#Revenue 7: Scaling SaaS Revenue & Sales Teams w/ Zorian Rotenberg

WEBVTT 1 00:00:06.759 --> 00:00:11.070 Industry experiences a mistake. It's a relevant there're a lot of people that comm 2 00:00:11.150 --> 00:00:14.830 into a company with zero industry experience. In fact, a lot of them 3 00:00:14.869 --> 00:00:18.789 have zero sales experience and they absolutely hit the ball out of the ballpark. 4 00:00:20.629 --> 00:00:25.699 Welcome to the Revenue Series on bdb growth. I'm your host, John Grispin, 5 00:00:25.940 --> 00:00:30.219 founder and sales coach at early revenue. So let's get going. Today 6 00:00:30.820 --> 00:00:37.570 I'm here with Zorian Rottenberg, who is the chief revenue officer at infoteligent. 7 00:00:37.969 --> 00:00:41.689 Welcome, Zorian. Thank you, SMI SEAN that's to be here. So 8 00:00:42.210 --> 00:00:46.850 just a level set for everyone. Our guests are revenue leaders like yourself, 9 00:00:47.130 --> 00:00:52.439 and venture firms. In our purpose is to provide early stage tech founders and 10 00:00:52.799 --> 00:00:59.000 their sales leaders insights and best practices on two topics that are top of mine 11 00:00:59.240 --> 00:01:04.349 for leaders, the how to of growing early stage sales and fund raising. 12 00:01:06.230 --> 00:01:08.790 So let's get going. First of all, thank you so much for being 13 00:01:08.829 --> 00:01:14.230 here, Zorian. My pleasure really excited. Yeah, so's whanty. Give 14 00:01:14.230 --> 00:01:19.140 us a little bit about your very deep background and and who you are. 15 00:01:21.540 --> 00:01:25.299 I don't know that I can that. I can say that it's very deep, 16 00:01:25.299 --> 00:01:27.819 but I appreciated your too kind. Yeah, just really briefly, I'm 17 00:01:27.859 --> 00:01:34.569 an unusual background because I first job out of college was in investment banking and 18 00:01:34.689 --> 00:01:38.969 I did in New York work with Merry Lynch for a couple of years. 19 00:01:40.049 --> 00:01:42.489 That a lot of Ma deals, probably approaching a hundred billion dollars worth of 20 00:01:44.290 --> 00:01:52.000 transactions Ma and financings. I got my Mba and then I also worked in 21 00:01:52.920 --> 00:01:57.159 like growth stage venture capital, private equity investing, and then during my Mba, 22 00:01:57.280 --> 00:02:02.870 met a lot of successful CEOS who said you either sell something or you 23 00:02:04.150 --> 00:02:07.949 build something in in high tech, everything else is sort of not as critical, 24 00:02:08.150 --> 00:02:14.430 and I wanted to be like them and I as the where should I 25 00:02:14.469 --> 00:02:19.060 go after business school? And instead of joining with a lot of my colleagues 26 00:02:19.099 --> 00:02:23.740 joined, or classmates joined hedge funds private equity firms, I decided to immerse 27 00:02:23.740 --> 00:02:27.900 myself in operations and learn. So I went to to IBM. They had 28 00:02:27.979 --> 00:02:31.610 this training program called the top got on sales training. I think it was 29 00:02:31.650 --> 00:02:35.849 sort of like for those who are in the path to to management. And 30 00:02:36.009 --> 00:02:40.330 learned sales there and then started selling enterprise software. Then after that joined this 31 00:02:40.409 --> 00:02:46.240 amazing company and at the time work for this incredible incredible person who was my 32 00:02:46.439 --> 00:02:51.360 boss, named Walter Scott. It was a CEO of a chronus and I 33 00:02:51.439 --> 00:02:54.039 basically wrote a chronus from about nineteen million to a hundred million and three years. 34 00:02:54.840 --> 00:03:00.710 He's a genius. He also came from the sales background and he's an 35 00:03:00.750 --> 00:03:04.430 inspiration. He still my mentor. Then I work for a company called VM, 36 00:03:04.550 --> 00:03:07.069 which is one of the most successful companies that not everyone has heard of. 37 00:03:07.389 --> 00:03:12.550 Them started in the same year as hop spot and last year hop spot, 38 00:03:12.669 --> 00:03:16.860 I think they closed like seven hundred eight hundred million in revenue and van 39 00:03:16.979 --> 00:03:23.780 was over a billion private company. They barely took anyvc money and learning and 40 00:03:23.060 --> 00:03:30.449 work for the CEO of that company and learning from these incredible individuals was just 41 00:03:30.610 --> 00:03:34.409 a blessing of an experience and just skipping, you know, a little bit. 42 00:03:34.490 --> 00:03:37.810 Went to work. I was there at a company called aperture. We 43 00:03:37.889 --> 00:03:40.169 we got acquired by Dell. I'm connected to Michael Down and Linkedin, which 44 00:03:40.169 --> 00:03:46.159 is one of the one the best returns out of that incredible right. Worked 45 00:03:46.199 --> 00:03:50.520 at inside squared rend sales and marketing. There in sales and marketing and sort 46 00:03:50.560 --> 00:03:54.039 of the CR ro roll right you kind of Serros a full final leadership job. 47 00:03:54.710 --> 00:03:59.830 That was incredible. Still very good friends with Fred. Inside squared is 48 00:03:59.870 --> 00:04:03.310 all about sales, analytic sales matrics, which is something I really personally love. 49 00:04:03.389 --> 00:04:08.789 It's my, you know, passion data driven sales management. And then 50 00:04:09.509 --> 00:04:12.219 was it a company called a team. We sold it to work front and 51 00:04:12.379 --> 00:04:15.819 now I'm at infotelligent and again just like it. Inside squared we're we kind 52 00:04:15.860 --> 00:04:21.060 of joke around. We were sales folks selling sales tools to aught their salespeople. 53 00:04:21.660 --> 00:04:26.250 We mostly sell the sales executive, but it's a sales solution. So 54 00:04:26.970 --> 00:04:31.410 yeah, I love what I do. I enjoy coaching, sharing, mentoring, 55 00:04:31.529 --> 00:04:35.050 giving back. So I kind of like being on a podcast like this 56 00:04:35.129 --> 00:04:40.639 where I'm hoping to add value to you and your audience. Absolutely so, 57 00:04:41.319 --> 00:04:46.839 with that depth of background, there has to be a formula that you have 58 00:04:47.839 --> 00:04:55.670 developed for growing and Scaling Organization. I'm looking at the at the numbers on 59 00:04:55.829 --> 00:05:00.870 how you scaled a team and inside square these are hundred two, hundred, 60 00:05:00.870 --> 00:05:03.310 two, hundred fifty percent you over year growth in some of these organizations. 