The Distributed Truth

The Importance of the Buyer Journey in B2B SaaS with Sebastien van Heyningen

admin@salescast.co (Evan Dunn, Syncari, The Distributed Truth) — Mon, 17 Jul 2023 22:08:10 +0000

In this episode of the Distributed Truth Podcast, Evan Dunn is joined by Sebastien van Heyningen, a seller turned RevOps expert and the founder of Central Metric. Central Metric helps B2B SaaS companies increase revenue efficiently through building scalable systems.

Sebastien van Heyningen discusses the importance of focusing on the buyer journey in a holistic manner and the challenges companies face in achieving this. He emphasizes the need for a consensus on the buyer journey and the importance of understanding the steps that buyers actually take. Sebastien also highlights the limitations of the concept of a single source of truth and the need for each team to have its own truth-filled operating system. He suggests tracing the best buyer journey that has been delivered and combining it with the existing true north to create an automated and easy-to-follow version. Sebastien also advises companies to ask their clients and gather insights from various sources to understand the steps buyers need to take.

TRUTHS OF THE DAY

The buyer journey is more important than the offering.

“We're all kind of doing the same stuff and the folks that actually do it in a holistic way and consider every step, what experience the people that you're trying to engage with are having, those are the ones that win. I put an article up recently that was like, the buyer journey is more important than the offering. And I think as the market becomes more and more crowded, that becomes more and more true.” - Sebastien van Heyningen

The importance of collecting insights from buyers.

Connect with Sebastien van Heyningen and learn more about his work:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sebastienvanheyningen/

Central Metric: https://www.centralmetric.tech/services/

Connect with Evan to learn more about Syncari and The Distributed Truth podcast:

Evan Dunn | Syncari | Syncari.com

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The Death of the Glory of the ‘Net New Logo’ with Jacki Leahy

admin@salescast.co (Evan Dunn) — Thu, 15 Jun 2023 15:00:00 +0000

The importance of revenue maturity towards customer care, customer success, and growth. "And I'm really hoping that revenue maturity goes toward the light of like when a CRO deeply cares about customer care, customer success, and growth that way, from my experience, a lot of CROs have the title, but still have that like love language of like net new deal."

Data teams trying to reckon with the needs of the business and the need for executive sponsorship. "One thing I observed watching a lot of data team conversations in communities and around Reddit and that kind of stuff is. They, they are trying to reckon with the needs of the business all the time. Mm-hmm. They're not super clear. Yeah. Right. What, how to bring value. And 10 years into data teams, they're still not super clear."

Connect with Jacki and learn more about her work:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackileahy/

Activate the Magic: https://www.activatethemagic.com/

Connect with Evan to learn more about Syncari and The Distributed Truth podcast:

Evan Dunn | Syncari | Syncari.com

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How to Eliminate Silos: Reverse Engineer the Customer Experience, with Rebecca Clyde

Wed, 7 Jun 2023 15:00:00 +0000

Rebecca gets practical about how founders can reimagine their tech stack to optimize for revenue-driving activities. Rebecca brings her own experience as a founder, as well as background working with Fortune 500 companies, to deliver timely recommendations for managing their tech and data investments. In order to eliminate silos and reduce bloat in the tech stack, leaders need to reverse engineer how their customers interact with their teams and technology, and prioritize the investments that most directly attach to revenue.

Rebecca Clyde is the co-founder and CEO of Botco.ai. The company’s genAI Chat Cloud enables conversations between businesses and their customers that are engaging, personalized and insightful.

Ms. Clyde is an accomplished business leader with unique expertise in marketing automation and company building. Prior to Botco.ai, Clyde founded Ideas Collide, an Inc. 5000 digital agency now in its 15th year serving Fortune 500 companies. She was previously a digital strategist at Intel and holds an MBA from Arizona State University.

TRUTHS OF THE DAY

REBECCA: REMOVE DUPLICATES TO SOLVE ISSUES FOR THE ADMINISTRATION AND FOR CLIENTS

“It's such a hard decision to make for folks to decide to go get care for their mental health, or for a potential addiction problem that they might be having. It's a huge step for them. And we should remove any barrier, and certainly not make the data be the problem along the way if anything.”

