November 21, 2024 • 50 mins
Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show!
Unlock the secrets to transforming your sales and marketing strategies with insights from Alice Walker and Christine Maxey of Lean Data. Discover how the introduction of buying groups is not only reshaping traditional methods but also elevating the collaboration between marketing and sales teams. This episode promises to equip you with a balanced approach that enhances your understanding of key decision-makers within target accounts, bridging the gap between marketing qualified leads and account-based marketing strategies.
Alice and Christine dive into the synergy between buying groups and existing ABM tactics, debunking myths that these are obsolete. Learn how integrating these strategies can elevate your engagement with key influencers and decision-makers, making your marketing efforts more agile and relevant. By embracing these enhanced strategies, marketing teams can foster stronger alignments with sales, ultimately improving conversion rates and opportunities.
Navigate the complexities of implementing these innovative strategies with practical advice from our guests. From the role of executive champions in building trust to the potential of multi-threading in sales and innovative SDR compensation models, there's a wealth of knowledge to explore. With a forward-looking perspective, we also touch on the implications of AI and technology in shaping the future of sales. Join us for this insightful conversation and stay tuned for a follow-up episode where we'll continue to explore these game-changing concepts.
Episode Brought to You By MO Pros
The #1 Community for Marketing Operations Professionals
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of
OpsCast brought to you byMarketingOpscom, powered by all
the more pros out there.
I am your host, michael Hartman, joined by no one today, at
least not my co-hosts.
So, mike and Naomi, I'm surewill join us again, but I do
have guests.
I have two, so we'll make upfor it.
We have Alice Walker andChristine Maxey, both from Lean
(00:20):
Data.
Alice is currently a seniorproduct and partnership
marketing manager at Lean Data.
Prior to joining Lean Data, sheworked in consulting at Shift
Paradigm slash LeadMD, where sheheld several leadership roles
focused on marketing and servicedelivery to clients.
She also has a background inproject and program management.
Christine is currently vicepresident of revenue operations
(00:41):
at Lean Data, progressingthrough leadership roles and
revenue operations.
Over the past several years.
She also spent a few years insolutions consulting at Lean
Data, progressing throughleadership roles and revenue
operations.
Over the past several years,she also spent a few years in
solutions consulting at LeanData.
There's a connection betweenthe two of you.
Between her two stints at LeanData, christine was the head of
customer success at Tackleio.
Prior to those roles, she heldvarious roles in sales
(01:03):
operations and businessoperations.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
So, alice and Christine, thank you for joining
.
Thanks, we sound smart.
Yeah, good backgrounds allaround.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Yeah, so it's funny, the lead MD says so.
I finally met Andrea LechnerBecker for the first time in
person at Masa Palooza last weekin Anaheim and it was funny
because she sent me a messageahead of time.
She's like I'm tolerated inreal life I'm tolerated so and
she was so well.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
There you go there you go, living up to the hype.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
That's important yeah , so did you.
Were you all there when you hadthe uh the business cards that
said doctor?
Speaker 3 (01:41):
i't.
That was after my time.
I think it was initially namedto be like WebMD, so I spent
more time than I would haveliked explaining.
Well, webmd used to be a thingthat people did on the Internet,
and now it's LeadMD and we'renot changing the name because we
have great brand recognition.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
So anyhow, let's talk about you.
Yeah, and now I work for.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Lean Data.
So I'm constantly juggling,trying to say the right name
every time.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Yeah, that's so funny .
Okay, so we're going to spendtoday talking about the concept
of buying groups, so I'm notsure that our whole listener
audience will be familiar withthat, but it's a term that they
may be familiar with if they'refamiliar with what was I still
think of as serious decisions,but now part of Forrester.
So we wanted to talk to youbecause not only are you
incorporating that concept intosome of your products, you're
also leveraging it internally,so it might be good.
(02:40):
Maybe we could start with adefinition.
So, alice, do you think youcould start?
Maybe give us a definition, oryour definition, and we'll go
from there.
What is buying groups?
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Yeah, happy to so.
Buying groups I mean, the greatthing about buying groups is
it's as simple as it sounds,right, A buying group is a group
of buyers.
The naming is really quite onthe nose.
I think it's helpful to thinkabout buying groups in the
context of marketing trendsdecade over decade, because
(03:11):
that's really what we're seeingwith buying groups.
That's why we're talking aboutit now.
That's why it's gained inpopularity.
You know, roughly 20 or so yearsago, when marketing automation
was really just getting started,when marketing automation was
really just getting started, youhave Marketo's and Eloqua's and
the you know, the maps of theworld are are being born.
That really started with demandgeneration, right, and
(03:33):
realizing like, oh my God, wecan send an email to a thousand
to a hundred thousand people allat once, Right, this is, this
is amazing.
We've never been able to dothis before.
Demand gen was born.
That got messy really quickly.
So the MQL came out, the MQLbeing the marketing qualified
lead really focused on just thelead itself, which is really
(03:53):
really small, and a lot ofproblems kind of naturally came
out of that.
And so, 8, 10 years later, aspeople sort of fall out of love
with that first blush ofmarketing automation and demand
generation.
That's really when you seeaccount-based marketing start to
rise in popularity and takeover and say, okay, demand gen
and the MQL did not solve allyour problems.
(04:15):
It did not make you a millionbillion dollars.
Sales and marketing are stillfighting about the same things
that they've done since the dawnof time.
Too bad, so sad.
Let's talk about account-basedmarketing.
The MQL is so small, it's justa person, it's a tiny.
That's not good.
We need to go big.
So we're going to talk aboutthe entire account, right, and
we're going to market to theaccount and we're going to work
(04:36):
with sales on that account andyou'll have the last 8 to 10
years really focused on theaccounts.
That's.
You know.
Sixth Sense is born at thistime.
Demandbase comes in.
You know Engagio.
At the time you have all ofthese companies that start
really trying to expand to fixthe problem that there was in
the MQL, and then really, whatwe've seen now we're about in
(05:00):
that same sort of trend timeline8 to 10 years later.
Abm solved some of thoseproblems, but not all of those
problems.
Sales and marketing are stillfighting about the same thing
they've always fought about andwhat we've seen.
Is that okay?
If the MQL is really too smalland account-based, maybe that's
a little too big.
Just going to the actualaccount, Maybe we should start
(05:21):
talking about the group ofpeople in the account itself.
So it's not doing away withpeople, it's not doing away with
accounts.
It's saying within an account,anybody knows that if you are
trying to sell anything with anytype of meaningful budget
you're selling to multiplepeople right.
It's very rare as a day whereyou get on a call and it's one
person and they're thestakeholder, the decision maker,
(05:43):
the budget holder and theexecutive champion.
It's just not going to happen.
So buying groups is all aboutunderstanding who those people
are within the account and thenfinding out a way to scale and
operationalize that so you'renot relying on salespeople
tracking all that informationdown, uploading that data into
Salesforce and then effectivelymaintaining that data, because
(06:06):
you know, we all know, that'snot a realistic solution.
So I really like the Goldilocksanalogy.
We're really going for a justright approach with buying
groups that really incorporatesboth the people of MQL, the
accounts of ABM and centralizesit a little bit more in
Salesforce, where people arereally living and breathing
anyway.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Yeah, I mean, I think when I first heard about it, it
was intuitively it made sense,right it just the idea that,
like, yes, when you're buyingsomething substantial, you're
typically not doing it on yourown.
There are lower cost thingswhere, yeah, I've been able to
put it on a credit card or evendo it through a PO or something
like that, but it's usually,yeah, I have a certain amount of
(06:48):
authority.