61 00:05:03.829 --> 00:05:09.740 Did you have a formula that you found valuable that that, once you get 62 00:05:09.779 --> 00:05:15.779 inside an organization, you begin to implement something that has been repeatable from organization 63 00:05:15.819 --> 00:05:20.259 organization. Yeah, actually, great question. I love talking about repeatability. 64 00:05:20.810 --> 00:05:25.170 I think I could summarize it like this. Number one is just focus on 65 00:05:25.290 --> 00:05:30.449 building a really great team. That's really critical. If you are great people 66 00:05:30.009 --> 00:05:33.889 and you have a really great talent, you know that's those are the people 67 00:05:33.889 --> 00:05:40.600 who make everything happens. So that's number one focus. Number two is you 68 00:05:40.839 --> 00:05:46.879 and probably a lot of your your listeners. They've read Jason Lambkins and Aaron 69 00:05:46.920 --> 00:05:50.589 Ross's book from impossible to inevitable, and one of the key takeaways there is 70 00:05:50.670 --> 00:05:58.670 that the number one way to predictably scale your revenues to have really good lead 71 00:05:58.750 --> 00:06:01.910 generation. So basically, I think about it, starts the top of the 72 00:06:01.949 --> 00:06:05.019 funnel. That's that's the most important thing, is to make sure you get 73 00:06:05.019 --> 00:06:14.339 lead flow and then you have really great sales proteses and and sales team and 74 00:06:14.420 --> 00:06:19.649 plays. That's goes back to the talent to qualify these these leads effectively and 75 00:06:20.050 --> 00:06:27.209 obviously around the sale cycles and close deals. But of course it's not that 76 00:06:27.410 --> 00:06:30.610 simple. It never is. Right like you, there are so many nuances 77 00:06:30.649 --> 00:06:33.800 and and key mechanics sort of under the hood to make it all work. 78 00:06:33.879 --> 00:06:38.000 But that's that's kind of the high levels. You know, great team, 79 00:06:38.839 --> 00:06:44.360 make sure you have lead flow and really great selling customer focus. And in 80 00:06:44.519 --> 00:06:46.879 terms of like things under the hood, I would say if you don't start 81 00:06:46.879 --> 00:06:50.069 with a great product in the first place, you have a lot of trouble 82 00:06:50.230 --> 00:06:54.589 scaling. So you got to really have a great product. That's kind of 83 00:06:54.629 --> 00:07:00.500 assumed. I yeah, that that's part of being an insightful, visionary leader 84 00:07:00.860 --> 00:07:03.939 in that when you go to talk, you know if you're good, you're 85 00:07:03.939 --> 00:07:08.740 going to get recruited and talk to buy lots of different organizations. Identifying a 86 00:07:09.420 --> 00:07:15.930 great product is probably the first thing to identify it. Does this product have 87 00:07:16.129 --> 00:07:21.250 legs and can I take it where? Yeah, since there's there's going to 88 00:07:21.290 --> 00:07:26.329 be a big opportunity. Yeah, absolutely, I think it. I'm not 89 00:07:26.410 --> 00:07:30.120 a product person, I mentioned talked about this earlier. I don't know how 90 00:07:30.160 --> 00:07:34.279 to build products, even though I have a computer science minor, but I 91 00:07:34.480 --> 00:07:39.959 just I just think that if you don't have a good product, you could 92 00:07:39.959 --> 00:07:45.269 have a really great sales or revenue, sales, marketing and customer success or 93 00:07:45.269 --> 00:07:48.750 organization and you're still going to do better than you would without it. But 94 00:07:48.870 --> 00:07:51.509 a really great product is a force, multiplayer. It's kind of the x 95 00:07:51.629 --> 00:07:57.629 factor. In fact, that VM anachronus. Both companies were, you know, 96 00:07:57.990 --> 00:08:01.379 I wrote it, a hundred million and annual revenue from under twenty million, 97 00:08:03.100 --> 00:08:07.379 and I would say that they both had great products. But then we 98 00:08:07.620 --> 00:08:13.529 overlaid that and sort of amplified that with really strong selling and in marketing, 99 00:08:13.930 --> 00:08:18.529 and then it's just gets you do a hundred million and beyond and then the 100 00:08:18.970 --> 00:08:24.730 again right now. They just sold for five billion dollars this year private company. 101 00:08:24.449 --> 00:08:30.120 And Yeah, and you know, they were at a billion dollars in 102 00:08:30.160 --> 00:08:35.399 annual revenue last here in in like thirteen years. It's incredtastic. So clearly 103 00:08:35.480 --> 00:08:39.360 good legion having a great product. Let's let's drill down a little bit on 104 00:08:39.639 --> 00:08:46.070 the team side of it. How do you, as the leader higher the 105 00:08:46.309 --> 00:08:52.870 top town, how do you make that a specialty when that's there's there's talent 106 00:08:52.909 --> 00:08:56.539 everywhere, but most of the great talents already got a great job you. 107 00:08:56.740 --> 00:09:01.100 Yeah, so this is a really interesting topic and I'm sure we will never 108 00:09:01.139 --> 00:09:03.659 have enough time to cover it today, but it's one of the things that 109 00:09:03.700 --> 00:09:07.940 I care about the most and I'm most interested in myself figuring out the right 110 00:09:07.940 --> 00:09:11.330 way to hire is actually key and I think that it's actually hard, because 111 00:09:11.370 --> 00:09:16.169 I know noticed that a lot of people struggle with that quite a bit. 112 00:09:16.210 --> 00:09:20.289 There's there's a great phrase that, as I mentioned the earlier Stephen Hawking, 113 00:09:20.370 --> 00:09:24.049 that the greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, is the illusion of knowledge. 