then we learned that our SMB customers and our Enterprise customers had different pain points and different buying processes. Each part of the market required its own go-to-market approach. So we separated the teams. We separated the messaging. We separated the sales process. And we FOCUSED on our core customer, the SMB customer. It was especially hard to stop pursuing big enterprise customers. But we focused our efforts on a very specific customer profile, and our revenue accelerated. That's what lifted us past $10MM. And the enterprise revenue eventually came. It always does. So focus on your ICP if you want to grow to $10MM faster.

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Founders - take note, churn is one of the most commonly overlooked metrics I see in startups - but so important from a WOM point of view. Brilliantly summarised by Greg Head who also happens to evangelise the increasingly preferred route of lean scrappy sustainable startups that don’t take the venture path - worth a follow

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