Road to Revenue

On this week’s episode of ‘The Road to Revenue,' we are joined by Josh Allen, who was recently appointed Chief Revenue Officer at Quickbase [https://www.quickbase.com/]. As a seasoned CRO, Josh is an expert in scaling businesses and driving revenue. Host Natalie Furness sits down with him to discuss what is needed for success in the CRO role—fast. With less than 60 days in his current CRO role, Josh shares his take on how CROs and revenue leaders can set themselves up to make an impact in the crucial early days. The conversation covers everything from acquiring talent to suit today’s business climate to evaluating true readiness to scale. They discuss the value of partnerships and how to integrate those relationships into the sales process. He and Natalie go on to emphasise the importance of having robust data infrastructure in place to properly measure key metrics like customer lifetime value and the cost of customer acquisition. This, and plenty more actionable advice, make it a must-listen for revenue leaders looking to deliver tangible results.  The Road to Revenue is a fortnightly podcast helping B2B businesses leave no stone unturned on their revenue growth journey.  Chapter Markers [1:30] Josh starts off by discussing his previous experience scaling businesses and then goes on to talk about joining Quickbase as CRO. [3:24] Natalie asks Josh to dig into the topic of scaling and explain the difference between growth and scale. [5:50] Josh walks through some of the metrics for judging if a company is in a position to scale responsibly and sustainably. [7:14] Natalie talks about the challenges that arise when you have a lack of visibility in your revenue chain and the issues of poor data visibility. [8:01] Josh highlights the current difficult macro environment that makes attention to detail and sales discipline essential to success in 2024. [9:56] Josh outlines the characteristics he looks for when hiring that indicate the candidate will be successful. [12:00] Josh discusses the motions or approaches that have the greatest impact in today’s market. [14:30] Natalie and Josh look at the topic of partnerships and using data to measure their success. [16:25] Natalie asks Josh, from his experience in multiple CRO positions, how a CRO can set themselves up for success. [20:28] Natalie asks where listeners can keep up to date with what Josh is up to at Quickbase.

On this week’s episode of ‘The Road to Revenue,' Nick Telson, entrepreneur, angel investor and podcaster, joins us to talk buyer enablement through the lens of his latest start-up, digital sales room platform, Trumpet [https://www.sendtrumpet.com/].   Road to Revenue host Natalie Furness from RevOps Automated quizzes Nick on his experiences of implementing buyer enablement within the businesses he has worked with. From when and where in the revenue bowtie buyer enablement is most effective to how it can be used to improve the progression of multi-stakeholder deals, this week’s episode is a deep dive into the value of an effective buyer enablement function.   They discuss topics including putting the ‘A-ha’ moment into marketing collaterals, removing happy ear bias, and uncovering secret stakeholders. Covering both the potential and pitfalls, Nick and Natalie lay out the case for buyer enablement from day one, with practical advice for getting it right. The Road to Revenue is a fortnightly podcast helping B2B businesses leave no stone unturned on their revenue growth journey.   Chapter Markers [1:06] Nick gives a whistlestop tour of his career journey to date and his involvement as an investor and start-up entrepreneur. [3:22] Natalie and Nick discuss ‘buyer enablement and why it is an essential component of the sales cycle. [7:09] Natalie asks Nick where, in the revenue bow tie model, he believes buyer enablement is the biggest priority. [8:56] Nick shares some examples of the results he is seeing from Trumpet users and explains when implementation works best.   [12:35] Nick shares his view on the value of having a dedicated RevOps team for buyer enablement. [16:01] The discussion focuses on the need for closer links between marketing and sales and the importance of enabling sales teams to share personalised content. [23:06] Natalie outlines the challenge of empowering a prospect’s internal champion to win over an increasing number of decision makers. [25:31] Nick outlines examples of how data can be used to tailor and improve the buyer journey for multi-stakeholder deals. [28:06] Nick and Natalie emphasise the importance of collaboration between prospects and sales reps and how to implement it. [32:11] Natalie closes by discussing the accessibility aspect of buyer enablement.

This week, ‘The Road to Revenue’ is joined by Jacco van der Kooij, founder of Winning by Design, a B2B sales consultancy that supports sales, customer success, and marketing teams as they design, build, and scale their revenue organisations. What are the differences between growing a business to $10 million and scaling to $100 million? Jacco explains in his unique style. Find out why your business is a rocket ship that needs to operate with a factory mindset. Hear more on the big themes in Jacco’s book Revenue Architecture as he delves into how businesses can improve GTM operations, some of the big pitfalls he sees with how businesses approach revenue, and the need for a holistic approach. With views on AI, the end of growth at all costs, and the need for disciplined execution, this episode is packed with insight from a true RevOps thought leader. The Road to Revenue is a fortnightly podcast helping B2B businesses leave no stone unturned on their revenue growth journey. Chapter Markers [0:57] Host Natalie introduces Jacco and asks him to give an overview of his book, ‘Revenue Architecture.’ [3:05] Jacco talks about the challenges of implementing mathematical models to improve processes. [5:32] Jacco expands on an idea in his book about the need for businesses to have a ‘factory mindset’. [8:05] Jacco highlights how AI is transforming GTM in the same way robots have transformed manufacturing. [9:54] Jacco and Natalie discuss the importance of root cause analysis and disciplined execution in a process-centric organisation. [14:04] Jacco explains that organisations often lack investment in customer success, despite its significant impact on revenue. [19:35] Jacco shares his views on why the average performance of a GTM role is 1.7%. [22:02] Jacco gives his take on the role of revenue operations and how to apply revenue architecture holistically across an organisation. [24:47] Natalie and Jacco debate which executive should take responsibility for revenue operations. [30:44] Jacco explores why growth at all costs has come to an end.