114 00:09:24.049 --> 00:09:28.960 And I think a lot of companies feel they know how to hire a 115 00:09:28.039 --> 00:09:31.519 great person. But what's really funny is that a lot of it is done 116 00:09:31.840 --> 00:09:39.509 really incorrectly, and I'm not saying that in this sort of like clip Baker 117 00:09:39.669 --> 00:09:43.110 in a way. If you actually look at Google right they did a ton 118 00:09:43.190 --> 00:09:46.789 of research internal it's a very data driven organization and there was a great book 119 00:09:46.789 --> 00:09:52.669 about how they hire and manager Google. It was written by former Google senior 120 00:09:52.710 --> 00:09:56.700 vice president of people operation. Laws, little buckets called wark rules in that 121 00:09:56.779 --> 00:10:01.139 book he actually talks about that. They he has this great quotas. Like 122 00:10:01.259 --> 00:10:05.419 many managers, recruiters n HR thing. They have a special ability to sniff 123 00:10:05.419 --> 00:10:13.210 out talent. They are wrong and the analyzing said we found a zero relationship. 124 00:10:13.570 --> 00:10:16.889 So when people say I had this great question that I ask at the 125 00:10:16.929 --> 00:10:20.169 interview, instantly tells me whether it's a right person or not. And the 126 00:10:20.289 --> 00:10:22.159 truth is, Google says they're wrong. And the thing is that a lot 127 00:10:22.200 --> 00:10:26.559 of the people who think they have their question again, there's a tremendous amount 128 00:10:26.559 --> 00:10:30.480 of subjectivity and they never measure it. So they like, okay, so 129 00:10:30.519 --> 00:10:33.159 if you really think that question works, I'm a very data driven person. 130 00:10:33.279 --> 00:10:37.590 I love data right, like, like I said, Computer Science Myner. 131 00:10:37.669 --> 00:10:41.789 Have Applied Mathematics minor as well finance major. It's a a lot of excel, 132 00:10:41.909 --> 00:10:46.269 my favorite software in the world. My first question is okay, well, 133 00:10:46.309 --> 00:10:48.990 great, if you think that question works. Where's the data that you 134 00:10:48.110 --> 00:10:52.820 measured post fact and like after you hired? How do you link it to 135 00:10:52.940 --> 00:10:56.460 that question? Like do you have that? And if you don't, how 136 00:10:56.539 --> 00:10:58.940 do you know that question helped you find the right person? Round? Just 137 00:10:58.980 --> 00:11:03.340 very subjective, right. And and actually there's another great book, Gold Who 138 00:11:03.620 --> 00:11:07.929 Right, by Jeff Smart and Randy Street, and they talked about a topical 139 00:11:07.610 --> 00:11:13.690 voodoo hiring, Voodoo hiring, and they talk about top problems in sales hiring. 140 00:11:13.049 --> 00:11:16.250 They talked about these interviewers. They call them by different funny names, 141 00:11:16.289 --> 00:11:20.639 like one is called the art critic, another is the sponge. That there 142 00:11:20.720 --> 00:11:24.279 is the animal lover. It's really funny, Great Book for Our critical they 143 00:11:24.279 --> 00:11:28.799 see interviewers who think they're naturally equipped to read people on the fly, but 144 00:11:28.879 --> 00:11:33.549 there's just fooling themselves. This is happening a lot in sales. So you 145 00:11:33.669 --> 00:11:35.389 got to be really careful and a majority of the information that's out there in 146 00:11:35.429 --> 00:11:39.950 the public domain, believe it or not, as incorrect. But but Google 147 00:11:39.029 --> 00:11:43.669 did identify several factors that actually contribute significantly to quality people. And I know 148 00:11:43.789 --> 00:11:46.620 this was a little bit of of a lengthy answer here, but I just 149 00:11:46.740 --> 00:11:50.379 think this is so important in terms of building great teams. Google talked about 150 00:11:50.899 --> 00:11:56.659 things that capability and learning ability were two of the most highly reliable predictors of 151 00:11:56.740 --> 00:12:01.129 people they hired. Right. They literally did a definitive study on this, 152 00:12:01.250 --> 00:12:05.690 and I trise google more than anyone else because they're very data driven in their 153 00:12:05.730 --> 00:12:07.809 approach and their experiments. And if you if you did you wish, I'm 154 00:12:07.809 --> 00:12:11.570 sure you wich the last dance, Michael Jordan chuggle balls, right, yes, 155 00:12:11.690 --> 00:12:16.879 oh, that's interesting. Okay, everybody watched the right so in in 156 00:12:16.960 --> 00:12:20.799 the first maybe like twenty minutes of the first episode, there was like this 157 00:12:22.679 --> 00:12:26.039 coach that Michael Jordan had in college and and he said, and there was 158 00:12:26.120 --> 00:12:28.320 this interview with another player who said I was better than Michael Jordan, but 159 00:12:28.399 --> 00:12:31.629 only for two weeks because the guy was just so hard working. And the 160 00:12:31.669 --> 00:12:35.350 coach said about Michael Jordan don't I'm like most here. He had this a 161 00:12:35.509 --> 00:12:41.710 passion and this capability and desire to be better that others didn't have. And, 162 00:12:41.990 --> 00:12:46.379 believe it or not, those things, if you interview for that and 163 00:12:46.460 --> 00:12:50.659 you recruit for that, for specifically, like Google said, and you know 164 00:12:50.740 --> 00:12:54.980 what was said about Michael Jordan, is this this capability, but also this 165 00:12:54.139 --> 00:13:00.850 desired and ability to learn, that passion to get it done. That's that's 166 00:13:00.889 --> 00:13:03.610 an x factor, but it's so squishy and fluffy when we talk about it 167 00:13:03.690 --> 00:13:07.090 that a lot of folks don't really pay attention to it as much. Right 168 00:13:07.169 --> 00:13:09.809 somebody comes in, they have a lot of passion. They didn't necessarily get 169 00:13:09.809 --> 00:13:16.279 hired because perhaps they don't have the the exact industry experience. But industry experience 170 00:13:16.399 --> 00:13:18.879 is a mistake. It's a relevant there're a lot of people that come into 171 00:13:18.919 --> 00:13:22.519 a company with zero industry experience. In fact, a lot of them have 172 00:13:22.600 --> 00:13:26.750 zero sales experience and they absolutely hit the ball out of the bullpark. I 173 00:13:26.830 --> 00:13:31.950 have specific examples. One of my favorite examples is a good friend of mine 174 00:13:31.429 --> 00:13:35.629 now, a friend before he used to work under me, Joe Caprio. 