REBECCA: CUSTOMERS JUST WANT A GOOD EXPERIENCE, THEY DON'T REALLY CARE ABOUT YOUR CRM

“I like to take a very customer-centric orientation as well because honestly, I know everybody uses Salesforce or some type of CRM, we believe it's imperative. But your customer doesn't interface with it, they don't actually use it. And in fact, they may not care if you use Salesforce or a CRM or not, that's not what they're going to be experiencing.”

Connect with Rebecca and learn more about his work:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebeccaclyde/

botco.ai: https://botco.ai/

Connect with Evan to learn more about Syncari and The Distributed Truth podcast:

Evan Dunn | Syncari | Syncari.com

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The Customer 360 Conundrum: Everyone Wants What No One Has, with Jeff Beaumont

Wed, 31 May 2023 13:20:20 +0000

Jeff has built a high-performing CS operations team at GitLab supporting hundreds of customer success and support managers. Jeff gets very detailed about how GitLab developed its customer 360 program, how they developed product usage data insights for CS, as well as how vital it is for this information to be distributed across sales and CS together.

Jeff Beaumont leads customer success operations and programs at GitLab. Jeff has worked in SaaS for over ten years, before which he was a CPA.

TRUTHS OF THE DAY

JEFF: PEELING BACK AND DISCOVERING THE DATA ISSUES

“They're not aligned on 'this needs to be a company initiative' so you have teams just doing skunkworks projects by saying 'this is what I have to do, this project over here that unrelated to this, but I'm still passionate about this usage data project because I see the vision. I believe in it' but they can really only devote a couple of hours. That just does not get it done.”

JEFF: COLLABORATION ACROSS CSMS AND SALES

“So from a sales rep perspective, they're incentivized to make sure that their CSM and their solution architect or sales engineer are both well-equipped, have the data that they need, and can execute. Because it's going to come back for them in the future. You need to sow and then you can reap.”

Connect with Jeff and learn more about his work:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffbeaumont/
Github: https://about.gitlab.com/

Connect with Evan to learn more about Syncari and The Distributed Truth podcast:

Evan Dunn | Syncari | Syncari.com

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Untangling the Spiderweb: Managing the Flow of Customer Data at Scale with Caterina Torres

Thu, 25 May 2023 13:41:15 +0000

Cat joins The Distributed Truth to discuss one of the most overlooked-yet-important parts of Revenue Operations: documenting the flow of customer data across GTM tools. According to Cat, the ability to track leads to customers to renewals is “very rare” in B2B orgs of any size. We talk diagrams, nightmare scenario “spiderwebs of insanity” and Cat’s unflagging appetite for simplifying and optimizing the tech stack. And if you want to know how to sell to a Revenue Ops leader like Cat, make sure your CS team prioritizes their needs and feedback.

Caterina Torres is a Senior Revenue Operations Manager at Weights & Biases, previously at Supermove and Zoom. With a background spanning from sales data management to marketing systems, Cat brings a level-headed view of the importance of customer data strategy to Go-To-Market efficiency.

TRUTHS OF THE DAY

CAT: HOW OFTEN DOES ONE END UP IN A SPIDERWEB SCENARIO

“When a company is starting up, they actually do a pretty good job of connecting or finding a single source of truth area. But I'd say the larger the company is, that's where it becomes a spiderweb of insanity.”

CAT ON WHICH TEAMS NEED TO SEE THE FULL CUSTOMER JOURNEY

“Being able to see the full journey is extremely important for all the teams whether they know it or not. Maybe the engineering team would be least likely to benefit from it because they're building the product so they don't really need to see.”

Connect with Caterina and learn more about her work:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caterina-torres-%F0%9F%A7%A9-2331b628/

Weights & Biases: https://wandb.ai/site

Connect with Evan to learn more about Syncari and The Distributed Truth podcast:

Evan Dunn | Syncari | Syncari.com

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GTM’s #1 Problem: Managing Data Across the Stack, with Connor JeffersGTM’s #1 Problem: Managing Data Across the Stack, with Connor Jeffers

Thu, 18 May 2023 15:00:00 +0000

Connor discusses the biggest problems facing GTM - and they all have to do with data across GTM systems. In fact, according to Aptitude8’s research, the #1 implementation challenge for CRMs is data migration and data management. Listen to Connor’s expert insights about the history of the Lead Object, the importance of data models to your business model, and the need for centralized data management owned by RevOps teams.