Once I'm over that, whichusually happens fairly quickly,
you have to get other peopleinvolved.
See, my dog agrees, but I mean,it seems to be too obvious.
But I think you talked aboutSalesforce.
To me there's already a placein Salesforce to capture this
stuff.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
Right, it's called opportunity roles, it's really
it is, but how many people, howmany sales organizations do you
know have contact roles filledout for the entire buying group?
On the opportunity, Right, it's, it's.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
it's quickly approaching zero.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
It's like saying what enterprise organization, or any
organization, has clean data intheir system and it's so
obvious.
But in a way, buying groups isreally just the technology and
the process, kind of catching upto how this has always been
done.
Like salespeople hear aboutthis and they're like no duh,
(07:43):
this is how I've been selling,this is how I make my commission
.
This is literally what we'vebeen doing since the dawn of
time.
I'm so glad you finally figuredthis out and one.
It's like yes, thank you, we'reglad to be here and also the
technology wasn't there to beable to build and scale around
that.
And that's really what we'redoing at Lean Data is we are
building the technology thattakes the motion that your very
(08:07):
best sales reps do and weautomate that so you can scale
it across all of your reps whomaybe don't have those exquisite
habits as one might like.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Well and I am pretty pragmatic about it, having been
in sales myself before when Ithink about whenever I've talked
to salespeople, they get theidea right.
Buying groups make sense and Igo like, yeah, if you put this
stuff into salesforce this way,you're it's extra work for you
today, but down the road right,it's going to help us better
target and help you find yournext next account.
(08:39):
So I think your idea, like thegoldilocks analogy, is an
interesting one.
Like you want to make it aseasy as possible for them.
So like what was like.
But what was the driver ofbuilding this into the lean data
product set?
Speaker 3 (08:54):
Yeah, yeah, I'll, I'll take first pass of that,
and then Christine.
I think your, your perspectiveon this is is is really going to
be important.
But I mean, I think all goodproducts come from really acute
pain, right, and there has beena lot of pain in trying to
understand who orgs are sellingto.
You know, I'm not going to boreyou guys with the speech about
(09:19):
these economic times, you know,and and unprecedented moments
like the ones we've been goingthrough and are going to
continue to go through.
But what we, what everyoneknows, what has become common
knowledge here it's a cliche atthis point is like it is harder
to get deals done, especially inthe B2B fast world.
It is harder to get deals done.
(09:40):
Everyone is asked to do morewith less.
You have a lot, a lot of peopleinvolved, and so we have a lot
of organizations who are tryingto figure out how they can scale
and how they can make sure,when they do get in those sales
cycles, they are closing themreally, really effectively.
And so we saw that coming fromour own clients who had already
(10:03):
been turning to us and sayinglike, hey, we think this is
something we can solve with leandata.
Can you help us get there?
And we heard it from the marketas people were saying hey, wow,
the way we've been doing thingsreally doesn't make sense for
the way business is and the waythat the economy is really
demanding, and those two thingscombined from a product
marketer's perspective, it'slike yeah, jackpot.
(10:24):
You guys, there is pain herethat we can absolutely solve.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Sure Christine.
Any thoughts from you on thistoo?
Speaker 2 (10:32):
So many.
I just I want to touch on a fewpoints.
One is Alice made a really goodpoint and the why now is the
technology.
It always is not really thatmuch has changed.
I've been in the industry along time.
We've always been selling topeople.
People have always been buying.
It's not.
If you sell to the enterprise,it's not one person.
(10:53):
One thing I'll add is we alwayssay it's all these people
working together to buy from you.
Sometimes they're not workingtogether, sometimes they're
working in silos at anorganization.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Sometimes I've been in situations where I felt like
I was working against peopleinternally as a buyer.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
It's true.
So there are a lot of nuancesto the people that you're
selling to.
There are multiple people andit's the technology that really
is the catalyst for thesechanges, and I think people
aren't going to just say, oh,I'm just going to do buying
groups, I'm just going to do ABM, I'm just going to do MQL.
It's going to be a combinationof these things because I swear
(11:31):
and it doesn't matter how goodyou are at any one of those
things they're going to say Istill need more, I need more
MQLs, I need more accounts.
But I'd love to be in a placewhere they say I need more
opportunities, because you'vegiven me so many good
opportunities, I need more.
That is the ideal state,absolutely.
So what makes Indata in aposition to bring this product
(11:56):
to market?
That's, I think, see how thevendor came to market, because
their underlying architecture isusually a really good indicator
of where they're going to begood and how they can layer on
(12:17):
additional products in theirroadmap.
Right and so, because linkeddata is all about relating data
in your system wherever it comesfrom.
Whether it's external data, youknow company size, internal
data data, you only know ticketsopened, health of customer
(12:38):
products purchased.
We just relate all this data.
We're positioned to take thatdata and do really interesting
things with it.
And signals are great.
All this information is great,but kind of separating out the
noise from the actualinteresting moments the signals
that matter is one of the thingsthat's going to allow lean data
(13:03):
product or really any of theproducts that you look at for
your buying group.
That's one of the things that'sgoing to be really important to
you, not how many signals Ihave, it's how many important
signals do I need.
Which signals do I need withwhich people to close a deal?
That's going to be thedifferentiator.
That and clusters Clusters ofpeople.
(13:25):
What people when?
What does good look like?
Speaker 1 (13:32):
That's the difference .
Yeah, it's interesting that youbring up the timing for the
technology.
It reminds me of a couple ofthings in my career.
The other thing it's making merealize is we've had several
guests on in the last six tonine months, basically most of
this year, where we were talkingto them about sort of emerging
go-to-market approaches that aredifferent, and I think it's
(13:55):
part of the same symptom, right,like the ability to get into
these accounts and sell to themhas been a challenge.
What's really interesting, as Ithink about, is some of these
just feel like they're actuallynot new concepts, right.
The idea of a buying group,like we said, intuitively
obvious.
The idea of using partners, ifyou're using a partnership based
(14:16):
motion right, they all makesense and they've all been used
over the past.
I think it's the ability to dothose at scale that seems to be
the thing that's reallyhappening now.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
So it's I mean.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
I'm just putting this all together in my head as we
talk.
But one of the other things andmaybe, alice, you touched on
this a little bit is that youmentioned sort of the link to
this in ABM right, which ABM hasbeen a trend here.
What for, I think you?
Speaker 2 (14:41):
gave us the history, yeah eight to ten years Very
good.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
The wave rises and history, yeah, eight to 10 years
, very good.
The wind rises and falls.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Yes, yes, yes.
So how does?
Because I think when we talkedbefore, you said like this is
linked to ABM and you touched onit, but can you go a little
deeper on that?
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Yeah, absolutely, and this is something that I think
is really really important.
Consultants and analysts and Isay this as a former consultant
and with all the respect in theworld, right, they love to say
things like oh, this is dead,you know MQL is dead, the funnel
is dead, you know ABM is in acoma.
There's all of these, reallyyou know, provocative phrases
(15:21):
that people like to say aroundthese major trends and major
motions that we have inorganizations, and I get why.
But usually the people who aretalking about that you know you
have there's a little bit of anivory tower vibe there, right,
like it's great in theory andit's great if you're building a
company from the start, day one,with absolutely no data or
(15:43):
history or past motion, like noproblem.
But for the rest of us, youknow, living in the world where
we report up to the board on ourMQLs and we have a full team
that's running ABM programs thathas some really impressive
metrics that go to it, it justit makes no sense to say you
know, all of this is done.
(16:03):
We're now focused on this otherthing.
If anything, it kind of, youknow, feeds into the stereotype
right of chasing that shinyobject syndrome which you know
marketers can perhaps be knownfor.