175 00:13:37.269 --> 00:13:41.820 He recently ran sales at our course that Ai. He's a phenomenal talent in 176 00:13:41.899 --> 00:13:48.220 sales. He didn't have any sess background but we hired him at inside square 177 00:13:48.620 --> 00:13:50.899 and he was one of our top sales people in the got promoted and promoted 178 00:13:52.179 --> 00:13:54.139 and when I left, ultimately he became a VP of sales there and he 179 00:13:54.259 --> 00:13:58.970 was actually selling. He was actually selling like laundry services to restaurants. So 180 00:14:00.049 --> 00:14:01.929 a lot of sess companies would never even look at his resume at all, 181 00:14:03.529 --> 00:14:07.570 but he's just fantastic. Their Story. I'm sure you've heard of John McMahon 182 00:14:07.809 --> 00:14:11.200 here rent global sales for PTC and took him to like a billion dollars in 183 00:14:11.320 --> 00:14:15.960 revenue. He was very famous. He's I think he's one of the initial 184 00:14:16.000 --> 00:14:20.799 inventors of the medic methodology here. In any case, there's a great story 185 00:14:20.799 --> 00:14:24.549 about him that he hired one of the salesman who was selling either Bible or 186 00:14:24.590 --> 00:14:31.350 kitchen knives door to door. So talent is everywhere. I guess you just 187 00:14:31.470 --> 00:14:33.830 need to make sure you're hiring for the right things. The last point of 188 00:14:33.909 --> 00:14:37.990 this I would say, is this is for those who are just over complicating 189 00:14:37.029 --> 00:14:41.779 their hiring. Think about Warren Buffett. He says he hires four three things. 190 00:14:41.659 --> 00:14:46.820 One as SMART, the other one is gets things done and the third 191 00:14:46.899 --> 00:14:50.460 one is integrity and and he says if you just focus on those three, 192 00:14:50.659 --> 00:14:52.730 you're going to do extremely well. So don't over complicated. Don't think you 193 00:14:52.809 --> 00:14:56.409 have some magical questions. Google is telling you you don't. I hate to 194 00:14:56.649 --> 00:15:01.289 break those bad news, but by good lock and just focus on building a 195 00:15:01.370 --> 00:15:05.570 great team. It's a really great point. I'm not sure if you have 196 00:15:05.850 --> 00:15:11.720 you there's a book out by a gentleman named Jeff Hyman. Are you familiar 197 00:15:11.759 --> 00:15:15.759 with him? He's book name. It's called recruit rock stars. Have you 198 00:15:15.799 --> 00:15:18.600 heard of that book? No, I haven't. Interesting. Okay, it's 199 00:15:18.720 --> 00:15:22.629 right, pretty new. We in fact, you remember, like I am, 200 00:15:22.750 --> 00:15:28.269 of revenue collective. I believe they did a a podcast or a Webinar 201 00:15:28.950 --> 00:15:37.100 on Jeff and his new book and some very similar characteristics and best practices and 202 00:15:37.700 --> 00:15:41.820 often referenced the approach that Google took. Similar to interest nation okay, so 203 00:15:43.340 --> 00:15:48.100 have a look. It's it's worth it. It's worth the time. I'm 204 00:15:48.139 --> 00:15:50.490 not all the way through yet, but I I like what I'm here and 205 00:15:50.610 --> 00:15:56.370 and a lot of what you're saying resonates. So. So one of the 206 00:15:56.409 --> 00:16:03.210 other things that you have a passion for our our data and the metrics associated 207 00:16:03.210 --> 00:16:06.279 with that. So let's say, for Sake of argument, that we have 208 00:16:06.320 --> 00:16:11.159 an early stage start up that's maybe got a couple million in sales, hasn't 209 00:16:11.240 --> 00:16:17.879 really they probably hit product market fit, but they haven't yet scaled their organization. 210 00:16:18.559 --> 00:16:21.629 One of the challenges is to figure out art what are the leading and 211 00:16:21.710 --> 00:16:26.909 the and lagging matrics that I should be thinking about fun looking at revenue. 212 00:16:26.309 --> 00:16:30.710 What are those? What are those key indicators that you perhaps have used over 213 00:16:30.870 --> 00:16:34.659 time, that you found useful in your past, that you use to run 214 00:16:34.740 --> 00:16:38.620 the business? Yeah, there are so many, but I think if you're 215 00:16:38.659 --> 00:16:42.860 talking about startups with the small more sales teams, I think the number one 216 00:16:44.100 --> 00:16:49.129 key leading indicator is your sales activity. Basically, it's the most important thing 217 00:16:49.210 --> 00:16:56.570 to think about that. If you don't have enough sales activity, you will 218 00:16:56.610 --> 00:17:03.200 have no pipeline right and you'll have no sales and sales activities the key predictor 219 00:17:03.720 --> 00:17:08.000 of sales outcomes. At a more advanced level, I would see they get 220 00:17:08.039 --> 00:17:12.960 into how I think about it as a CR row and there are three key 221 00:17:14.599 --> 00:17:18.390 categories of metrics and and I can talk about this for hours because it's one 222 00:17:18.390 --> 00:17:22.190 of my favorite topics, but there's basically the sales activity matrics, which is 223 00:17:22.349 --> 00:17:26.670 the number of emails, scent the number of dials, all kinds of prospecting 224 00:17:26.670 --> 00:17:32.579 activities. Part of that is also conversions from those activities to meetings and ultimately 225 00:17:32.619 --> 00:17:37.660 to pipeline. This is the activity effect, gifness ratios, and there's so 226 00:17:37.779 --> 00:17:40.859 much more to that, of course. But then the second category is the 227 00:17:41.579 --> 00:17:45.289 the pipeline or performance metrics. So out of those activities at what is your 228 00:17:45.329 --> 00:17:49.490 pipeline inflo how many opportunities have you created? This is assuming you have a 229 00:17:49.609 --> 00:17:56.049 right well designed sales process so that you're clear about the definitions of what makes 230 00:17:56.049 --> 00:18:00.519 an opportunity etc. Again, can talk about that alone for hours. But 231 00:18:00.559 --> 00:18:07.759 pipeline matrics inflow, outflow, etc. You know pipeline by units, pipeline 232 00:18:07.799 --> 00:18:11.160 by dollars, and then you know pipeline history is a growing you know, 233 00:18:11.200 --> 00:18:14.670 if you want to scale. Clearly if your pipeline is not growing at a 234 00:18:14.710 --> 00:18:21.190 problem. So the third bucket is the results, the retrospective sales results matrics. 