Connor Jeffers is the founder and CEO of Aptitude8 and Hapily and is basically a Jedi of making HubSpot work for companies of all stages and sizes. Connor has spent his career in marketing and revenue operations leadership, as well as startup incubation.

TRUTHS OF THE DAY

CONNOR: THE NUMBER ONE CONCERN WITH MOVING DATA SYSTEMS

“I think the core of data migration is, 'migrating data is hard.' Sure, that's true but also not, you export it and import it. The problem is, normalizing it, transforming it, making it useful in the new system, and usually where it's coming from is it's dirty and unstructured. And that's the root cause of all these issues.”

EVAN ON FIRST UNDERSTANDING YOUR COMPANY APPROACH

“Business model matters for your data model. In other words, if you're B2B then you need to know companies and if you're B2C you don't necessarily. Though, you can argue, there's a concept of a household that B2C companies are now trying to aggregate to particularly for media, entertainment, and even CPG. They do this with tons of data in the back end and CRMs struggle to keep up with these needs.”

Connect with Connor and learn more about his work:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/connor-jeffers/

Aptitude 8: https://aptitude8.com/

Connect with Evan to learn more about Syncari and The Distributed Truth podcast:

Evan Dunn | Syncari | Syncari.com

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Firewalls & Funnels: Cybersecurity’s Lessons for RevOps, with Jomar Ebalida

Thu, 11 May 2023 15:00:00 +0000

Jomar joins us to explore the intriguing intersection of revenue operations and cybersecurity, specifically as it relates to data. A seasoned expert in both fields, Jomar sheds light on how cybersecurity principles can be leveraged when unifying data from the myriad systems in the modern stack to optimize RevOps. We also discuss real-world applications of the bowtie funnel, double diamond model, and multi-dimensional swim lanes in solving complex operational problems.

Jomar Ebalida is a seasoned digital transformation practitioner with over a decade of experience in scaling unicorn companies and transforming enterprise revenue technology stacks. As the head of revenue technology for a global law firm, Jomar leads digital transformation efforts while also serving as a RevOps coach, conducting revenue technology audits, and advising on marketing and revenue strategy. Jomar is the author of “Rethinking RevOps”.

TRUTHS OF THE DAY

JOMAR: YOU HAVE TO UNDERSTAND WHERE DATA COMES FROM

“Even pixels matter. Data matters and making sure you're controlling that even from a start-up organization, it's going to help you scale your company because you're going to know how to connect those pieces together. No matter how big, no matter what industry you're at, it's always going to be the same, where do you centralize your data?”

JOMAR ON THE CURRENT CONNECTION BETWEEN AI AND DATA

“When you unify the data in certain stages, you're then able to figure out, Okay this stakeholder works in this tool and this is the data that gets collected for this.' Because generative AI, those are powered through data. Right now, I think we're reaching a cap where we're peaking in it but haven't been fully immersed in it”

Connect with Jomar and learn more about his work:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jomarebalida/
Rethinking RevOps: https://revtechconnect.com/rethinking-revops/

Connect with Aaron to learn more about Syncari and The Distributed Truth podcast:

Aaron Landgraf | Syncari | Syncari.com

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The Problem of Human Behavior and CRM Data, with Scott Marker

admin@salescast.co (The Distributed Truth, Evan Dunn) — Wed, 3 May 2023 00:34:16 +0000

Scott joins us to discuss the problem of human input in B2B sales, how to encourage adoption of CRM and keep organizations aligned on the value of meaningful shared data about their pipeline and growth. Scott is acutely aware of the relationship between systems and people, and how few people really feel the need to maintain accurate systems, particularly at the leadership level.

Scott Marker is a seasoned sales and marketing strategist. He has worked for 30 years with startups at various stages, such as Simplex, helping them adopt CRM and sales tech to improve how they leverage data to scale their business relationships. Scott is also a professor at Boise State, and author of Broken: How to Fix B2B Sales, Drive Profitable Growth & Win.

TRUTHS OF THE DAY

SCOTT: DON'T DO "SALESFORCE TAKES OVER THE WORLD" TYPE SYSTEMS

“Salesforce was doing everything for them and it was massive. But it was the most clunky because they're trying to make Salesforce be all the things it shouldn't be. Versus having Salesforce as the hub for sales and marketing but then having other systems that are better at doing what they do than trying to have Salesforce be forced to do everything. ”

SCOTT: CRM SHOULD BE RECOGNIZED AS A HELPFUL TOOL RIGHT FROM TRAINING

“I've said for years that I'm one of the biggest critics of CRMs but for me and people like me that use them the right way, they're one of the biggest keys to my success in gaining more customers and keeping more customers if you use them correctly.”

