Rick Nucci

Great conversation with Joey Brodsky! Definitely one of the sharpest guys I know. I love his passion, drive and unique perspectives. I have followed his podcast for a long time and was super happy to be able to be a guest. I will share more insights from our time together but wanted to post a quick thank you to Joey and share the episode. #NextGenSales

10

3 Comments

To win in the world of AI/ digital disruption, progressive startups are embracing structural change . #1. Right prioritise your planning model ( short vs long).The short game (i.e. short term planning and execution) is critically important until you get to $50 M ish, more important than the long game ( i.e. long term vision) #2. Right size-mix your organization model (i.e. hire special forces vs full time employees / build small teams vs large teams) #startup #scaling #winning #longtermvsshortterm #specialforces #growth

4

A poorly executed #customersuccess strategy will kill your #NRR for years to come. I've seen it first-hand too many times over the years. Here is how you deliver a well-executed CS strategy to drive great NRR and ultimately, business growth: 🛣️ 𝐔𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝗗𝘆𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗰 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐮𝐞 & 𝐂𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝐉𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐲 The first step in any customer success strategy is understanding the full & dynamic revenue & customer journey. This means not just knowing what your customers do, but why they do it. How and why did they buy your services? How do they move through their journey with you (rarely ina straight line!)? By understanding their motivations, you can better anticipate their needs and deliver solutions that truly add value. And don't forget, the old-school customer journey is not the standard anymore, you need to use the full, dynamic revenue & customer journey to get the full picture. This stretches from pre-sale to post-sale and allows for the customer to move in and out of journey phases/stages dynamically. 📈 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐄𝐧𝐠𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 Customer success is not a reactive function. It's about being proactive, anticipating customer needs, and addressing them before they become issues. You have to ensure that your strategy is aligned around, and fosters, a proactive CS culture and process that allows your team to execute effectively. This not only improves customer satisfaction, but also reduces churn, and creates more expansion opportunities. Both key factors in improving NRR. 📊 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐚-𝐃𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐃𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐌𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 In the #SaaS & #CS world, we have access to a wealth of data. By leveraging this data, we can make informed decisions that drive customer success. This could be anything from identifying usage patterns to predict churn, to understanding which features drive the most value for customers and beyond. And it needs to go beyond telemetry, usage etc. Also capture, track and understand customer goals and other qualitative data points. One problem is that this data is often siloed or hard to access, so make sure you have systems (like RevSetter) that can bridge that gap and allows CSMs to effectively action the data & insights. 🤝 𝐁𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚 𝐂𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐫-𝐂𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐜 𝐂𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 Customer success should not be the responsibility of a single department. It should be ingrained in the company culture. When everyone in the organization understands the value of customer success, it becomes a strategic priority that drives business growth. This is why the dynamic revenue & customer journey, the engagement focus, and the proactive mindset are so important. When those are present - and a strategic & customer-centric approach is adopted by the CEO & leadership - the sky is the limit. Leverage these four building blocks and your CS strategy and execution will thank you for it ✅ *** 🛎️ If you enjoy my content, follow me for more ♻️ Repost to share with your network

28

8 Comments

The revenue teams I talk to don’t want a dozen solutions. They want a single platform that does it all. - Forecasting - Call recordings - Sales engagement When these features exist in an isolated, one-off solution, the switching costs are huge. Reps spend hours each week clicking back-and-forth. Tech fatigue takes over. Costs go through the roof. That’s why we’re positioning Clari as a one-stop shop. Everything reps to execs need - all available on a single Revenue Platform. Throw in next-level AI and the largest revenue database on the market, and that’s a winning formula. If you want to learn more about Clari, chat with my team here: https://lnkd.in/gUjW9Y2z 

18

David’s S&M as a % of net new ARR is basically the same thing as net new CAC ratio and at 2.3x it’s running high. Even if you back out stock-based compensation (SBC) it’s still running above 2.0x. And these are best-in-class public companies. But despite historical comparisons is 2.0x too much to pay for a $1 of new ARR? It depends, mostly on expansion potential and stickiness. If paired with a high NRR, it works. If paired wtih a low GRR or a short CLT then it might well not. But, more than anything, make sure you look at it both ways — relative to past norms and relative to future value.