On this week’s episode of ‘The Road to Revenue,' we are joined by Kyle Coleman, CMO at Copy.ai, king of the cold email and expert on how AI can help businesses eliminate go-to-market bloat. Kyle sits down with host Natalie Furness from RevOps Automated to discuss why businesses need to start thinking differently about AI to make the most of it. What approaches allow organisations to 10x their top sales performers, save hundreds of hours of productive time every year, and gain an operational edge. Kyle shares his views on the sales team of the future that rejects the idea that hyper-specialised hiring is a cure-all for sales challenges and embraces AI workflows. He provides us with practical advice on reducing go-to-market bloat and explains why AI-empowered sales teams are attainable for organisations of any size. The Road to Revenue is a fortnightly podcast helping B2B businesses leave no stone unturned on their revenue growth journey. Chapter markers: [0:37] Host Natalie Furness gives a quick overview of the acronyms used throughout the episode. [1:59] Kyle gives us a whistlestop tour of his career to date and explains how he landed his current role at Copy.ai. [4:18] Kyle talks about squeezing real business value out of AI and the limitations businesses have had with the technology to date. [8:14] Kyle and Natalie explore what effective AI adoption looks like within a business, with Kyle emphasising the importance of using it to replicate processes.   [15:07] Kyle walks through the process of building a team that leverages AI to reduce bloat and the tools that can help. [20:41] Kyle explains how the SDR role will evolve from hyper-specialisms to a full-cycle sales role that will help employees with their career progression. [24:36] Kyle shares the process of how he created an AI workflow to write cold emails in his own voice and style. [28:13] Natalie and Kyle examine how AI can help businesses gain an operational advantage that gives them a competitive edge. [32:14] Kyle and Natalie emphasise the value of slowing down decision-making and problem-solving to consider how AI can streamline processes.   [37:57] Natalie and Kyle end by discussing process mapping to overcome bloat and improve metrics and the role of external consultants. ---- If you’re a SaaS company looking to supercharge your revenue operations, RevOps Automated can help. Offering the business consulting services to define a strategy and the technical expertise to help implement it, RevOps Automated gives the best of both worlds. The team of data scientists, developers, product managers, and revenue, sales, and success operations experts, RevOps Automated is ready to transform your organisation with a best-practice approach that drives results.   Visit https://www.revopsautomated.com/ [https://www.revopsautomated.com/] to learn more.

Our guest on ‘The Road to Revenue’ this week is Daniel Zarick, CEO and co-founder of Arrows [https://arrows.to], a customer onboarding solution for teams using HubSpot. This is not HubSpot onboarding 101; it’s an in-depth look at how to deliver the best experience for customers once they come on board. Daniel, along with host Natalie Furness, look at customer onboarding from all angles. Helping customers reach the ‘aha!’ moment for your product faster, why we should see onboarding as an extension of the sales process, how to empower customers to onboard themselves, and the all-important question of measuring success—it’s all covered in this week’s episode. The Road to Revenue is a fortnightly podcast helping B2B businesses leave no stone unturned on their revenue growth journey. Chapter Markers: [01:25] Daniel introduces himself and explains how his experience as a Product Manager at Twilio led him to develop Arrows [https://arrows.to] as a tool that would empower customer success teams. [04:34] Natalie and Daniel examine time-to-value as a metric for measuring onboarding success. [05:02] Daniel explains that onboarding is not just key for retention but, depending on the business model, impacts revenue. [7:23] Answering the million-dollar question, ‘How do you measure value?' Daniel explains that part of the challenge companies face is that they don’t define value from the outset. [09:43] Natalie gives an insight into her background and how interview techniques can be key to unlocking the ‘aha!’ moment for customers. [13:35] Daniel argues onboarding should be viewed as an extension of the sales pipeline, rather than a separate customer success function. [14:27] Daniel explains why proper onboarding is vital to soothing B2B customers who have been burned by disappointing results in the past. [17:50] Daniel explains how a strong onboarding process can lead to a dramatic expansion in revenue. [19:50] Natalie asks what leaders should look out for as indicators that onboarding is going well, with Daniel emphasising the importance of empowering customers to onboard themselves. [22:32] Natalie and Daniel discuss the importance of finding the right integration partner for complex software solutions and personalising the customer onboarding experience. --- Check out How to Power Up Customer Onboarding with Tickets in HubSpot Service Hub [https://arrows.to/guide/customer-onboarding-with-tickets-in-hubspot-service-hub] from Arrows. --- If you’re a SaaS company looking to supercharge your revenue operations, RevOps Automated can help. Offering the business consulting services to define a strategy and the technical expertise to help implement it, RevOps Automated gives the best of both worlds. The team of data scientists, developers, product managers, and revenue, sales, and success operations experts, RevOps Automated is ready to transform your organisation with a best-practice approach that drives results.   Visit https://www.revopsautomated.com/ [https://www.revopsautomated.com/] to learn more.