Connect with Scott and learn more about his work:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottmarker1/
MCA²: https://www.mca-2.com/

Connect with Evan to learn more about Syncari and The Distributed Truth podcast:

Evan Dunn | Syncari | Syncari.com

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Information Systems = Humans + Data, with Tim Lockie

Thu, 27 Apr 2023 15:00:00 +0000

Tim joins us to talk about the human impact of tech and data issues. It’s a hard one to pin down, but he came ready with a great analogy (a CRM is a car…) and we discuss how to create lasting behavioral change in teams and organizations through data pipelines that bring real value. Tim’s advice to the tech-buying executive: build a relationship with your internal technical expert. Tim’s advice to the operations pro who needs new tech: build a relationship with your executive counterpart. And plenty more.

Tim Lockie is the Founder and CEO of The Human Stack, co-host of the Why IT Matters podcast, and uses he/him pronouns. His history with the nonprofit world and technology seems to be intertwined. Tim has 20 years of organization experience as a volunteer, youth worker, camp counselor, music instructor, foster parent, getaway driver for teens in danger, board member, finance director, bookkeeper, recruiter, and community administrator…the list goes on. He has seen system deficiencies range from missed opportunities to damaged relationships in these capacities. Tim believes that Digital Transformation is affordable and scalable with nonprofits of all sizes and is obsessed with The Human Stack. You can hear more from him and his co-host Tracy Kronzak on the Why IT Matters podcast.

TRUTHS OF THE DAY

TIM: DON'T FORGET THE "HUMAN" SIDE OF DATA

“When we think about information systems, the first mistake we make is to think it's all technology. Information systems are half tech and half human. IT systems are all tech but information systems are half human. And we leave the humans out and forget that.”

TIM: WE UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF BELONGING

“We've left out this whole element of belonging because we don't view data and behavior as a source of belonging. So we keep getting wrong signals which is why someone is saying we've got to have this kind of data so we've got to require it. Nobody stopped to ask how much more belonging does this person get by filling that in.”

Connect with Tim and learn more about his work:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tlockie/
The Human Stack: https://thehumanstack.com/

Connect with Evan to learn more about Syncari and The Distributed Truth podcast:

Evan Dunn | Syncari | Syncari.com

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The Missing Link in Intelligent Automation: Unified Data, with Rick Vargas

Wed, 19 Apr 2023 15:00:00 +0000

Join us with Rick Vargas, a veteran Marketing Ops and Revenue Ops leader and strategic consultant, as he discusses the fundamental link between unified data and more intelligent automation and analytics. Learn why breaking down data siloes and operating with unified data is a must-have given macroeconomic conditions - regardless of industry. Rick will also share real-world examples and offer advice on where organizations should get started if they need more intelligent process automation.

Rick Vargas is a highly experienced operations professional, technologist, and consultant, with stints at D&B, Capgemini, and Solomon Consulting Group. Rick now leads business innovation and development within Cognizant’s Digital Operations Intelligent Automation Automation practice, covering communications, media, and technology.

TRUTHS OF THE DAY

RICK: THE IMPORTANCE OF DATA FOR CUTTING COSTS

“It's in that process of driving efficiencies into the business where data becomes so important because you cannot just rip and replace or rip and don't replace an application without having control over the information and the impact, up funnel and down funnel, that that information has.”

RICK: WE NEED TO BRING INNOVATIVE APPROACHES TO TAKE COST OUT

“When things happen in silos, that tends to be when the inefficiencies come up and the inefficiencies lead to higher costs for the clients. So as a service provider, when we're competing in this space, we compete on experience, capabilities, and we also compete on price.”

Connect with Rick and learn more about his work:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rickvargas7/
Cognizant: https://www.cognizant.com/

Connect with Aaron to learn more about Syncari and The Distributed Truth podcast:

Aaron Landgraf | Syncari | Syncari.com

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Unified Data or Bust: Net Revenue Retention and RevOps, with Chris Dunagan

admin@salescast.co (Syncari, The Distributed Truth, Evan Dunn) — Wed, 12 Apr 2023 15:00:00 +0000

Christopher Dunagan is a highly experienced marketing technology revenue operations professional, with stints at Oracle, Microsoft, Hitachi Consulting and, most recently, Aurora Solar. Chris currently consults with growth-stage companies and helps them scale without the wheels falling off. Find Chris at revopsroad.com.

