Evolving with Your Data
On this episode, Sid discusses aligning organizations around the customer journey, data that drives efficiency, and keeping a focused eye on the impact of RevOps.
Welcome to Rise of RevOps, I'm mean phase on CEO of Caspian Studios and today
we are
joined by special guest, Sid, how are you?
I'm doing great, how are you?
Excited to have you on the show, excited to chat about RevOps at HubSpot and
all the cool
stuff that y'all are doing.
So let's get into it, how did you get started in RevOps?
So I started in RevOps during my time at AWS where I was over there for about
three and
half years and I was leading our field sales operations organization there.
And then about a year ago, I joined HubSpot to build out the RevOps team here
across marketing
sales and customer success.
Yeah, exciting.
And we're going to dive into how you're doing that at HubSpot, which is super
exciting.
What's your definition of RevOps?
Yeah, that's a great question.
I think there are so many definitions out there and it's an evolving
organization and
construct.
The way I think about it is connected go to market.
What are the capabilities required from systems, data, people, process
standpoint that allow
you to take a really truly connected go to market approach across your customer
journey.
So that's my definition.
And I think the framework generally fits into that.
I love that connected go to market.
That's very succinct.
There's a marketer in there.
You said I can just tell.
So with that connected go to market, what does that look like at HubSpot?
What's like the scope?
I mean, we all know everyone knows how to swap.
But like, what's the size and the scope of what you're dealing with from a Rev
Ops perspective?
Yeah, RevOps, what it is today is multiple different functions that make up the
RevOps
stack.
I'll call it starts with go to market strategy and operations.
So what I lead is a team called functional go to market strategy and operations
within
RevOps that aligns with our marketing sales and customer success teams on
everything from
in year to mid term type of planning on and strategy to in your execution of
that plan.
It also includes enablement.
So for our field reps and frontline managers, how do we make sure they're
highly successful
and ramped up and ready to go from day one data systems?
And then we also have a longer term strategy function that thinks three to five
years out,
but then connects with our in your execution.
So that's how we define RevOps at HubSpot today.
I love it.
And within that team, obviously pretty big remit to have that strategy side,
the very
far looking stuff in and amongst the day to day stuff, which is pretty exciting
You think that's a little unique to your organization or is that something that
you think is going
to be more popular here soon?
Yeah, I think there's some core elements that you just start to see that you
need in a RevOps
function.
You think longer term to see what does your total addressable market look like?
How are you going to go after it and pivot your go to market model if needed to
go after
it in the most efficient and effective way possible?
So I do think there's always going to be some element of how do you look out in
the horizon
and see what's the opportunity?
How do you go get it?
And then an element of how do you plan to go capitalize on that opportunity and
what
is the execution that's underneath it?
So that's the way we organize it here.
I think you'll see more and more organizations come to realize that these are
some of the
critical elements of the strategy and planning side, but then you still need to
underpin them
with great data and a strong foundation there along with a systems and
automation framework
that helps drive that productivity and efficiency.
Any key learnings in the first year in the role?
Yeah, key learning would be to really orient your go to market organization
around a common
customer journey and align each of those different phases to what does a Nord
Star look like?
What does customer success look like at each of those different phases?
So we talk about attract, engage, and delight and how do you then think about
the role of
marketing sales and customer success across the customer journeys?
You're thinking about it from a customer in as opposed to a function or hub
spot out and
creating just a shared understanding of what that journey looks like across
each of the
different teams.
So just have that you reduce the friction and you have seamless customer
experience across
and tend.
All right, let's get to our first segment here, Rev Obstacles.
We talked about the tough parts of RevOps.
What's one of the hardest problems that you faced in the last six months and
they kind
of detailed a bit of one there already?
Data is one of those areas that can always continue to evolve and getting very
clear on
definitions.
How are you going to architect your data foundation to support scale?
Is this an area that I think is a continual process of evolution and
improvement?
So we're spending a lot of time thinking about what's the first party data that
we need to
really efficiently and effectively run the business.
In addition to what's the third party data that we need to go supplement our
first party
data with to really have an end to end view of that customer experience and
that journey
from end to end.
And how we can be more effective in our interactions and engagements with our
prospects and customers.
That's been a big area of focus for us over the past six months or so.
Yeah, it seems with HubSpot having so many customers, so many different sort of
products
and products using all that stuff that the difference between sales and up
sales and all
that stuff is potentially endlessly complex.
How do you think about making sense of all the complexity?
Yeah, I think it goes back to really thinking about that end to end customer
journey.