So when you look at buyinggroups, I think what it really
is, when it's done right, isit's an extension of your ABM
(16:24):
program, right?
I don't see.
I see a lot of companies doingthis successfully.
I don't see any of them doingit as their sole motion.
It is a hybrid approach whereyou still have your demand gen
efforts going.
In many, many cases they'restill collecting on and
reporting on MQLs, they'redeveloping out those parallel
metrics so you can start to seehow those things are going.
(16:46):
You're still saying, like theaccount still really makes a
difference when we're talkingabout selling right the account
and where it is and how it'spositioned and how you can
market effectively and whatcampaigns you can run against
that account.
Like those are core marketingtenants that aren't going
anywhere.
Buying groups just says we aregoing to go a level deeper in
(17:08):
that account to connect andunderstand the people in a more
systematic way and in a way thatunveils context.
And I know that can sound maybea little bit, you know,
ethereal, but what we're, whatwe're saying, is we want to pull
together all of this data andat this point, with all these
different texts, like.
(17:29):
There's a lot of data out there.
We are going to aggregate allof that data.
We are going to put it in theright place in the right format
so people can startunderstanding more about who
they're talking to or, crucially, who they're not talking to.
Right, who's about to come inand sniper their wheel right as
they think it's about to getsigned, and where they might
(17:49):
exist elsewhere in the company.
Right, where do you havesomebody who's a decision maker
in one open opportunity and theymight exist as an influencer in
another opportunity?
Right, you're going to have adifferent conversation with that
person if you understand whatother conversations they're
having that you might not be apart of.
So all of it, I think, isconnected.
(18:10):
I don't think anything inparticular is dead.
Really, I think it's just areimagining, which is something
that we always have to do.
Right, we have to reimagine andI think we have to get really,
really lean and really nimble.
And I think that's where ourapproach with buying groups come
in, because you can plug intothe existing tech stack and you
(18:32):
can harness all of that data andyou can leverage it in your
existing account-basedstrategies to really amplify
what you're already doing andwhat your salespeople are doing
well.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Yeah, it feels like it's not really a separate thing
, it's something that augments.
What you're probably alreadydoing is the way it sounds like
Christine.
Any additional thoughts on allthat?
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Oh, yep, there it goes.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
This is what happens when we're doing a real live
recording.
Yep, there it goes.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
This is what happens when we're doing a live
recording.
Yeah, I do think it is not justturn it on and forget about the
old things, because change isnot like that.
That's not how it works.
Fine, you can have it all.
You can have MQLs, where yousend over leads.
(19:25):
You can have ABM, where yousend over accounts, and you can
have buy-in groups where yousend over opportunities.
Everyone loves leads, right?
They like demo requests.
Oh, of course, that's not goingto stop.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
We all like hand raisers of whatever sort.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
But MQLs overall, they don't convert very well,
yeah, unless you are like whodid I talk to the other day?
Oh, cognizant, because alltheir MQLs.
The only way you can MQL is ifyou raise your hand.
So I was like, well, that's adifferent kind of MQL, so will
that go away?
You know that's a differentkind of MQL, so will that go
away?
No, but if I send you an MQLversus an opportunity with the
(20:11):
contacts already on it and acall scheduled, it feels
different and people are goingto be asking for that more than
they're going to be asking forMQLs.
The shift is going to be likewhere's my opportunity, not
where's my demo request.
And maybe if a demo requestcomes in today, I already create
(20:32):
the opportunity and send it tothem.
So for them, when they say ahand raiser, that is an
opportunity.
So there were small things thatwe've done to be on this buying
groups path and we can talk alittle bit about that, like what
does that change look like andhow am I selling it internally?
But I don't think it will goaway either.
I think it's we can have it all.
Why can't we have it all?
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
It's easier to measure if it's an opportunity.
So I will say if everythinggoes to one object, my
Salesforce brain is very happy,my reporting brain is very happy
, my metrics are easier, myconversions are much easier to
calculate and it's much easierfor people to work in one space.
But I'll automate anything, Idon't care.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
And I and I think what's what you just touched on
there is really, reallyimportant is talking about the
opportunity, right, and one ofthe reasons why buying groups
has been such a challengingthing, I think, one of the
reasons why the tech hasn't beenthere in the past is because,
of course, you know, as head ofRevOps, right, or perhaps as CMO
, love, love people operating inthe opportunity, and for good
(21:36):
reason, right, that is theirgolden opportunity, that's their
source of truth, that's whatthey're, you know, that's how
they get paid.
That's how they get paid right,that is the most profitable
(21:57):
thing.
So I absolutely understand,like the the the bone deep.
No, that comes full throatedfrom the sales team when
marketing's like oh yeah, andwe'll just update your
opportunities and it'll be sogreat.
And they're like absolutely not, please stay away from
everything that we're doing.
And I think we have to takethat really seriously, because
(22:19):
nothing is going to get adaptedright If you're fighting with
people across the board.
I think sales has some very goodreason to be so hesitant.
You know, to let otherdepartments go in and tinker in
this object that is so crucialto their business, to the
organization at large.
And so what we've done is we'vecreated the ability to build
(22:41):
out these buying groups in acontainer, in a custom object
container.
That's pre-opportunity so youcan build in Salesforce.
So think of a buying groupobject in Salesforce that
marketing can start.
Your MQL is your buying groupof one right?
And then you work with salesand you say, okay, how many
(23:02):
people would you want in thisbuying group before you would
want to jump on a call with them?
How many people would you needto have?
And who are those people?
You know.
And sales says you know I wantsix people.
I don't think you're ever goingto do that.
You know, get me six people andmake sure the decision makers
on the call and then I'll payattention Right.
And now, what marketing has isthey have an understanding of
(23:23):
who those those people need tobe, what those roles are.
They have the ability, throughall of these new, through all of
these technologies and thestack that they were already
doing, to find all of thosepeople.
Through lean data, we have theability to associate them into
this unique container that wecan track so that we see exactly
(23:44):
how we've been touching themand what they've been doing and
what they're engaging and all ofthat fun, contextual, great
data.
And then, when it gets to thatpoint, we can turn to sales and
say, great, here it is, it'sready to go, and then that is
something that sales can thencreate the opportunity and
associate, and that can be donemanually, it can be done
automatically, but it givesmarketing the ability to play in
(24:05):
that sandbox without saying I'mgoing to stomp on your
sandcastle to make it happen.
We have two sandcastlesBuilding a bridge between them.
If you'll, let me belabor thatanalogy.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Sorry, now I'm thinking about the beach.
Yeah, it's interesting becauseI've had similar experience, but
I think I just want to clarifysomething.
So I think you said like, oh,we need to understand the six
people.
It feels like it's really likeif we say we typically win when
we have these six roles involved, right, and whoever those
(24:43):
people are.
But it also feels like maybe itcould be a self-validating
model, right?
So we think, based onhistorical data, that we win
when we have these six people,but what we find is okay.
So now we get a new opportunity, we've got the three people and
we actually win, right?
Does that change the model?
(25:03):
I see Christine's like nodding.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
I'm like, yeah, okay, yeah, of course, all right,
yeah and I think there'sreporting that comes with it,
right, and I mean, this is likeanything else.
You're going to need to runmodels off of it, you're going
to need to track performance,you're going to need to see how
these things go.
That's what our clients aredoing.
(25:32):
Typically, what we see withbuying groups is people will run
a pilot or a smaller rolloutwith one product or one segment
and then they start seeingresults and they start to see
those numbers and all of asudden, people start paying a
little bit better of attention,right, because your conversion
rates start going up and in somecases, the total opportunities
are going up in pretty largenumbers, and so once that starts
happening in a small space,then you start getting the buy
in Right.