26

8 Comments

We asked 20 RevOps leaders what they would tell their younger selves. Here's what they said. (We ask this question to all our guests at the RevOps Lab podcast) 1) Alexander P. Mueller ↳ Look out for a mentor. Once a month, spend some time discussing your views. Learn from the community around you. EP1: Building, growing, and managing RevOps at unicorn Forto 2) Guy Clark ↳ Be prepared to be overloaded. We can't think about a million things at once. So it's about simplification, whether that's in your life or in your business. EP2: Drive sales productivity with simplification & automation 3) Nicholas Gollop ↳ Don’t underestimate the importance of attention to detail. Prioritise quality over quantity. You shouldn't have to pick up mistakes and iterate. EP3: Demonstrate value by enabling revenue growth 4) Darren Fay ↳ Don't let curiosity sit in the back of your mind. If there's something that you're thinking about, do a little bit of effort every day to level yourself up. EP5: The Intent-Based Revenue Operations Framework 5) Haris Odobasic ↳ Master your communication skills. If you can communicate well and align stakeholders, you will succeed and excel in RevOps. EP7: Why RevOps should report to the CEO 👉 Unfortunately, I reached the LI post character limit. Check out the advice from those awesome folks in the slides below. 👈 Jacco Van Der Koji EP32: Creating a modern revenue factory Mallory Lee EP13: Unlock strategic alignment with a pipeline council Marcus Bening EP11: Customer Success Ops Chris Mackinnon EP10: Tools you need to grow your company Adrien Del Bonta EP8: Scaling RevOps from 0 to 25 people at Contentful Natalie Furness EP4: How RevOps can create alignment in your revenue org Udi Cohen EP20: Running RevOps in a product-led growth company Noah Charak EP12: How to enter and grow a career in RevOps Charlie Saunders EP14: Tracking the entire GTM funnel end-to-end Stefan Mersch EP15: Building a RevOps org in a high-growth SaaS company Eddie Reynolds EP16: Driving growth with customer success Dr. Paul Kallenberger EP17: Running RevOps like a product team Doug Davidoff EP18: Why revenue teams get CRMs all wrong Haden C. EP19: Financial metrics that drive customer success ops Ping Del Giudice EP21: Creating an effective forecasting process #revops #revenueoperations #sales

42

2 Comments

The end of first half is quickly approaching for many SaaS GTM teams and leaders will soon start to assess how the second half is shaping up. Pipeline will get a lot of attention - as it should. But are you asking the right questions about that data? Do you know what your pipeline data tells you about the efficiency of your GTM team? Are you asking the right questions to help determine hiring plan adjustments? Do you what 1H pipeline data says about the likelihood of success for reps ramping in the 2H? Excited to hear Jeffrey Serlin and Erik Swenson talk about pipeline and more as they share tips to avoid a 2H slump! https://lnkd.in/gdb4NQnv

19

1 Comment

Which SaaS tools are companies spending money on? Interesting report from Vendr (which is a great tool for tracking SaaS spend and contracts btw) https://lnkd.in/d6xJypvf

3

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

44

12 Comments

Salesforce's crucible moment Salesforce is poised to enter uncharted territory. Q2 will be the slowest revenue growth quarter in their history, and crucially, their first ever single digit YoY revenue growth quarter. (They project a max revenue growth of 8% YoY in Q2). Durability of revenue growth has historically been the #1 driver of valuation for growth technology companies, and investors typically look for an enduring growth rate in the high teens, at the very least. Now that SFDC is entering sub-10% growth rate, they potentially morph into a free cash flow story, i.e. they need to target 30 – 40%+ FCF/EBITDA margins. But are Marc Benioff and his team ready to go down this path? Or are they going to push hard to capitalize on the Gen AI wave, continue to do big acquisitions and get growth back up again? At 10%-ish growth rate, they're basically in line with a lot of the PE-backed legacy software plays. And the question for investors becomes: why invest in Salesforce if some of these other companies can deliver mid – high single digits (or even 10%ish) growth but with much higher margins? So Salesforce has to choose a path: either reaccelerate growth back to at least 10%+ YoY (likely low teens) and still get credit for growth OR focus on making FCF margins much stronger and be valued on FCF. Just to be clear, I'm rooting for SFDC. I hope they can get growth back up. They have been an iconic technology company for decades and one should never count Marc Benioff out. But the grim reality facing them is that the longer they stay in the no man's land of low growth coupled with low FCF margins, the more challenging it will be to sustain investor interest.