Chris joins Evan to discuss the shift to focus on go-to-market efficiency, and how customer experience mapping to a data model is vital to a unified sales, marketing, and CS group. Chris dives into how to calculate net revenue retention and why it’s so difficult to pull data from multiple systems. Chris brings seasoned wisdom to what is generally treated as a new function - a global, executive revenue operations function.

TRUTHS OF THE DAY

CHRIS: THE PROBLEM WITH BAD DATA

“When you have bad data, what happens is that a lot of times you end up with kind of a confirmation bias where you don't really know what you don't know, you make a hypothesis based on the data.”

CHRIS: THE IMPORTANCE OF DATA QUALITY

“One of the pre-step or pre-work things that you need to do is really assess the data quality of the systems. So let's just say you've got an alignment, if you don't have a tool like Syncari, frequently, you do have challenges with data quality, and I'd say that kind of just table stakes for any ongoing discussion, you've got to solve for that first.”

Connect with Christopher and learn more about his work:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-dunagan-revops-consultant-0870522/
RevOps Road: https://revopsroad.com/

Connect with Evan to learn more about Syncari and The Distributed Truth podcast:

Evan Dunn | Syncari | Syncari.com

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How Data Leaders Empower Go-To-Market, with Nate Sooter

admin@salescast.co (Syncari, Evan Dunn, The Distributed Truth) — Wed, 5 Apr 2023 17:34:28 +0000

Nate Sooter runs Business Analytics, and generally all things data, at Insightly. He began back in Customer Success at Rosetta Stone, then spent time in sales ops and analyst roles at Funko and Merkle, before eventually leading BI Operations at SmartSheet. Nate brings a sharp perspective to the conversation of who owns which aspects of customer data, especially given he works very closely with Sales Operations in his current role.

Nate joins us to share his real-world experience operating as a bridge between data, analytics, and revenue operations. As Nate reports to the CRO in his current role, we tease out the relationship between Go-To-Market and Product organizations regarding customer data programs. Listen for some useful distinctions between operational and analytical data, the importance of data modeling as a fundamental practice, and the tension between growth and data governance, only here in The Distributed Truth.

TRUTHS OF THE DAY

NATE: WHY YOU NEED DATA MODELING

“What you end up with is if you don't have data modeling really figured out, you start putting data in the wrong places.”

NATE: STARTING A CONCEPTUAL MODEL

“I try to start with what the business needs and how the business thinks about, and then from there develop a data model based on the business.”

Connect with Nate and learn more about his work:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathansooter/
Insightly: https://www.insightly.com/

Connect with Evan to learn more about Syncari and The Distributed Truth podcast:

Evan Dunn | Syncari | Syncari.com

Make sure to leave a comment, and subscribe!

Bryan Plaster of Intelligage.io on the new Go-To-Market, powered by AI

admin@salescast.co (The Distributed Truth, Syncari, Evan Dunn) — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 13:00:00 +0000

Welcome to another episode and today, Evan welcomes Bryan Plaster from Intelligage.io.

The buyer journey is a complex process that involves many stages, from the initial awareness of a problem to the final purchase decision. Each stage requires a different approach and understanding of the customer's needs and preferences.

Intelligage.io is a tool that can help businesses navigate through the entire buyer journey and provide a better customer experience, and Bryan will be walking us through its details, in this latest episode of The Distributed Truth.

TRUTHS OF THE DAY

BRYAN: WHAT IS INTELLIGAGE.IO?

“We're an intelligent engagement cloud, and we focus on real-time coaching for sales and CS teams, real-time predictions based on our intent complemented value, which we'll talk more about, and then running that journey, orchestration with the data.”

BRYAN: CUSTOMER SUCCESS = CONSISTENT EXPERIENCE

“Customer success is starting to expand and grow, and proliferation was great. It's all about how you make sure the customer has a great experience, and well, that has to be a consistent experience, the whole will become greater, and that's why you need technology to really help you define that across your team.”