A lot of what this is, you know,from my perspective, is
(25:55):
building back up, in some cases,marketing's credibility with
sales.
Having that executive champion,that executive stakeholder yeah
, having that executive champion, that executive stakeholder
Ideally it's the CMO and the CSOare working really closely
together and the CSO is kind ofblessing all of this.
And you have, you know, we havea product that will run all of
(26:16):
the analysis on what thosenumbers should be and what those
titles are.
Many organizations mightalready have that and then you
report on that and it's like anyother program, right?
You iterate once you have thedata.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Yeah, no, it makes sense, maybe shift gears a
little bit.
So you've been developing theproduct and then, christine I
think I don't want to use theprevious sort of analogy but you
drink your own champagne now.
Right, so you're using thisinternally.
How, like?
How do you approach this kindof stuff, like when you're
(26:49):
because this is not just atechnology change?
Right, this is a it's not evena process change, like it's,
it's kind of a mindset change,because I was talked about,
right, you, you have to buildthis trust as a along the way
too.
So just how do you approachthat when you're doing something
like this internally?
Speaker 2 (27:04):
This was.
This is kind of funny, it'swe're not unique.
I had to sell our own productinternally.
So I the thought was, you knowwho is the best fit for buying
groups?
Is it enterprise?
Is it commercial?
Is it anyone selling to theenterprise?
Is it anyone who has a productthat sells into a buying group?
(27:27):
What does that look like?
So we talked a lot about thatand, you know, finally convinced
them like, let me be our guineapig.
And so I had to pitch thisinternally to our internal
stakeholders and convince themthat I wanted to do the
(27:51):
historical analysis that weprovide and our partners guy and
our CEO and found our partner,opsfocus, and we ran the
(28:14):
blueprint.
The product's called Blueprint,but we ran the historical data
and we're just about to gothrough the analysis and so for
us, the thought is we will run,like Alice said, this just for
our enterprise segment of ourbusiness.
I do think we're going to findthat the commercial business is
(28:36):
going to start wanting it towhen I start sending
opportunities to the enterprise,they're going to want it to.
So we are just in the middle ofour rollout.
And it is interesting becausewhat we're trying to do is not
only drink our own champagne butgain empathy for the change
management parts of the process,and not just the change
(28:56):
management from a people.
But what does the system needto do?
What changes am I going to needto make to the system Now?
Thankfully, we've already donesome of the things that I think
set us up for success, and Ipresented on this and I'll share
some of the things that I thinkanyone can do today to kind of
(29:17):
set the groundwork for buyinggroups and really just for I
don't know preparing for the.
Sometimes I call them therobots.
I don't know what that robotwill be whether it's.
AI or your buying group orwhatever next piece of
technology there is.
So you've got to know whoyou're talking to, right, and so
(29:41):
one of the gaps that I do knowis that, regardless of what
engagement tool you're using,there are people that your reps
are talking to that are not inthe system.
Oh a hundred percent.
The biggest what I when I ran umI I ended up using Nectar.
You can.
There's lots of vendors outthere Um.
(30:01):
What I found actually were ourbiggest offenders were our
customer success side of thebusiness Interesting.
Which is interesting becauseone of our bigger term risks are
loss of a point of contact.
And if I don't even know whothat point of contact is.
I don't know when they've leftand I do use software to know
when people leave, but if Idon't know the person, I won't
know that they left.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Right.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
So one of your risks and won't know that they left.
So, um, so you're, you're oneof your risks, um, and I don't
know how buying groups will playinto renewals.
That's.
That's the next piece of whereI want to go with.
Buying groups is not just newbusiness enterprise maybe
commercial, but definitelyrenewals, because, um, keeping
up with relationships andexisting accounts is actually
harder than it is in the buyingand the selling process because
(30:43):
you're actively engaged wherethe renewals is a whole nother
thing.
So, not only know who you'retalking to know who you don't
know.
So scrape all that data and,while you're at it, get all of
your activities and meetings.
But, but beware of duplicates,because you're going to get it
from something like outreach orsales loft.
How do you get those otherpieces without duplicates?
(31:05):
Because you're going to get itfrom something like outreach or
sales loft.
How do you get those otherpieces without duplicates?
And do you need all of the dataor just the?
Is it an email on the subject?
You probably don't need all thedata and attachments.
Be careful what you bring in,but bring it in, because if you
want to know who you're talkingto, you gotta kind of know, when
you're talking to them whoyou're talking to, what type of
what it is, so that if it'smeaningful, you've captured it,
(31:26):
so you can repeat that type of.
You have that data tounderstand what meaningful is.
You don't need you probablydon't need all of the text.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
That's one thing, so can I.
So I want to interrupt realquick a couple of questions that
popped into my head.
Let me do the first one.
So one I don't think we'vetalked about this who do you
what?
Who do you roll up to Christinein the organization?
Speaker 2 (31:46):
I roll up to um the CSO.
Okay, so you're on this.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Okay, all right.
Um, the second question.
I don't know how you approachthis.
So when I've done pilot stuffand I like the idea of finding a
small group building somesuccess and some momentum
snowball effect, if you will,Did you go after people who were
actively receptive to it, ordid you go over people who felt
(32:13):
like they were almostantagonistic to the idea first
and try to convince them,because I've done both and they
both work, but I've, I've, I've.
The second one is harder, but Ifound it ultimately more
successful.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
so this time I went after the people who were well
for it.
To be honest, okay, um, I it'snot that we had people who were
against it, but I was was justlike, hey, we have this
opportunity.
I really want it to be ready by2025.
And I think we have anopportunity in the enterprise
(32:48):
and you know, I don't have a lotof people saying no when it
comes to our own productinternally, but the thing was
more about time constraint.
They're like it's Q4.
Do you have the time?
We have a lot going on.
We have a lot of marketinginitiatives.
We have a lot of sales planningto do and I kind of looked left
(33:11):
, looked right and was likelet's do it, because I really
want to do it and yeah, thehistorical analysis is really no
lift.
For me it's a very little lift,but I think the readout is going
to put us in a really goodposition to give them enough
information to make the rightdecision.
(33:31):
So it's the and some companiesoffer this and some don't, but I
think I don't have enoughinformation to make a good
recommendation without thehistorical analysis and I have
enough data for the robot.
So I need the data.
Give me the readout.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Right.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
And we'll go from there.
So I needed data to be reallycompelling, and so the thing
that they worried about was mytime, and for me they didn't
need to know, but it reallydidn't take any time for me to
roll out Interesting.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Okay, so you talked about this historical data.
What types of data?
I imagine opportunities was apart of it, and if you had
contact roles, that would bepart of it too, but what other
things did you include in thatanalysis?
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Yep Opportunities, contacts, leads, tasks, events.
If you have OCRs, ocrs Campaigndata, I think so Let me grab it
.
Yes, campaign data You're right, got it.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
Was there anything that you actually intentionally
excluded, that other people werelike we really should include
this?
I'm curious.
I'm throwing a curveball at youhere.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
I generally exclude some marketing stuff, um email
sends like lists.
I exclude any type of email insthat are um and I do this for
all of my analysis email insthat are automatic replies out
of office, um sure, anythingthat I I do a lot of.
(35:19):
I keep data that's duplicatesometimes, but I mark it as a
duplicate, so duplicate data Um,what else do I exclude that?
Um, I don't exclude unqualifiedpeople because they may not
have been unqualified at thetime.
So generally I excludeunqualified.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
But for this analysis .