253

7 Comments

At the Gainsight conference last week, I had several folks ask me some version of "everyone used to talk about adoption....now everyone says that it's just about outcomes and ROI. What's your take?" It is and has always been about both. Can you get ROI without adoption? No. Is adoption by itself sufficient to guarantee value realization? Also no. You have to have adoption of the right capabilities that tie to customer business priorities with attached measurable outcomes. That is and has always been the formula. This is easy to say, really hard to implement and manage at scale. Which is why very few companies do it.

19

5 Comments

How 2 SaaS founders bootstrapped their way through 3 years of struggle and walked away with a $60M exit. In 2008, Bob Moore and Jake Stein launched RJMetrics in the data analytics space and set out to raise funding. But that same week, Lehman Brothers collapsed. And no one wanted to invest in their startup. So they bootstrapped for 3 grueling years. They had little money and struggled to find customers and keep their business afloat. But they persevered. In 2012, things finally took off. Their growth accelerated quickly, and they finally raised $20M in VC funding. By 2016, the market shifted, and growth flatlined. Luckily they were able to sell the business. They described it as a "good, not great" exit. The founders retained the IP for one feature, which they launched as a standalone product called Stitch. In a whirlwind 18 months, they sold Stitch for $60M. But Bob wasn't done yet. In 2018, he launched Crossbeam, a platform helping companies grow customer relationships via partners. But he quickly realized he had a huge issue. His platform was useless unless he could get both the company and its partner to sign up simultaneously. "It was like landing two jumbo jets at once!" he said. This made it extremely challenging to grow the business, and Bob had to endure another 2 years of struggles. Eventually, in 2020, his hard work paid off. The 'network effect' built into his platform finally kicked in with enough customers on the platform. Today, his startup Crossbeam: - Generates multiple 8-figures in ARR - Has grown to a team of 100 people - Successfully raised $116 million → 5 Key Lessons from Bob's and Jake's story: 1) Early years are demanding: Bootstrapping is tough, but stay motivated and celebrate every small milestone to maintain progress. 2) Adapt when needed: Don't shy away from pivoting and/or creating a product based on a valuable feature (as they did with Stitch). 3) Leverage your network: Utilize existing relationships to find early adopters and accelerate growth. 'Warm' leads are your best friends. 4) Do things that don't scale: Early on, this can help tackle challenges like the "cold start" problem with two-sided marketplaces. 5) Solve a problem you've experienced: Build a product to solve a pain you experienced and target an audience you know to gain an edge. Which of these lessons resonates most with you? Share your thoughts in the comments! --- Want more insights to help build and grow your SaaS? Get my 5-minute weekly newsletter. SaaS learnings, new podcast episodes, and actionable insights in your inbox. Click the "Visit my website" link at the top of this post.

164

17 Comments

Segment design is one of my favorite parts of TigerEye. Cutting segments with simple rules is so incredibly powerful when you consider how each rule interacts with the others. When you're editing segments in TigerEye, you're generally working in a plan scenario. While you're developing the plan it doesn't change any production data - you're in a sandbox until you decide to publish the plan. This lets you see the impact of segmentation changes without messing up current account assignment or even showing your work to others. You can explore different ideas quickly and safely. We really believe that the reliance on manual work in spreadsheets is holding back operational teams - RevOps, SalesOps, MarketingOps, FinanceOps. These are critical strategic functions in modern business and we're building tools to help empower these teams to 10x their impact.

8

Running our Q1 retro with the whole Accord GTM crew in town! Despite coming in +120% to target, there're still SO MANY WAYS I want us to get better... - Getting onsite, to leaders, and multi-threading *earlier* in the process - Running tighter demos with relatable stories vs feature heavy - Do even more work for our buyers to help them evaluate - Exec updates post-sales to drive success + upsells - Document talk-tracks and key objections There's ENDLESS ways to up-level your team when it comes to deal execution... The question is, will you prioritize the time, effort, and growth? Or just ask yourself + your team to work harder, not smarter? Getting 1% better every day is incredibly rewarding and the only way to win over the long term 📈 📈 📈