235 00:18:21.230 --> 00:18:25.190 That's, you know, your average deal sizes and your sales cycles, 236 00:18:25.230 --> 00:18:29.660 wind cycles, lost cycles, you know, with lost analysis, things like 237 00:18:29.779 --> 00:18:33.740 that, and you know by red by a team, by product, by 238 00:18:33.180 --> 00:18:37.140 geography, whatever it is. So there are a lot of different metrics, 239 00:18:37.220 --> 00:18:41.730 but I think coming back to the most important thing to start with, this 240 00:18:41.089 --> 00:18:48.210 is loop for sales activities. Measure that, measure the conversions. And then 241 00:18:48.210 --> 00:18:51.490 the other thing is, I want to tie to the metrics back to the 242 00:18:51.569 --> 00:18:56.519 question about the formula for scaling. I gave you a strategic formula earlier for 243 00:18:56.039 --> 00:19:00.720 sort of what I've seen work. Is a success formula for sess companies. 244 00:19:02.440 --> 00:19:07.720 But there's actually a real sess revenue growth formula, revenue scaling formula, and 245 00:19:07.839 --> 00:19:10.630 I talked about it, you know, many years ago. I originally learned 246 00:19:10.630 --> 00:19:14.549 it from Ultra Scott Home, I mentioned earlier, and it's basically very simple 247 00:19:14.990 --> 00:19:18.230 and I used it everywhere. It's basically the number of sales activities times your 248 00:19:18.230 --> 00:19:22.269 hit rate, times your win rate, times average deal size times two hundred 249 00:19:22.349 --> 00:19:27.019 forty your number of activities is very, you know, obvious, right. 250 00:19:27.980 --> 00:19:33.339 Your hit rate is your connect whether it's phone calls, and then you connect 251 00:19:33.380 --> 00:19:40.369 your conversation, right, and Times multiplied by conversion from that conversation to meeting 252 00:19:40.450 --> 00:19:45.009 to an opportunity. Right, very simple. That's your hit rate and a 253 00:19:45.089 --> 00:19:49.529 lot of that hit rate is for how hard you work. Right, more 254 00:19:49.569 --> 00:19:55.799 activities, etc. And then in terms of win rate, it's very simple. 255 00:19:55.799 --> 00:20:00.279 It's opportunity to close one everage deal size, has common sense and Sassi's 256 00:20:00.359 --> 00:20:06.480 ACV and your contract values, and then times two hundred forty into s. 257 00:20:07.349 --> 00:20:11.910 So if you take, you know, counter year working days, federal holidays, 258 00:20:11.190 --> 00:20:15.069 in your vacation, you have about two hundred forty days. And I 259 00:20:15.150 --> 00:20:18.230 use that format to show wraps, you know, plug and play. Let's 260 00:20:18.269 --> 00:20:21.500 put it in excel and you can see if you increase your activities and you 261 00:20:21.579 --> 00:20:25.619 have good win rate and good hit rates, you're going to do really well. 262 00:20:25.859 --> 00:20:27.380 Right, you're going to make a lot of money. You can use 263 00:20:27.420 --> 00:20:30.619 that formula and you multiply by your commission and you can show what your w 264 00:20:30.819 --> 00:20:33.819 two is going to look like. So in terms of data, in terms 265 00:20:33.819 --> 00:20:41.049 of matrics and actually having a real mathematical formula to manage your sales in a 266 00:20:41.089 --> 00:20:47.730 data driven manner. There it is. It's a great way of thinking through 267 00:20:48.730 --> 00:20:55.599 a very core leading metric that can spell it out very early on for for 268 00:20:56.200 --> 00:21:00.319 either an SDR or an a. So I presume that you've now you're also 269 00:21:00.559 --> 00:21:06.509 are an author, and so if somebody wants to learn more about that particular 270 00:21:06.630 --> 00:21:10.470 topic, that formula, is there there a place that they can go to 271 00:21:10.589 --> 00:21:14.430 to learn more about that? Yeah, you know not to to do any 272 00:21:14.470 --> 00:21:17.750 self promotion and this is not, you know, I'm not making money off 273 00:21:17.829 --> 00:21:22.220 your I do. I do love sharing this information with others in the industry. 274 00:21:22.980 --> 00:21:26.539 Just go to my website. It's Zori Incom I. First name comes 275 00:21:26.579 --> 00:21:30.500 or in. You can find a lot of that stuff there. So now, 276 00:21:30.619 --> 00:21:37.809 with your financial background, did did that play a role in the choices 277 00:21:37.890 --> 00:21:41.650 that you made in the industries that you went into? It when it came 278 00:21:41.730 --> 00:21:47.720 to selling? That's a really good question. I think. Yeah, I 279 00:21:47.799 --> 00:21:52.680 think. I think what really drove me to get into sales is that I 280 00:21:52.960 --> 00:21:59.599 understood that, you know, Peter Drucker had this phrase that unless you sell 281 00:21:59.759 --> 00:22:03.589 something or unless you have a costumer, you're not a business. You're like 282 00:22:03.630 --> 00:22:07.509 a science project right and it's pretty aplicable to start ups is that you can 283 00:22:07.509 --> 00:22:11.029 have a great product in a great engineering team until you actually have costumers. 