Speaker 2 (35:38):
I did not exclude unqualified, so that's that's
one of the reasons I don'talways delete unqualified people
from the system.
If they have any relationshipto anything that is relevant, I
keep them.
It's part of my datadestruction policy, but so so in
this scenario I would analyzeunqualified where normally I
(36:03):
wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Interesting, alice.
Um, as you're taking this outto customers, are they doing
like, are they using sort of asimilar pattern of stuff they're
looking at?
Um?
Speaker 3 (36:15):
yeah, so we have two different, um, two different
offerings that we have aroundbuying groups, and one is called
Buying Groups Blueprint.
That does essentially whatChristine just itemized, and so
we would do that in the same way.
Right, we're already goingthrough that process at our
organization, the same as wewould roll it out for anyone
else, and that's providing themwith not only what your buying
(36:40):
groups should look like, whatthose meaningful events are, the
titles, roles or personas thatyou would want to base your
buying groups around but alsomore of a holistic assessment of
overall readiness between thesystem, your tech stack, your
business process, the changemanagement, kind of a holistic
approach to getting started withbuying groups.
(37:01):
So it's same same, but in somecases we have, you know, a
number of organizations thathave, you know, really robust
data science departments,frankly, and really robust ways
of analyzing the data.
That's not something that theyneed the support on.
Some people do, just becauseit's easy to build out as a
(37:21):
proof of concept, to kind ofreally jumpstart the motion, and
so, you know, in some of thosecases where they're using our
product, it's going to lookexactly as Christine just
identified and for those whoalready have their information,
you might see some variance, butacross the board it's pretty
much always the same of you know.
Really, going back to just the,the obvious fundamentals, you
(37:43):
have to know who you're talkingto.
You have to know what they careabout.
You have to know how they wantto digest information.
You have to know the role thatthey play in the sales cycle
you're in.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
That sounds a lot like personas, so it's a little
bit of personas.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
It's a little bit of personas.
It's a little bit ofattribution.
It's a little bit of um, youknow, full cycle reporting.
It's um.
None of these past trends inmarketing or past things that
have just kind of the names havegone out of vogue but none of
them ever really fully went awaybecause they were created for a
reason right?
Speaker 1 (38:14):
no, I, I think so, and that's why I was like this
sounds very familiar if you'vedone any of that kind of work.
Yes, so, so, christine, you'vedone this analysis or you're in
the final stages, I guess.
Right, has there been anyanything that has surprised you
about it?
Right, like, were you, like,have you been able to say, oh,
this opportunity we really have,we have this one point of
(38:35):
contact, but we really needthese other two or three or four
, whatever the number is.
Like what?
What kinds of interestingthings have you uncovered that
you might not have otherwiseexpected?
Speaker 2 (38:46):
not yet, because we're just about to do our
readout, um, but what I will sayis um, we know that
multi-threading works, um, thisis kind of a little off topic,
but I do want to make sure Icover this, because
multi-threading is superinteresting, right, and not
(39:09):
because we don't do it, butbecause we don't pay anyone to
do it.
And I thought this wasinteresting in that I was
talking to an organization theother day and they said they pay
their SDRs on multithreading.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
So just for my own notification, maybe your eyes.
When you say multithreading,what do you mean?
Speaker 2 (39:29):
Making sure that they have multiple people at the
account and paying them to reachout to more than one person on
the account.
Reach out to more than oneperson on the account, and so
what we did?
Because I don't know exactlywho yet, but I'm going to
approach it in two ways.
Once I know the exact two, Istarted automating bringing in
(39:53):
the right people on the account.
So I think I'll know soonexactly who those people are the
account.
So I think I'll know soonexactly who those people are.
I think I need two RevOps, twomarketing ops, depending on the
size of the company, could beone or two.
If they don't have it, I sendit out to Sixth Sense or User
(40:13):
Gems and I pull in those peopleand add it on.
Now I don't pay the SDRs todayby multi-threading, but I'm
looking into it for next yearbecause we know and again maybe
I'll automate it through buyinggroups but we know you have to
be talking to X number of peopleand soon I'll know the number
and soon I'll know the personas.
But why not pay someone to dothat if I know that it's going
(40:39):
to improve the win rate?
And talking to it was again, itwas Cognizant the other day the
co-founder there.
He said they actually that'show they comp their SDRs on
multi-threading and they foundit to be very successful not
even on you know number ofmeetings booked multi-threading.
(41:00):
So I don't know the output yetof the analysis.
It's going to give us a fewthings.
It's going to give us thepersonas, the clusters that we
call it, alice, the personaclusters that are important Not
only it's what it looks like ina one deal and a closed lost
deal.
(41:20):
That's the other thing that Iwould analyze, that I don't
always analyze.
In some of my reporting I'mgoing to also look at what lost
and bad looks like, the clustersof titles that make up each of
the personas, the number ofpeople in those personas needed
to close deals and the number ofpersonas, and then figure out
(41:43):
what we either automate versuswhat we have.
A human do we're still going tohave humans.
Yeah, at least next year.
At least next year, guys, we'restill going to have humans.
So big promises from Christina.
So that's what I do with theoutput.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
AI is dead.
Speaker 3 (42:02):
Big word.
That's the title of thisepisode.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
So that's what I do with the output, even though I
don't have it yet is reallyfocusing on identifying the gaps
and risks and closing them withautomation and people.
And if that moves the needle,I'm going to keep repeating
automating, paying people,closing the gaps and then
(42:29):
hopefully rolling it out to theother segments, not only for
commercial but renewals, whichis super interesting to me.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (42:38):
And I think the whole concept of the sdr is a really
like.
We could probably spend anotherhour talking about it here.
It's super juicy, um, and it'ssomething that I think is going
to continue to evolve.
I don't know that anyone has anice, neat, pat answer.
You know, for what do you do inthis environment with the sdrs,
or you know the bdrs orwhatever you want to call them.
(42:58):
Right this, moving fully tothis model, it's part of why,
you know, as Christine alluded,there's such a huge change
management aspect associatedwith this.
It's fundamentally a largescale process change across the
entire organization.
That has comp impacts, right,um, real, real finances that
(43:21):
need to be accounted for and theidea of, okay, if marketing is
putting together a buying grouppre-opportunity that's ready to
go to sales and start selling it, how does that work for the bdr
?
What does that mean?
What are they?
getting what are they doing?
then, um, I think you're goingto see it done in a lot of
interesting ways TechTarget, foranyone wanting more information
(43:42):
, john Steinhardt has got areally, really good approach.
He recently wrote a blog aboutit that's up on the Lean Data
website, palo Alto Networks.
You'll see, marketing is justworking really closely with the
BDRs and when marketing fillsthat out for pre-opportunity,
they send it to the BDR and thenthe BDR is comped on building
that out even further and doingthose initial calls.
(44:04):
So there's a lot of differentways it can go and I think it's
good that there's noprescriptive one size fits all
flavor to it.
Right, because these companiesand systems are so complicated.
Anyone who says they've got thesolution is, you know, selling
you snake oil.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
Well, I mean, this is what I always talk about.
Is the sort of fallacy of bestpractices, right?
Because, like it's not.
I mean there's not aone-size-fits-all place.
I mean there's too many nuances, and I think.
What I do believe, though, isthat, like these kinds of
technologies, ai, whatever Istill think there's going to be
a place for that human element,no matter what, in all
(44:43):
seriousness, but people willneed to adapt, and it will
change the nature of the workthat they do, and they need to
be able to adapt to that.
And if you can't adapt to that,that's and in some ways, it
could be way more interesting,right?