40

3 Comments

Fellow SaaS Growth enthusiasts, Dave Boyce and I are planning a series of conversations(blogs/podcasts) on the state of SaaS GTM. What would you like us to cover? --- We are thinking about the following broad topics... 1. SaaS Growth At All Costs (GAAC) , why is it a continuing trend 2. What are the constituent line items that makes up the large S&M budgets across major companies 3. Can #PLG reduce customer acquisition costs (CAC)? What else would you like us to cover? cc'ing few folks for ideas: OnlyCFO, David Spitz, CJ Gustafson #SaasGrowth #moderngtm #b2bsaas

24

4 Comments

I’m starting to see a trend on internal Salesforce teams. More orgs are moving towards a centralized ownership model, which is great! But many of them are UNWILLING to do it the right way 👇 This is what we see playing out across the landscape. 1. Companies reach the stage when Rev Ops can’t own GTM Systems 2. They make the smart decision to centralize all Biz Tech teams 3. Rev Ops worries about their needs being met in this structure Result: A portion of the Salesforce team remains within Rev Ops And this end result is even more disjointed than when you started. Now, some top-down decisions are made from the Technology team. While other bottom-up decisions are made from Rev Ops and the Admins, Business Analysts, or Product Owners that remain there. The point of centralization is to create a unified governing body. This ‘partial’ centralization model is a disaster. And I say companies are “unwilling” to get it right because it’s a choice. It’s conceding to one team, rather than prioritizing organizational needs overall. We see this playing out all over the place. An example you can see based purely on open jobs is at Dialpad. • 300+ Sales Reps • 100+ Support Reps • 8-person Salesforce team 👉 Sr. Director, Enterprise Apps & Integrations 👉 4 Salesforce Administrators 👉 3 Salesforce Engineers 👉 And 2 Open Biz Tech Positions: 1. Sr. Director, Enterprise Applications Reporting into the CIO Ownership of Salesforce, Finance Systems, HRIS, and more. 2. Salesforce Administrator Reporting into the Director, Sales Ops & Strategy I understand the desire for Rev Ops to retain some control. Yes, there are benefits to them having Salesforce SMEs on the team. But ultimately, Salesforce needs to live on a single team. Otherwise, the CIO org lays plans for the long-term roadmap. Meanwhile, initiatives are occurring without their full knowledge. • An Admin working directly with Finance on changes to CPQ • Random deployments trickling into the org along the way And this slowly turns into complete fragmentation. The Salesforce team needs to be centralized. And there’s a right way to do it. __ #Salesforce #BizTech #GTM

95

18 Comments

The other day I met with a founder & CTO who advises and scales early stage companies - with several successful exits under their belts. We talked about “what exactly is Rev Ops” and how if done right - we are a lean / mean strategic investment to drive GTM operations at scale. Many founders are doing exactly this type of work. But when a founder has to focus on sales, or marketing, or pmf, or, or, or….who is taking this lens. So we talked about the purposeful investments in ops and the strategic need for Rev Ops. Driving cross business alignment of gtm operations, tooling, data, and business strategy that fuels the revenue creation engine. Knowing what levers to pull by when, how, and to what outcome. Don’t grow at all costs. Don’t grow inefficiently. Grow sustainably using the levers you already have in your business. #revops #growtherightway

12

2 Comments

Marc Benioff can I introduce you to new way to accelerate growth? Seven revenue solution implemented in a day. How many business would move to salesforce. In my view all of them in time. Lets talk simple math: 250,000 customers x $100,000 (the cost of one employee) which is 45 licenses equals $25B/year. Best part everyone can self-implement. Gokul Rajaram would you like to see what I am talking about?

3

Thank you for joining us, Danny Schonfeld! Your insights were incredibly valuable during our podcast session. We truly appreciate having you share your expertise with us! What is the BIGGEST advantage for RevOps? Cross-functional collaboration 🚀 Danny Schonfeld, VP of RevOps at Glia, says that fostering strong partnerships with each function is necessary, because: 1️⃣ They can get a different perspective from like-minded people 2️⃣ They can assess the impact of one function’s project on the others Danny also talks to Mike Groeneveld (Everstage) about: ✅ Mastering the art of prioritizing tasks ✅ Significance of cross-functional collaboration ✅ 3 skills every great RevOps professional must have Head over to the link in comments to listen to the full conversation 🎧

4

1 Comment