Connect with Bryan and learn more about his work:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryanplaster/
Intelligage.io: https://intelligage.io/

Connect with Evan to learn more about Syncari and The Distributed Truth podcast:

Evan Dunn | Syncari | Syncari.com

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James McArthur on Why RevOps MUST Model Customer Data

admin@salescast.co (Evan Dunn, The Distributed Truth, Syncari) — Wed, 22 Mar 2023 15:00:00 +0000

James McArthur is the Director of RevOps at Nue.io, and previously ran RevOps at LeafLink and Go Nimbly. Prior to revenue operations, he spent a decade in sales, and he shows his ability to advocate for RevOps as a strategic contributor in this episode.

James joins Evan to discuss how RevOps teams and leaders can develop data ownership and data competency, where he takes us on a wild ride of great analogies. James brings detailed recommendations for how to get started with data models, and mapping the customer journey to the systems, so make sure you stay tuned until the end of this latest episode of The Distributed Truth.

TRUTHS OF THE DAY

JAMES: UNDERSTAND YOUR CUSTOMERS

“Anytime you go into a company, I don't care if the company is 3 people in a room or 8000 people across the world. So the first thing is to understand how your customers get in the door, how your prospects get in the door, and how your customers leave the door.”

JAMES: DATA MODEL X CUSTOMER LIFECYCLE

“The data model and the customer lifecycle are entwined because otherwise, insights are impossible. We always talk about garbage in, garbage out but the other side of this is, if you don't have structure, even if you've got gold, the gold is in the closet, and you're out in the yard, take it like the reality is you may already have it, and you just don't have access to the data.”

Connect with James and learn more about his work:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jrmcarthur/
Nue.io: https://www.nue.io/

Connect with Evan to learn more about Syncari and The Distributed Truth podcast:

Evan Dunn | Syncari | Syncari.com

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Data-Driven Customer Success, Beyond All the PLG Hype with Michael Boyd

admin@salescast.co (The Distributed Truth, Evan Dunn, Syncari) — Mon, 13 Mar 2023 23:39:42 +0000

In this episode of The Distributed Truth, Evan welcomes Michael Boyd, who is the Head of Customer Success at Vanta. Previously, Michael ran Customer Success at SecurityScorecard, Tanium, and Pythian. Michael has spent over 20 years in enterprise B2B post-sales delivery roles.

This week Michael Boyd brings a concise, useful perspective into how Customer Success teams can truly become central to their organizations’ performance. “Time-to-first-value” as a metric can deliver a unifying momentum, and reflect real adoption among a customer base so the entire company can celebrate meaningful success.

Evan and Michael discuss rising interest in CS operations, particularly around data, thanks to product-led growth and the focus on efficient revenue creation, particularly via interest from VCs in net dollar retention.

TRUTHS OF THE DAY

MICHAEL: CS IS THE CENTRAL GEAR

“I always feel customer success is the central gear in the bigger engine we want and for our companies to go fast, and it has got to go fast. If the engine is going to go fast, that means CS has to be there driving it. I know my product friends don't like that they think product’s the biggest gear, education, they think they're an important gear but CS touches everybody.”

MICHAEL: IMPORTANCE OF DATA IN CUSTOMER SUCCESS

“You can't measure what you can't see for our tools that help you see all those cybersecurity risks that could pose a threat to you. And it's almost the same analogy in customer success. We can't grow what we can't see.”

MICHAEL: START WITH WHAT YOU HAVE

“Start with what you have and iterate. I always tell my team that, yes, we will never have perfect data from the product, from the financial side, from any of it. Let's start with what we have, and then we can incrementally build on that, as we both try and manage our groups better, grow our teams better, and ultimately tell our story, both internally and eventually externally a lot better.”

Connect with Michael and learn more about his work:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mjboydcitp/
Vanta website: https://www.vanta.com/

Connect with Evan to learn more about Syncari and The Distributed Truth podcast:

Evan Dunn | Syncari | Syncari.com

Make sure to leave a comment, and subscribe!

The Rapidly Changing Role of the Data Team with Joe Reis

admin@salescast.co (The Distributed Truth Podcast, Syncari, Evan Dunn) — Tue, 28 Feb 2023 19:08:52 +0000

Evan Dunn welcomes Joe Reis today, as they talk about the role of a data scientist and data teams. Joe is the CEO of Ternary Data and Best Selling Co-author of Fundamentals of Data Engineering. He will be sharing his personal experience working with data teams and will be discussing really in-depth details such as what a data scientist is, its value in marketing, the problems and challenges with data teams, and many more, in this latest episode of The Distributed Truth podcast.