If you're, if you're spendingyour time like oh, now, I know
I'm not just completely throwingdarts at a big ocean of people
at this account and I can targetbecause I get specific people
(45:06):
right I can imagine that beingway more interesting and less,
you know, soul crushing.
If you're just doing that kindof outbound stuff, it is hard to
do that and get hung up on andcursed out or whatever, right?
So well, why don't we do this?
So, we've covered a lot ofground and we're kind of tight
(45:28):
on time here, but maybe can yougive us a quick rundown Like
what's next, christine, in thisrollout?
Speaker 2 (45:35):
The readout, which I'm super excited about.
It should be like I said we ranthe data, so we should have it
in the next few weeks while theyrun the analysis.
Again, if you have your owndata science team, you can do it
.
I don't have the luxury ofhaving that, so I worked with
our partner and I plan giventhat I can have it rolled out,
(45:57):
the analysis in the next, youknow, two weeks.
I plan to have a proposal tothe executive staff for a 2025
rollout for the enterprise teamand, even if that seems too big
for them to roll out or ifthey're a little uncertain, I
have two reps that are reallyanxious to participate and I'm
(46:22):
going to propose that.
I know that everyone's going towant to do it.
Anyway.
I think maybe my biggest hurdlemight be marketing.
I don't know.
I'm curious to see how thisplays out, not that that would
be a hurdle.
They're going to ask me thetough questions, the questions
of how are we going to report?
(46:43):
What does success look like?
Speaker 1 (46:45):
What are the?
Speaker 2 (46:45):
metrics that you're going to be able to provide for
me to feel comfortable, um,understanding.
Month over month, year overyear, week over week.
Do we have historicals tounderstand data like this and
that?
So those are the things.
We have a very analytics-mindedCMO who, I think, is not going
(47:09):
to say no, he's just going toask me the tough questions.
Sales is going to be like oh,that looks good.
Speaker 3 (47:15):
I think they're going to see good numbers Make my job
easier, right, right, and so Idon't think marketing is going
to say no.
Speaker 2 (47:19):
I think good, yeah, I think I think they're gonna see
, like good, make my job easier,right, right and so, and so.
I don't think marketing isgoing to say no.
Speaker 1 (47:21):
I think they're going to ask me the tough questions
that are going to make me thinkyeah I can imagine I'm going to
automate it all yeah, yeah, Imean, I can imagine, coming
coming from a marketingperspective, how this would be
maybe seen as maybe a little bitof a threat, but also I think,
like I think it's a potentialopportunity too.
So I think it really depends onthe details.
(47:42):
Gosh, I wish we could go onlonger because I think we didn't
even cover everything we hadhoped to cover, but this has
been really fascinating to me.
Speaker 3 (47:52):
We'll just have to come back on again.
We'll do a part two.
There you go.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
There you go.
There you go, love it.
Well, thank you.
So if there's anything like iffolks want to keep up with
what's going on with either ofyou or learn more about buying
groups, what's going on withlead data, what's the best way
to do that, one of you go first.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
Yeah, you can connect with me on LinkedIn.
Just a maxi, and there is aLinkedIn buying groups
leadership group.
Do you have?
Speaker 1 (48:17):
it Really there Buying Groups.
Speaker 2 (48:17):
Leadership Group.
Speaker 3 (48:19):
Do you have it Really there?
Sure is, yeah, so, likewise,connect with me.
I'm on LinkedIn.
It's a great, great place to be.
Connect, alice A Walker is myURL Pretty easy to spell?
And then come join me in ourBuying Group Leaders group that
I am a member of.
The name of the group isliterally buying group leaders A
(48:42):
lot of good people from fromall across different company
sizes and industries andverticals.
Lots of great thoughtleadership in there, lots of
great conversation happening inthere.
So, yeah, if you want to learnmore, you want to follow along.
That's a.
That's a really great resource,as well as, of course, you
course, following along withwhat we're doing at Lean Data.
(49:02):
And, if you're interested,everybody loves a hand raiser,
that's right.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
Amazing.
Speaker 1 (49:10):
We'll have to get that LinkedIn group from you so
we can share it in the shownotes.
Absolutely Great stuff, alice.
Christine, thank you so much.
It's been a great conversation.
I truly do wish we had moretime, so thank you again.
Thanks to our audience forcontinuing to support us, as
always.
If you have ideas for a topicor a guest, or want to be a
(49:31):
guest and want to join us, reachout to Naomi Mike Rizzo or me,
linkedin or the marketingappscomSlack group.
Until next time, everyone Byenow.
Speaker 2 (49:43):
Bye, bye.
Speaker 3 (49:44):
Thank you.
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of
OpsCast brought to you byMarketingOpscom, powered by all
the more pros out there.
I am your host, michael Hartman, joined by no one today, at
least not my co-hosts.
So, mike and Naomi, I'm surewill join us again, but I do
have guests.
I have two, so we'll make upfor it.
We have Alice Walker andChristine Maxey, both from Lean
(00:20):
Data.
Alice is currently a seniorproduct and partnership
marketing manager at Lean Data.
Prior to joining Lean Data, sheworked in consulting at Shift
Paradigm slash LeadMD, where sheheld several leadership roles
focused on marketing and servicedelivery to clients.
She also has a background inproject and program management.
Christine is currently vicepresident of revenue operations
(00:41):
at Lean Data, progressingthrough leadership roles and
revenue operations.
Over the past several years.
She also spent a few years insolutions consulting at Lean
Data, progressing throughleadership roles and revenue
operations.
Over the past several years,she also spent a few years in
solutions consulting at LeanData.
There's a connection betweenthe two of you.
Between her two stints at LeanData, christine was the head of
customer success at Tackleio.
Prior to those roles, she heldvarious roles in sales
(01:03):
operations and businessoperations.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
So, alice and Christine, thank you for joining
.
Thanks, we sound smart.
Yeah, good backgrounds allaround.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Yeah, so it's funny, the lead MD says so.
I finally met Andrea LechnerBecker for the first time in
person at Masa Palooza last weekin Anaheim and it was funny
because she sent me a messageahead of time.
She's like I'm tolerated inreal life I'm tolerated so and
she was so well.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
There you go there you go, living up to the hype.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
That's important yeah , so did you.
Were you all there when you hadthe uh the business cards that
said doctor?
Speaker 3 (01:41):
i't.
That was after my time.
I think it was initially namedto be like WebMD, so I spent
more time than I would haveliked explaining.
Well, webmd used to be a thingthat people did on the Internet,
and now it's LeadMD and we'renot changing the name because we
have great brand recognition.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
So anyhow, let's talk about you.
Yeah, and now I work for.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Lean Data.
So I'm constantly juggling,trying to say the right name
every time.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Yeah, that's so funny .
Okay, so we're going to spendtoday talking about the concept
of buying groups, so I'm notsure that our whole listener
audience will be familiar withthat, but it's a term that they
may be familiar with if they'refamiliar with what was I still
think of as serious decisions,but now part of Forrester.
So we wanted to talk to youbecause not only are you
incorporating that concept intosome of your products, you're
also leveraging it internally,so it might be good.
(02:40):
Maybe we could start with adefinition.
So, alice, do you think youcould start?
Maybe give us a definition, oryour definition, and we'll go
from there.
What is buying groups?
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Yeah, happy to so.
Buying groups I mean, the greatthing about buying groups is
it's as simple as it sounds,right, A buying group is a group
of buyers.
The naming is really quite onthe nose.
I think it's helpful to thinkabout buying groups in the
context of marketing trendsdecade over decade, because
(03:11):
that's really what we're seeingwith buying groups.
That's why we're talking aboutit now.
That's why it's gained inpopularity.