So if you really trace a prospect through to the point where they become a
customer and
then from the point of sale to the post sales and retention and loyalty side,
it's really
thinking about that customer as a relationship, the prospect that turns into a
customer as
a relationship that doesn't end with the sale.
It's really about making sure they're getting activated, they're using the
product, are they
getting the ROI that we anticipated they would get when they signed on with Hub
Spot?
And it's really thinking about it as a customer for life as opposed to
different transaction
along the customer journey.
So that's our philosophy.
It's why we also think about our customer journey as a closed loop as opposed
to a funnel.
We don't use the funnel.
We think of it as a flywheel that's very much about attracting and engaging and
delighting
our customers.
And if they're happy, there's word of mouth, they're going to talk to other
potential customers
about it.
And that's what we're going to do is to make sure that they're experiencing
their experience
in communities and other forums to get the flywheel continuing to spend.
I'm curious, how do you balance supporting so many departments with sales
marketing and
CS and that fixed pie that we all feel in RevOps where there's a lot of mouse
to feed
and only so much bandwidth?
Yeah, that's a great question.
First thing I'll say is ruthless prioritization.
It's really around what's going to drive impact for the customer experience or
what's going
to drive impact for the customer.
And then we have a team that is called the flywheel analytics and planning team
And that is really thinking about what are those horizontals that cut across
marketing
sales and customer success that can be done in the future.
And then we have a team that is called the flywheel analytics and planning team
And that is really thinking about what are those horizontals that cut across
marketing
and customer success that can be done in a more efficient way or need to be
done in a
more connected and collaborative way so you have an integrated plan or you have
an integrated set of compensation models between sales and customer success.
So balancing that horizontal connective tissue with functional depth.
So there's going to be certain things that only are relevant for marketing, for
example, for sales because of the nature of those functions.
But looking at where are their commonalities and similarities and where do they
need to
be talking and engaging with the other functions much more deliberately and
intentionally and identifying those points just gives us a model where we can be highly
efficient,
but also be able to go really deep where we need to at a functional level.
Is there any sort of revoops moment or a mistake that you see other rev ops
leaders
making pretty common?
I think it's easy to make a change that seems fairly minor in one part of the
organization call it customer success, but not fully think through what are the implications
to the other pillars like sales and marketing and to the customer experience.
So I think it's really important in a connected go-to-market model and the job
of rev ops
candidates to be thinking about the end-to-end customer experience and what are
the ripple effects
of making a change in any one part of that engine on the rest of the
organization.
Could be simple things like how you're incenting different parts of the
organization and what are
the unintended effects or impacts on other parts of the organization.
And is that the aggregate behavior that you're trying to drive or did you solve
one thing and then create another challenge somewhere else.
So just thinking holistically really about that customer experience and then
how does this go-to-market engine show up holistically to go support that.
Any other thoughts on rev obstacles or obstacles that they see people making?
Yeah, I think the other area is just really thinking hard about where to
automate as opposed
to where to have humans involved.
And I think it's easy to look at a challenge or a problem and throw more people
at it.
And sometimes you just need to in order to figure out what a more scalable and
extensible solution is, but also knowing when to go ahead.
If you're solving the same problem multiple times over and over through manual
processes,
having a framework on when do you go automate that or when do you go prototype
that be a
more scalable and efficient approach, I think is going to be prudent,
especially in the
market environment that we're currently in right now.
All right, let's get to our next segment, the tool shed.
We're talking tool spreadsheets metrics, just like everyone's favorite tool.
Qualified, no B2B tool shed is complete without qualified.
Go to qualified.com to learn more.
Check them out.
Said what's in your tool shed, what are the softwares, the tools dashboards
with systems
are you spending the most time in?
Yeah, we are HubSpot, we're CRM.
So we run our business on HubSpot.
And HubSpot is a CRM platform, but to has a provides that end to end connected
go to
market approach through a marketing hub, a sales hub and a service hub to
really go across that customer journey.
So we do use that and we run our business on HubSpot.
We use Looker as our BI tool that sits on top of HubSpot and our other data
platforms
to get us the insights and analytics on top of that.
We use conversational intelligence to go look at what are our customers saying
and how do we get insight into patterns and trends that are happening across the
number of customer and prospect calls and what are the patterns and trends that are
emerging where we could do something proactively to go either address areas that are
challenging or conversely capitalize on new opportunities that are out there.
And then we're evaluating just what is our broader technology stack look like
and where
are there opportunities to add area and new capabilities are going to improve,
as I said,
either the customer experience or the rep experience make it more productive
and efficient. And what are the metrics that matter to you?