TRUTHS OF THE DAY

JOE: DASHBOARD USEFULNESS AND DASHBOARD FATIGUE

“The dashboard is there more to show the status quo, and then you would, in order to get value from a dashboard, it's like you would have to be prone to making a different decision in order for the dashboard to be useful to you. That's the only thing that would trigger a new type of analysis is when you have a different question, which makes sense on the surface.”

JOE: BEST OUTCOMES OF DATA

“The best outcomes for data are always those are attached to things that are just driving outcomes, and hopefully, in a way that we're the feedback loop is really short so you can iterate. Again, data is all about hypothesis, testing, reevaluating your assumptions, and so forth.”

Connect with Joe and learn more about his work:

Joe Reis | Ternary Data

Connect with Evan to learn more about Syncari and The Distributed Truth podcast:

Evan Dunn | Syncari | Syncari.com

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The GTM vs. Product Chasm with Richard Makara

admin@salescast.co (The Distributed Truth Podcast, Syncari, Evan Dunn) — Wed, 15 Feb 2023 16:00:00 +0000

Welcome to another episode of The Distributed Truth. Today, Evan welcomes Richard Makara, CEO and Co-Founder of reconfigured.io, a data product that helps people edit SQL for improved data models and better data quality.

In this episode, Richard articulates a crucial concept for understanding why so many software teams struggle with customer data issues: the gap in objectives and knowledge between product teams, who usually own data teams and tech, and Go-To-Market (GTM) teams. One is tasked with engagement and has room for deep, even esoteric, analysis, while the other is tasked with revenue and must execute rapidly at all costs. The alignment issues that arise from this disjointed mechanism are devastating to efficiency and growth.

TRUTHS OF THE DAY

RICHARD: PUT SOME THOUGHT INTO THE INTEGRATION

“The integrations exist because they have to, but HubSpot doesn't care about Salesforce being, you know, populate it properly, and Salesforce doesn't care about HubSpot. So the integration is there to move data. But it's not there to move context, and context, again, is what makes these tools so powerful. It's not like you spin up a Salesforce instance. And then it's magically great. You actually have to put some thought design into it, you have to figure out how the automation works, which parts are automated, which aren't.”

RICHARD: THOUGHTS ON DATA QUALITY

"At the end of the day, data quality isn't an issue of a piece of a tool or software, it's, it's predominantly an issue of those who build the data, design it and then use it. So when we have humans involved, and when things are changing, you're always going to have data quality issues. We are unpredictable beings. And we can never expect every single person to behave in the same way. "

Connect with Richard and learn more about his work:

Richard Makara | reconfigured | reconfigured.io

Connect with Evan to learn more about Syncari and The Distributed Truth podcast:

Evan Dunn | Syncari | Syncari.com

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EXPLORING REVOPS: Understanding CRO Roles and Revenue Planning with Tony Hohlbein

admin@salescast.co (Syncari, The Distributed Truth Podcast, Evan Dunn) — Wed, 8 Feb 2023 16:00:00 +0000

As a 2X exited CRO, Toni Hohlbein has what it takes to talk about RevOps in today’s episode. He is a Co-Founder and the CEO of Growblocks. Toni and Evan discuss the growing RevOps job title and the increasing popularity of RevOps. Toni believes that RevOps has been gaining popularity due to the focus on efficiency in business operations, and the truth of whether it truly brings efficiency to the table or not. Toni will also be delving into the evolutions of sales, planning & forecasting of revenue, what efficiencies are created in RevOps, and a whole lot more in this latest episode of The Distributed Truth.

TRUTHS OF THE DAY

TONI: WIN BY UNDERSTANDING THE WORLD THROUGH DATA

“The kind of people that try and understand the world through data and through scientific kind of approaches and through the lens that we are advocating for, I think they will win by the way and I think that's kind of the new wave that we are basically enabling right now for revenue operators to go to market and just Just crush it.”