You know, roughly 20 or so yearsago, when marketing automation
was really just getting started,when marketing automation was
really just getting started, youhave Marketo's and Eloqua's and
the you know, the maps of theworld are are being born.
That really started with demandgeneration, right, and
(03:33):
realizing like, oh my God, wecan send an email to a thousand
to a hundred thousand people allat once, Right, this is, this
is amazing.
We've never been able to dothis before.
Demand gen was born.
That got messy really quickly.
So the MQL came out, the MQLbeing the marketing qualified
lead really focused on just thelead itself, which is really
(03:53):
really small, and a lot ofproblems kind of naturally came
out of that.
And so, 8, 10 years later, aspeople sort of fall out of love
with that first blush ofmarketing automation and demand
generation.
That's really when you seeaccount-based marketing start to
rise in popularity and takeover and say, okay, demand gen
and the MQL did not solve allyour problems.
(04:15):
It did not make you a millionbillion dollars.
Sales and marketing are stillfighting about the same things
that they've done since the dawnof time.
Too bad, so sad.
Let's talk about account-basedmarketing.
The MQL is so small, it's justa person, it's a tiny.
That's not good.
We need to go big.
So we're going to talk aboutthe entire account, right, and
we're going to market to theaccount and we're going to work
(04:36):
with sales on that account andyou'll have the last 8 to 10
years really focused on theaccounts.
That's.
You know.
Sixth Sense is born at thistime.
Demandbase comes in.
You know Engagio.
At the time you have all ofthese companies that start
really trying to expand to fixthe problem that there was in
the MQL, and then really, whatwe've seen now we're about in
(05:00):
that same sort of trend timeline8 to 10 years later.
Abm solved some of thoseproblems, but not all of those
problems.
Sales and marketing are stillfighting about the same thing
they've always fought about andwhat we've seen.
Is that okay?
If the MQL is really too smalland account-based, maybe that's
a little too big.
Just going to the actualaccount, Maybe we should start
(05:21):
talking about the group ofpeople in the account itself.
So it's not doing away withpeople, it's not doing away with
accounts.
It's saying within an account,anybody knows that if you are
trying to sell anything with anytype of meaningful budget
you're selling to multiplepeople right.
It's very rare as a day whereyou get on a call and it's one
person and they're thestakeholder, the decision maker,
(05:43):
the budget holder and theexecutive champion.
It's just not going to happen.
So buying groups is all aboutunderstanding who those people
are within the account and thenfinding out a way to scale and
operationalize that so you'renot relying on salespeople
tracking all that informationdown, uploading that data into
Salesforce and then effectivelymaintaining that data, because
(06:06):
you know, we all know, that'snot a realistic solution.
So I really like the Goldilocksanalogy.
We're really going for a justright approach with buying
groups that really incorporatesboth the people of MQL, the
accounts of ABM and centralizesit a little bit more in
Salesforce, where people arereally living and breathing
anyway.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Yeah, I mean, I think when I first heard about it, it
was intuitively it made sense,right it just the idea that,
like, yes, when you're buyingsomething substantial, you're
typically not doing it on yourown.
There are lower cost thingswhere, yeah, I've been able to
put it on a credit card or evendo it through a PO or something
like that, but it's usually,yeah, I have a certain amount of
(06:48):
authority.
Once I'm over that, whichusually happens fairly quickly,
you have to get other peopleinvolved.
See, my dog agrees, but I mean,it seems to be too obvious.
But I think you talked aboutSalesforce.
To me there's already a placein Salesforce to capture this
stuff.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
Right, it's called opportunity roles, it's really
it is, but how many people, howmany sales organizations do you
know have contact roles filledout for the entire buying group?
On the opportunity, Right, it's, it's.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
it's quickly approaching zero.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
It's like saying what enterprise organization, or any
organization, has clean data intheir system and it's so
obvious.
But in a way, buying groups isreally just the technology and
the process, kind of catching upto how this has always been
done.
Like salespeople hear aboutthis and they're like no duh,
(07:43):
this is how I've been selling,this is how I make my commission
.
This is literally what we'vebeen doing since the dawn of
time.
I'm so glad you finally figuredthis out and one.
It's like yes, thank you, we'reglad to be here and also the
technology wasn't there to beable to build and scale around
that.
And that's really what we'redoing at Lean Data is we are
building the technology thattakes the motion that your very
(08:07):
best sales reps do and weautomate that so you can scale
it across all of your reps whomaybe don't have those exquisite
habits as one might like.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Well and I am pretty pragmatic about it, having been
in sales myself before when Ithink about whenever I've talked
to salespeople, they get theidea right.
Buying groups make sense and Igo like, yeah, if you put this
stuff into salesforce this way,you're it's extra work for you
today, but down the road right,it's going to help us better
target and help you find yournext next account.
(08:39):
So I think your idea, like thegoldilocks analogy, is an
interesting one.
Like you want to make it aseasy as possible for them.
So like what was like.
But what was the driver ofbuilding this into the lean data
product set?
Speaker 3 (08:54):
Yeah, yeah, I'll, I'll take first pass of that,
and then Christine.
I think your, your perspectiveon this is is is really going to
be important.
But I mean, I think all goodproducts come from really acute
pain, right, and there has beena lot of pain in trying to
understand who orgs are sellingto.
You know, I'm not going to boreyou guys with the speech about
(09:19):
these economic times, you know,and and unprecedented moments
like the ones we've been goingthrough and are going to
continue to go through.
But what we, what everyoneknows, what has become common
knowledge here it's a cliche atthis point is like it is harder
to get deals done, especially inthe B2B fast world.
It is harder to get deals done.
(09:40):
Everyone is asked to do morewith less.
You have a lot, a lot of peopleinvolved, and so we have a lot
of organizations who are tryingto figure out how they can scale
and how they can make sure,when they do get in those sales
cycles, they are closing themreally, really effectively.
And so we saw that coming fromour own clients who had already
(10:03):
been turning to us and sayinglike, hey, we think this is
something we can solve with leandata.
Can you help us get there?
And we heard it from the marketas people were saying hey, wow,
the way we've been doing thingsreally doesn't make sense for
the way business is and the waythat the economy is really
demanding, and those two thingscombined from a product
marketer's perspective, it'slike yeah, jackpot.
(10:24):
You guys, there is pain herethat we can absolutely solve.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Sure Christine.
Any thoughts from you on thistoo?
Speaker 2 (10:32):
So many.
I just I want to touch on a fewpoints.
One is Alice made a really goodpoint and the why now is the
technology.
It always is not really thatmuch has changed.
I've been in the industry along time.
We've always been selling topeople.
People have always been buying.
It's not.
If you sell to the enterprise,it's not one person.
(10:53):
One thing I'll add is we alwayssay it's all these people
working together to buy from you.
Sometimes they're not workingtogether, sometimes they're
working in silos at anorganization.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Sometimes I've been in situations where I felt like
I was working against peopleinternally as a buyer.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
It's true.
So there are a lot of nuancesto the people that you're
selling to.
There are multiple people andit's the technology that really
is the catalyst for thesechanges, and I think people
aren't going to just say, oh,I'm just going to do buying
groups, I'm just going to do ABM, I'm just going to do MQL.
It's going to be a combinationof these things because I swear
(11:31):
and it doesn't matter how goodyou are at any one of those
things they're going to say Istill need more, I need more
MQLs, I need more accounts.
But I'd love to be in a placewhere they say I need more
opportunities, because you'vegiven me so many good
opportunities, I need more.
That is the ideal state,absolutely.
So what makes Indata in aposition to bring this product
(11:56):
to market?