284 00:22:11.630 --> 00:22:17.420 It's not really business just yet, unfortunately, and I understood that that sales 285 00:22:17.700 --> 00:22:23.180 is basically what what drives the business forward. My finance background came to play 286 00:22:23.259 --> 00:22:30.250 a role in my in my Dr row and or Sales v P roll balls 287 00:22:30.289 --> 00:22:34.009 that I've had in a different way because I studied finance, also applied math 288 00:22:34.089 --> 00:22:37.970 and computer science. I'm pretty I love data, I love numbers. So 289 00:22:38.730 --> 00:22:42.410 because sales over the past, you know, deck cator decade and a half 290 00:22:42.490 --> 00:22:49.640 has become much more measurable and data driven, and because in my studies and 291 00:22:49.720 --> 00:22:55.839 in my first couple of jobs in investment banking and investing, I work with 292 00:22:55.920 --> 00:23:00.789 Excel, you know, pretty much seven, I'm able to build out a 293 00:23:00.950 --> 00:23:06.710 lot of the analytical thinking in terms of, like saying, sales production model, 294 00:23:07.509 --> 00:23:11.470 sales operations model, basically understanding how you're going to scale the business and 295 00:23:11.630 --> 00:23:15.660 build out and excel all by myself and think it through very carefully so I 296 00:23:15.740 --> 00:23:21.460 can get create a strategy and I come up with tactics to to drive it 297 00:23:21.539 --> 00:23:26.140 in the way that I flushed it out and excel. So to some degree, 298 00:23:26.180 --> 00:23:30.769 finance, but also some math and everything else came to bear to help 299 00:23:30.849 --> 00:23:33.970 me, you know, do the Crro job, and I think Sara Ro 300 00:23:33.009 --> 00:23:37.250 job is hard because it's kind of being like a like to call it like 301 00:23:37.289 --> 00:23:41.519 a hedge fund portfolio manager, because there's so many different things you need to 302 00:23:41.559 --> 00:23:45.960 understand and it's a full funnel, you know, from top to bottom. 303 00:23:45.480 --> 00:23:48.599 It's not just understanding how to drive sales, it's also how do we scale 304 00:23:48.599 --> 00:23:53.039 lead flow and what are the different things that will affect us in understanding all 305 00:23:53.039 --> 00:24:02.589 the different complex, interconnected variables, from positioning to technical coaching, to strategy 306 00:24:02.630 --> 00:24:07.230 of the business, to launching a new product, to hiring people, to 307 00:24:07.509 --> 00:24:12.299 competitive message and replacement and all those things. Right, there's a lot of 308 00:24:12.380 --> 00:24:15.259 sort of complex things that you have to kind of spin in your head and 309 00:24:15.299 --> 00:24:19.059 ruminate on. So, as a finance guy who started his career on Wall 310 00:24:19.099 --> 00:24:23.609 Street, I like to call it being like a catch fun portfolio managnature, 311 00:24:25.410 --> 00:24:29.769 as a cro see. Yeah, anyway, it's put things to think about. 312 00:24:30.170 --> 00:24:33.490 Well, it's amazing. It's so true that there's so many dials that 313 00:24:33.650 --> 00:24:38.559 you have to manage when you're chief revenue officer. That span an impacts so 314 00:24:38.680 --> 00:24:47.079 many different facets of the organization and the customer experience and it's amazing that you 315 00:24:47.119 --> 00:24:49.920 draw that analogy. And you know, for those that are listening, I'm 316 00:24:49.920 --> 00:24:55.390 not sure if you're hearing it, but but Zorian, you want to find 317 00:24:55.430 --> 00:25:00.230 a guy like Zorian to help scale your organization because the background that he has. 318 00:25:02.430 --> 00:25:07.500 I can really appreciate the the the work you did early on to not 319 00:25:07.700 --> 00:25:12.859 only get deep into the financial market place but then the the analysis side of 320 00:25:12.940 --> 00:25:18.660 things, how that just carried over and how you applied what you learned in 321 00:25:18.819 --> 00:25:23.769 a specific industry. You apply that to to the assass in history and and 322 00:25:25.009 --> 00:25:29.049 you ran with it. And so those are some really interesting characteristics that. 323 00:25:29.250 --> 00:25:33.569 It was super interesting background and just you know, this is a great example 324 00:25:33.690 --> 00:25:37.960 for those founders out there that are looking for someone to bring in talent that 325 00:25:38.039 --> 00:25:44.799 that can help them scale. This is this is a great template. So 326 00:25:45.039 --> 00:25:48.720 I want to congratulate you on on that and and thank you. I think 327 00:25:48.759 --> 00:25:52.390 maybe one one last thing that might be interesting to talk about, since we're 328 00:25:52.390 --> 00:25:59.430 talking about data. I think you have an interesting perspective for early stage companies 329 00:25:59.990 --> 00:26:07.099 on the the LTV to cack ratio, oftentimes many companies, and hearing so 330 00:26:07.299 --> 00:26:15.980 much about customer acquisition cause and lifetime value and how that ratio should be. 331 00:26:15.660 --> 00:26:18.490 You know you want a greater than one and the ideal is a kind of 332 00:26:18.529 --> 00:26:23.609 at one ratio where you don't want to spend more on customer acquisition that you 333 00:26:23.650 --> 00:26:27.890 want to do on the lifetime margin of a customer that's in. Talking with 334 00:26:27.930 --> 00:26:32.049 you in the past, I know that that that can be a miss gnome 335 00:26:32.130 --> 00:26:37.039 or or perhaps an incorrect calibration for early stage startups. I want to get 336 00:26:37.039 --> 00:26:41.640 your perspective on there. Yeah, for sure for early stage and I cannot 337 00:26:41.799 --> 00:26:45.400 claim that I'm an early stage export majority of my career has been, you 338 00:26:45.519 --> 00:26:51.029 know, t twenty to a hundred but but I would say for sure if 339 00:26:51.109 --> 00:26:55.750 you are an early stage complic me, you are running so many experiments right 340 00:26:55.869 --> 00:27:00.950 you're trying to hire people that may not work out. You're still building a 341 00:27:00.990 --> 00:27:04.059 product which is still, either, you know, right around product market fit 342 00:27:04.740 --> 00:27:07.980 or a little bit after, but it's not, you know, fully big 343 00:27:08.220 --> 00:27:12.819 product that you would have years from now. You're still doing a lot of 344 00:27:12.900 --> 00:27:19.490 kinds of things that measuring LTV to cack as as a three point of benchmark 345 00:27:19.650 --> 00:27:23.329 is going to create a tremendous mental misalignment and I seen this again and again. 