TONI: IT ALL STARTS WITH BENCHMARKING

"Try external benchmarking, try internal benchmarking against your baseline against your plan, and then try to add to your revenue engine customer acquisition costs to see inefficiencies and try and realize those, and if you make all of that stuff available to your commercial decision makers, I am very sure that someone there is going to come up with ideas to improve your engine that is efficiency based and not let's hire another headcount base."

Connect with Toni and learn more about his work:

Toni Hohlbein | Growblocks | Growblocks.com

Connect with Evan to learn more about Syncari and The Distributed Truth Podcast:

Evan Dunn | Syncari | Syncari.com

How RevOps Solves for the Data Layer with Andy Mowat

Wed, 1 Feb 2023 16:00:00 +0000

Welcome to another episode and today, we welcome Andy Mowat, CEO and Co-Founder of Gated, a new approach to solving email overload. Before this, Andy ran business operations and GTM operations at Upwork, Box, and CultureAmp. In this episode, we dig deep into the rising tide of RevOps, and how RevOps leaders can take ownership of the customer data layer beneath their Go-To-Market stack. Learn more about Andy in this latest episode of The Distributed Truth.

TRUTHS OF THE DAY

ANDY: WHAT GATED IS BUILT FOR

“We are not building a tool for sales and marketing. We're building a tool for the people that sales and marketing hits. And we think in the process, we can make the world better for everyone.”

ANDY: ON HOW TO GET ACCESS TO CUSTOMER DATA

"The world should not have to learn SQL to be good at data."

Connect with Andy and learn more about his work:

Andy Mowat | Gated

Connect with Evan to learn more about Syncari and The Distributed Truth podcast:

Evan Dunn | Syncari | Syncari.com

How Data Leaders Drive Business Value with Pedram Navid

admin@salescast.co (Evan Dunn, The Distributed Truth Podcast) — Wed, 25 Jan 2023 19:31:33 +0000

It’s another episode and today, Evan welcomes Pedram Navid, formerly the Head of Data at Hightouch. Pedram talks about how he got in the industry and shares his insights and advice about the importance of understanding the business to have more effective data analytics that drives it with value. Find out more in this latest episode of The Distributed Truth podcast.

TRUTHS OF THE DAY

PEDRAM: UNDERSTAND THE BUSINESS AND ITS GOALS

“You have to understand your business. It's not about the data, it's not about the tools. That's not why you were hired. Nobody cares if you're using snowflake or BigQuery. At the end of the day, what they care about, is the health of the company. Do you understand how the company makes money? Do you understand how the company sells your product? To understand how the company builds their product? If not, you need to know all of those things.”

PEDRAM: ALIGN WITH THE LEADERS OF THE BUSINESS

“You need to understand if you're going to be a leader in a company, what the leaders of the company care about, and then once you have that, then I think the rest of it becomes really easy. But without that, you're just a data analyst. At the end of the day, you're not really a data leader.”

Connect with Pedram and learn more about his work:

Pedram Navid | Learn Pedram’s offerings

Connect with Evan to learn more about Syncari and The Distributed Truth podcast:

Evan Dunn | Syncari | Syncari.com

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LET’S SYNC IN! An Introduction To The Distributed Truth Podcast

Wed, 25 Jan 2023 19:31:20 +0000

Welcome to the pilot episode of The Distributed Truth podcast featuring our trio from Syncari, Evan Dunn, Aaron Landgraf, and Elise Vue. In this pilot episode, the team introduces themselves and the podcast. The purpose of The Distributed Truth podcast is to discuss the challenges of SaaS applications and connectivity in the customer experience-related world of B2B. The podcast focuses on the difficulties of connecting numerous systems and the importance of data to various teams within an organization.

TRUTHS OF THE DAY

AARON: LET’S MAKE SENSE OF DATA

“We now have enough data at our disposal to deliver those types of experiences, but I just feel like we're struggling to make sense of it, and that's what Distributed Truth is really all about.”

ELISE: MAKING DATA ACCESSIBLE, POSSIBLE, AND ACTIONABLE

“This show is really about making data accessible to everyone, and I think for a long time, we talked about how data wasn't accessible, and now we can make that possible, and so I think what we're bringing to the table here is really interesting in that how do we make it accessible for all of our community and practitioners here? And then also, how do we make it actionable?

Connect with our trio - Aaron, Evan, and Elise to learn more about Syncari and The Distributed Truth podcast:

Aaron Landgraf | Evan Dunn | Elise Vue | Syncari | Syncari.com