What do you stare at all day and try to optimize?
Yeah, we looked at, if I go from the beginning of the customer journey, from a
tracked, engaged in delight at the attract level, we're looking at things like awareness
looking at our media properties and how are those impressions driving content
leads and signups for our solution, then ultimately leading into creating demand for
our sales team.
So those are some of the metrics we'll look at through demand.
And then from a sales perspective, we'll look at sales velocity, we'll look at
ASPs
and win rates for high volume, high transaction business, we focus on SMB.
So those are pretty important, relevant metrics there.
And then on the post-sale side, really looking at, are we activating customers
quickly,
helping them get time to value as efficiently and effectively as possible,
helping them meet their use case.
So how does our usage and adoption look like?
And then all the way leading through to renewal and expansion.
So those are some of the higher level metrics.
And then each of those will have a couple of double and triple clicks into them
Yeah, can you give me an example of one of those that you do need to always
double click into
and make sure that you're not feeding some incorrect information into the
system there?
Yeah, I think a really important one is demand creation or deal creation.
It's really looking at what does it take to create a deal?
And how do you really go look at what are all the sources of pipeline?
And what does the rep need to create on their own versus what's going to come
from marketing
or from partners?
It's taking a really aggregate but deeper view into all sources of pipeline and
how a rep
is going to create a book of business to go progress and close.
That's one I would say is really you could keep double clicking on that one.
I'd love to because it's such a hard one to judge back in the day we said 13
impressions equal sale, right?
That was the old adage.
Now it's, I don't know what it is, but it's a whole lot more than that.
And what is an impression?
How do you weight those things?
All of that stuff?
Yeah, curious to your process there.
Yeah, and you could look at each of those different sources of pipeline and
then go look at what do you want that relative mix to be?
And then go trace the chain all the way up to say, okay, if I want X percent of
this pipeline to be generated by a rep, what am I doing as an organization, as
a RevOps organization, to make that rep highly efficient and productive
in creating that pipeline.
So it goes back to having a point of view of you starting all the way with
total addressable market.
What is the total addressable market for the company or for the solution in
that particular geography or segment?
And then within that really understanding how many accounts within that hatch
are actual customers?
How many are prospects?
And then what motion are you going to go after to activate the prospects and
then go continue to engage with your installed base?
So it's really taking a starting with TAM or total addressable market and then
double clicking all the way down to how do you make it easy for the rep to
figure out where to prioritize their time and looking at high propensity
accounts, so leveraging ML models to look at high propensity accounts.
Where is there the best fit?
Where is the intent exist?
And then from there really making sure whatever time they're spending on
prospecting is going to be the most highly efficient and effective use of time,
so I think it's been the rest of the time on progressing and closing those
opportunities that they've identified.
Does that make sense?
Absolutely. And I love that stuff.
That is like so fun to me looking at that because someone who was a salesperson
sitting there on in the number going on accounts like it was so brutal when you
knew in your heart, like these 20 accounts.
My boss says I need to call them and I know they buy in.
I know that they're just not the right prospect for us.
And that's the sort of stuff where goodness when rev option can come in and say
, Hey, you know what, those 20 accounts, they're definitely not.
We should not be calling those as many times because they don't have a high
propensity to buy.
Those are the things that really help sales.
That's exactly it.
It's just how do we leverage the data and all the just the advances in AI ML to
be more intelligent about where to go spend that time and continue to learn
from it.
Never going to get it perfect, but you can just keep iterating and getting
smarter about it.
Curious about metrics as it relates to churn.
I don't know if you feel a call it churn or what you call it, but as a customer
success function and figuring that out.
Obviously, that's the name of the game in addition to upsell or across sell.
And I'm curious, how do you think about that in any metrics or special double
click into those metrics that matter to you?
Yeah, that's a great question. We think of it as retention, right?
We think of it as retention from a dollar perspective and also from a customer
perspective.
Sure.
And then looking at what are the actions and behaviors that lead to higher
retention.
And then if you have a higher retention, what are the leading indicators that
signal that the customer is ready for expanding that footprint and going going
broader with either more seats for an existing solution or expanding to another
hub.
I mentioned we have multiple different hubs.
It's it on top of an integrated CRM platform.
So that's how we think about it is really more the behaviors of a happy
satisfied healthy customer.
And then how do we use that to go look at the broader portfolio of what
customers are coming up for renewal that are part of our broader install base
and driving proactive engagement with them across those different motions.