346 00:27:23.329 --> 00:27:27.250 I actually literally spoke to someone a couple weeks ago. He also has 347 00:27:27.250 --> 00:27:30.880 a very similar background. He was a bump trader and is now a cro 348 00:27:33.319 --> 00:27:37.640 it's very interesting. But yeah, just bring that finance, you know, 349 00:27:37.720 --> 00:27:41.079 Wall Street kind of background to help scale companies. It's interesting, but long 350 00:27:41.160 --> 00:27:45.109 story short, he had talked about this to his own CEEO, who said, 351 00:27:45.109 --> 00:27:49.670 listen, I read David Scogg's blog, obviously a very well known blog. 352 00:27:49.750 --> 00:27:53.230 It's kind of the Bible of sess called for entrepreneurs. I'm a huge 353 00:27:53.230 --> 00:27:57.579 fan of David Scott, but he talked about three as the benchmark for relity. 354 00:27:57.619 --> 00:28:00.819 You to cat but it just doesn't work in early stages. There's no 355 00:28:00.980 --> 00:28:04.700 way, no way, you're going to get to that. You're going to 356 00:28:04.779 --> 00:28:10.299 have really bad unit economics, but it doesn't mean that you're doing poorly at 357 00:28:10.339 --> 00:28:14.369 all. And a lot of the VC's initially would not fond early stage companies 358 00:28:14.369 --> 00:28:18.609 because they would say, you know, you have your first three customers or 359 00:28:18.730 --> 00:28:22.529 first and customers, but your outv to Kak is not three or more and 360 00:28:22.849 --> 00:28:23.970 you know it's not to your better so we're not going to invest right. 361 00:28:25.210 --> 00:28:29.880 That's just that's just wrong. In correct. It's misaligned or it's biased. 362 00:28:30.119 --> 00:28:34.680 It's biased to the kind of the product led growth side versus that, you 363 00:28:34.720 --> 00:28:40.279 know, the more expensive what you have higher cat costs when you're selling to 364 00:28:40.400 --> 00:28:44.509 enterprise. And so it's cute. Yeah, Oh, skied on many levels. 365 00:28:44.549 --> 00:28:48.589 Absolutely. I mean, listen, if you have an exceptional product, 366 00:28:48.069 --> 00:28:53.750 it's hugely differentiated, you're selling at a very low customer requisition cost. You 367 00:28:53.789 --> 00:28:56.779 should get out a way to just generate it on a leads from your product. 368 00:28:57.259 --> 00:29:00.859 Yeah, you're gonna have a great lt you to CAC, of course, 369 00:29:00.940 --> 00:29:03.420 but majority of companies are not like that. So it's not correct to 370 00:29:03.500 --> 00:29:07.140 look at it that way. I would almost argue that if you had looked 371 00:29:07.140 --> 00:29:12.369 at a lot of greats, I don't know, sales force in early days, 372 00:29:14.170 --> 00:29:17.089 you know, maybe V and where in the early days right, you'd 373 00:29:17.170 --> 00:29:22.690 probably not find great unit economics. But after series B and after series C, 374 00:29:22.930 --> 00:29:26.160 I think that's when you have to pay much more attention to unit economics, 375 00:29:26.279 --> 00:29:32.119 but just not in early stages. I couldn't agree more with with that 376 00:29:32.279 --> 00:29:40.109 approach. And oftentimes founders feel pressure because they're getting their perspective from a board 377 00:29:40.190 --> 00:29:45.430 member or from a potential investor and they feel pressure to try and fit into 378 00:29:45.509 --> 00:29:51.029 that box and it might just be too early and waiter might be a good 379 00:29:51.150 --> 00:29:56.819 fit with that particular venture. From yeah, it's a real disservice when investors 380 00:29:57.019 --> 00:30:02.220 believe in that and then force the the early stage founders to think that way 381 00:30:02.900 --> 00:30:06.819 and it creates a tremendous amount of misalignment for Ciros, Their v piece of 382 00:30:06.859 --> 00:30:11.210 sales or even marketing teams, because they are being asked to do the impossible. 383 00:30:11.130 --> 00:30:14.730 And then what happens is you end up you know your founder, you 384 00:30:14.809 --> 00:30:18.089 think your sales rep is not doing a good job because they the cost of 385 00:30:18.130 --> 00:30:22.839 sales is too high, they push them out, getting new VP of sales 386 00:30:22.880 --> 00:30:26.000 and it's just like this vicious cycle because they also are not going to be 387 00:30:26.039 --> 00:30:30.880 able to they don't have, you know, a magic wand, right, 388 00:30:30.079 --> 00:30:33.000 that's right. So yeah, you got to be really careful and I would 389 00:30:33.000 --> 00:30:40.390 say David Scott himself talked about this year's after posting that and on the accessor 390 00:30:40.509 --> 00:30:45.190 podcast with another one of my favorites, Harry stabbings, is you know, 391 00:30:45.549 --> 00:30:48.750 it's built a great podcast there. But he said that, yeah, like 392 00:30:48.190 --> 00:30:52.019 don't, don't look at that. That's for you know, later stage companies, 393 00:30:52.059 --> 00:30:56.460 you know, maybe series B or C, when you're way beyond product 394 00:30:56.460 --> 00:31:00.619 market fit and when you're when you have a great sales process in your scaling 395 00:31:00.660 --> 00:31:06.009 effectively. You know you understand your market. Then of course, you know, 396 00:31:06.130 --> 00:31:10.250 looking at those unit economics from that Lens is important, but but not 397 00:31:10.369 --> 00:31:12.890 really on. So in UN last a couple of minutes we have this. 398 00:31:14.049 --> 00:31:17.490 This has been great. Tell me a little bit about I have listened on 399 00:31:17.529 --> 00:31:22.880 a couple of different webinars that infotelligent has has promoted over for the last six 400 00:31:22.000 --> 00:31:27.960 months. Tell me a little bit about how infoteligent is approaching the market and 401 00:31:29.839 --> 00:31:33.230 and the product offering. I just want to make sure that not only I 402 00:31:33.390 --> 00:31:37.230 understand it, but the audience understand is, because it's a pretty unique opportunity. 403 00:31:37.269 --> 00:31:41.430 Yeah, no, thank you. So so we I like to say 404 00:31:41.470 --> 00:31:45.029 it's simply because I believe in the kind of positioning that is like instantly understood. 405 00:31:45.670 --> 00:31:51.259 We compete with Zoom Info. It's Zoom Info went public. They just 406 00:31:51.339 --> 00:31:55.579 had a very successfully IPO a few months ago and they're a great company, 407 00:31:55.819 --> 00:32:00.660 great product, great people. I you know, I definitely think it's great 408 00:32:00.700 --> 00:32:06.690 for our overall market that went public and they're creating visibility for for companies to 409 00:32:06.769 --> 00:32:12.130 use a product like there's and like ours to to find more customers. Right, 410 00:32:12.250 --> 00:32:16.519 and our product is differentiated from Zoom Info. I mean obviously we're far 411 00:32:16.680 --> 00:32:21.400 better price because we're not a public company, so we have that favor, 412 00:32:21.680 --> 00:32:25.640 you know, yea suspicious produs. Right, it's pretty favorable pricing. But 413 00:32:25.839 --> 00:32:30.990 you know, we also offer additional benefits with our product like, for example, 414 00:32:31.589 --> 00:32:36.630 look alike matching. So you upload or put in a number of customers 415 00:32:36.670 --> 00:32:40.230 that you sold to and our product finds you similar companies like Locali pattern matching. 416 00:32:40.829 --> 00:32:45.740 It's pretty cool. We also allow you to find intent data. We 417 00:32:45.500 --> 00:32:51.380 partnered up with bomborum. It's a wellknown be to be intent data provider. 418 00:32:51.619 --> 00:32:54.099 Yep, what they do is very hard. They're great partner, so we 419 00:32:54.220 --> 00:32:58.339 API into them, we get that data when we offer that as part of 420 00:32:58.420 --> 00:33:04.130 our product. All the important things for prospecting and selling and finding more customers. 421 00:33:04.170 --> 00:33:07.690 And my apologies for this kind of like a bit of self promotion here, 422 00:33:07.769 --> 00:33:12.880 but hopefully as sales. It's important to share this kind of information because, 423 00:33:13.319 --> 00:33:20.319 you know, oftentimes, especially when one particular product or service offering becomes 424 00:33:20.440 --> 00:33:25.119 dominant or it becomes just kind of an established standard. And they're doing great, 425 00:33:25.160 --> 00:33:28.309 don't get me wrong, and I've used them in the past and they're 426 00:33:28.390 --> 00:33:32.910 fantastic. Yeah, but there's there's also now there are a lot more alternatives 427 00:33:34.710 --> 00:33:38.829 to that one. You know, that was an initial opportunity. Now there 428 00:33:38.910 --> 00:33:46.700 other options and you're you're lacing your data with partnerships from from Bambara and you 429 00:33:46.779 --> 00:33:52.460 know you have a pricing differential which is great, and so I think that's 430 00:33:52.460 --> 00:33:59.170 wonderful and the fact that you're leading them. I'm expecting great things effects is 431 00:33:59.490 --> 00:34:01.170 sorry in this is this has been a good our high hair. Yeah, 432 00:34:02.329 --> 00:34:07.289 you know, I'm sure that they they had coming in. They have high 433 00:34:07.329 --> 00:34:12.360 expectations of you, given the history in the background, and this has certainly 434 00:34:12.400 --> 00:34:17.039 been great to learn about your work at all these different companies, in particular 435 00:34:17.159 --> 00:34:22.840 with invitelligent, and wish you continue. Success or John, thank you so 436 00:34:23.000 --> 00:34:27.150 much. It was great to be on your podcast. Really enjoy talking to 437 00:34:27.190 --> 00:34:29.710 you. So now what is the best way. If someone wants to learn 438 00:34:29.710 --> 00:34:34.110 more about infotelligent or wants to connect with you, sure they can go to 439 00:34:34.269 --> 00:34:39.539 infotelogencom with me. Just find me on Linkedin. Zorian Rottenburg. You can't 440 00:34:39.539 --> 00:34:44.860 miss it, or go to Zoriancom. My contact information is there. I'm 441 00:34:44.900 --> 00:34:47.940 always happy to help anyone in the industry. Also happy to send the elevator 442 00:34:47.980 --> 00:34:52.059 down, as they say. If I could be helpful to anyone, I'm 443 00:34:52.380 --> 00:34:57.610 I'm all years great analogy. So thank you so much for listening to this 444 00:34:57.809 --> 00:35:02.130 episode of the Revenue Series on be toob growth. I'm your host, John 445 00:35:02.210 --> 00:35:07.719 Grispin, founder and sales coach at early revenue. Please connect with me on 446 00:35:07.920 --> 00:35:12.639 Linkedin. I am happy to answer questions or provide recommendations. You can also 447 00:35:12.679 --> 00:35:19.320 email me on John at early REVENUECOM. Until next time, I'm out. 448 00:35:22.150 --> 00:35:25.030 Are you in early stage tech founder that's frustrated by limited sales? Do you 449 00:35:25.110 --> 00:35:30.869 like the time to dedicate to a traditional sales training program John Crispin's earlier revenue 450 00:35:30.869 --> 00:35:35.630 sales program helps early stage founders accelerate sales in large accounts. He's built a 451 00:35:35.710 --> 00:35:38.579 playbook that transfers what he's learned as a founder and sales leader into a condensed, 452 00:35:38.820 --> 00:35:43.780 easy to implement program if you're ready to increase your startup sales capacity, 453 00:35:44.139 --> 00:35:45.500 is it early Revenuecom to get started today