Any insights so it makes a happy customer in the numbers.
It's always helpful.
Yeah, it's adoption and getting value.
It's making sure that it sounds right, but it really is did the value
proposition that the customer believed they would get when they sign.
Are they getting it?
Are they getting it in a short period of time?
And is it frictionless and seamless from that experience?
And I think we really spent a lot of time thinking about how do we make that
experience from them becoming a customer to getting immediate and ongoing value
We spent a lot of time thinking about that and really educating them.
We have a lot of capabilities out there community or network or academy around
helping them learn from other customers around best practices others that might
be in their industry trying to solve specific use cases.
So we're there are partners are there in the ecosystem as well as other
customers.
So it's really trying to give our customers multiple different ways of learning
and engaging and interacting on how to get the most.
Out of their solution, as I mentioned earlier, just really making it an ongoing
relationship versus something that's transactional.
I love that.
That's great.
Any blind spots that you wish can measure better?
Yeah, I think it goes back to what's the best way a rep can spend their time.
What's the mix of prospecting time or closing a deal or progressing a deal
working with partners.
I think really understanding an optimal mix of time in a day for a given model.
It'd be really interesting thing to understand.
It's I wouldn't say it's an area we've spent a ton of time on, but would be
very interesting.
And then conversely on the customer success side, where should a customer
success rep be spending their time to make sure our customers get maximum value
from their solution.
What are the sets of activities and what sort of ratio is should they be
spending that that time.
To maximize value on the end of the customers.
Anything cool that you're doing with data or any insights that you've got in
the past year, something that stood out.
Yeah, it's building really that I'll call it the fitment tent and propensity
engine to give us a real sense of what leads should a rep be prioritizing.
We're in in their broader territory or set of accounts.
Should they be spending time on just proactive prospecting. So really putting
the science underneath that and identifying what are the variables and data
points that give us the best sense of that prioritization.
Just I think is just a huge opportunity to take a lot of inefficiency and just
wasted cycles out of a reps day.
So it's something that we've been spending a lot of time on. And I think you
said it earlier, I don't think most reps do not enjoy prospecting, especially
when it's a an undifferentiated list that's without a prioritization.
So the easier you can make it and the more curated that list can be.
You certainly have time savings, but you also create a higher likelihood that
those deals are going to progress and have higher win rates and ultimately turn
into revenue and then ultimately commissions for the reps.
So that's why I think there's so many positive benefits from getting that right
and being more data driven in that approach.
Let's go to our next segment. Quick hits. Quick questions and quick answers.
Sit. Are you ready?
I'm ready. Let's do it.
All right. If you could make any animal any size, what animal would it be and
how big would it be?
I think it would be an elephant that could be the size of a domestic pet. So
something that would fit in my house like a dog.
Dog sized elephant.
Exactly.
Do you think there's misconceptions about rev ops or perhaps biggest
misconception?
Yeah, there are a lot of misconceptions, but it's an evolving field. I think
the biggest misconception is that it's sales ops part two and it couldn't be
farther from the truth than that.
So it's really a horizontal connected go to market approach, as I mentioned
before, touches marketing customer success as well.
Do you have a favorite movie character all time?
First, Bueller.
Ooh, that's a good one. What about a rev ops prediction for next year?
I don't know if it's a rev ops prediction for next year, but it's a rev ops
prediction is that rev ops becomes a C-suite role.
Couldn't agree more. What would be one piece of advice you would have for
someone who is newly leading a rev ops team?
I would say focus and alignment. It's to not be really clear on what you're
trying to achieve and making sure that the entire go to market team is aligned
to those areas before trying to tackle things in silos.
Last question here, Sid, I'm curious you work in a large rev ops organization
for someone who is in a smaller rev ops organization, you know, a couple person
shop.
Any advice that you would give to those folks who are lean and mean?
Yeah, I think it's, I would really say start with establishing a strong data
foundation.
It's one of those areas that is harder to do later once your business starts to
grow and scale and the complexity, the variety, the velocity of your data
starts to really take care of your data.
Really take off, easier to get that decide earlier on what that's going to look
like and start building it from the ground up.
It'll make it a lot more efficient later.
Awesome. Sid, thanks so much for listeners. Obviously, you can check out Hub
Spot.com to learn more about HubSpot and all the amazing stuff that they do.
And for any other stuff, you can check out Sid on LinkedIn or wherever else.
Sid, any final thoughts?
No, just thanks for listening and excited to share more with you about the rev
ops journey ahead.
Awesome. Thanks for watching.
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