That's, I think, see how thevendor came to market, because
their underlying architecture isusually a really good indicator
of where they're going to begood and how they can layer on
(12:17):
additional products in theirroadmap.
Right and so, because linkeddata is all about relating data
in your system wherever it comesfrom.
Whether it's external data, youknow company size, internal
data data, you only know ticketsopened, health of customer
(12:38):
products purchased.
We just relate all this data.
We're positioned to take thatdata and do really interesting
things with it.
And signals are great.
All this information is great,but kind of separating out the
noise from the actualinteresting moments the signals
that matter is one of the thingsthat's going to allow lean data
(13:03):
product or really any of theproducts that you look at for
your buying group.
That's one of the things that'sgoing to be really important to
you, not how many signals Ihave, it's how many important
signals do I need.
Which signals do I need withwhich people to close a deal?
That's going to be thedifferentiator.
That and clusters Clusters ofpeople.
(13:25):
What people when?
What does good look like?
Speaker 1 (13:32):
That's the difference .
Yeah, it's interesting that youbring up the timing for the
technology.
It reminds me of a couple ofthings in my career.
The other thing it's making merealize is we've had several
guests on in the last six tonine months, basically most of
this year, where we were talkingto them about sort of emerging
go-to-market approaches that aredifferent, and I think it's
(13:55):
part of the same symptom, right,like the ability to get into
these accounts and sell to themhas been a challenge.
What's really interesting, as Ithink about, is some of these
just feel like they're actuallynot new concepts, right.
The idea of a buying group,like we said, intuitively
obvious.
The idea of using partners, ifyou're using a partnership based
(14:16):
motion right, they all makesense and they've all been used
over the past.
I think it's the ability to dothose at scale that seems to be
the thing that's reallyhappening now.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
So it's I mean.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
I'm just putting this all together in my head as we
talk.
But one of the other things andmaybe, alice, you touched on
this a little bit is that youmentioned sort of the link to
this in ABM right, which ABM hasbeen a trend here.
What for, I think you?
Speaker 2 (14:41):
gave us the history, yeah eight to ten years Very
good.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
The wave rises and history, yeah, eight to 10 years
, very good.
The wind rises and falls.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Yes, yes, yes.
So how does?
Because I think when we talkedbefore, you said like this is
linked to ABM and you touched onit, but can you go a little
deeper on that?
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Yeah, absolutely, and this is something that I think
is really really important.
Consultants and analysts and Isay this as a former consultant
and with all the respect in theworld, right, they love to say
things like oh, this is dead,you know MQL is dead, the funnel
is dead, you know ABM is in acoma.
There's all of these, reallyyou know, provocative phrases
(15:21):
that people like to say aroundthese major trends and major
motions that we have inorganizations, and I get why.
But usually the people who aretalking about that you know you
have there's a little bit of anivory tower vibe there, right,
like it's great in theory andit's great if you're building a
company from the start, day one,with absolutely no data or
(15:43):
history or past motion, like noproblem.
But for the rest of us, youknow, living in the world where
we report up to the board on ourMQLs and we have a full team
that's running ABM programs thathas some really impressive
metrics that go to it, it justit makes no sense to say you
know, all of this is done.
(16:03):
We're now focused on this otherthing.
If anything, it kind of, youknow, feeds into the stereotype
right of chasing that shinyobject syndrome which you know
marketers can perhaps be knownfor.
So when you look at buyinggroups, I think what it really
is, when it's done right, isit's an extension of your ABM
(16:24):
program, right?
I don't see.
I see a lot of companies doingthis successfully.
I don't see any of them doingit as their sole motion.
It is a hybrid approach whereyou still have your demand gen
efforts going.
In many, many cases they'restill collecting on and
reporting on MQLs, they'redeveloping out those parallel
metrics so you can start to seehow those things are going.
(16:46):
You're still saying, like theaccount still really makes a
difference when we're talkingabout selling right the account
and where it is and how it'spositioned and how you can
market effectively and whatcampaigns you can run against
that account.
Like those are core marketingtenants that aren't going
anywhere.
Buying groups just says we aregoing to go a level deeper in
(17:08):
that account to connect andunderstand the people in a more
systematic way and in a way thatunveils context.
And I know that can sound maybea little bit, you know,
ethereal, but what we're, whatwe're saying, is we want to pull
together all of this data andat this point, with all these
different texts, like.
(17:29):
There's a lot of data out there.
We are going to aggregate allof that data.
We are going to put it in theright place in the right format
so people can startunderstanding more about who
they're talking to or, crucially, who they're not talking to.
Right, who's about to come inand sniper their wheel right as
they think it's about to getsigned, and where they might
(17:49):
exist elsewhere in the company.
Right, where do you havesomebody who's a decision maker
in one open opportunity and theymight exist as an influencer in
another opportunity?
Right, you're going to have adifferent conversation with that
person if you understand whatother conversations they're
having that you might not be apart of.
So all of it, I think, isconnected.
(18:10):
I don't think anything inparticular is dead.
Really, I think it's just areimagining, which is something
that we always have to do.
Right, we have to reimagine andI think we have to get really,
really lean and really nimble.
And I think that's where ourapproach with buying groups come
in, because you can plug intothe existing tech stack and you
(18:32):
can harness all of that data andyou can leverage it in your
existing account-basedstrategies to really amplify
what you're already doing andwhat your salespeople are doing
well.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Yeah, it feels like it's not really a separate thing
, it's something that augments.
What you're probably alreadydoing is the way it sounds like
Christine.
Any additional thoughts on allthat?
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Oh, yep, there it goes.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
This is what happens when we're doing a real live
recording.
Yep, there it goes.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
This is what happens when we're doing a live
recording.
Yeah, I do think it is not justturn it on and forget about the
old things, because change isnot like that.
That's not how it works.
Fine, you can have it all.
You can have MQLs, where yousend over leads.
(19:25):
You can have ABM, where yousend over accounts, and you can
have buy-in groups where yousend over opportunities.
Everyone loves leads, right?
They like demo requests.
Oh, of course, that's not goingto stop.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
We all like hand raisers of whatever sort.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
But MQLs overall, they don't convert very well,
yeah, unless you are like whodid I talk to the other day?
Oh, cognizant, because alltheir MQLs.
The only way you can MQL is ifyou raise your hand.
So I was like, well, that's adifferent kind of MQL, so will
that go away?
You know that's a differentkind of MQL, so will that go
away?
No, but if I send you an MQLversus an opportunity with the
(20:11):
contacts already on it and acall scheduled, it feels
different and people are goingto be asking for that more than
they're going to be asking forMQLs.
The shift is going to be likewhere's my opportunity, not
where's my demo request.
And maybe if a demo requestcomes in today, I already create
(20:32):
the opportunity and send it tothem.
So for them, when they say ahand raiser, that is an
opportunity.
So there were small things thatwe've done to be on this buying
groups path and we can talk alittle bit about that, like what
does that change look like andhow am I selling it internally?
But I don't think it will goaway either.
I think it's we can have it all.
Why can't we have it all?
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
It's easier to measure if it's an opportunity.
So I will say if everythinggoes to one object, my
Salesforce brain is very happy,my reporting brain is very happy
, my metrics are easier, myconversions are much easier to
calculate and it's much easierfor people to work in one space.
But I'll automate anything, Idon't care.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
And I and I think what's what you just touched on
there is really, reallyimportant is talking about the
opportunity, right, and one ofthe reasons why buying groups
has been such a challengingthing, I think, one of the
reasons why the tech hasn't beenthere in the past is because,
of course, you know, as head ofRevOps, right, or perhaps as CMO
, love, love people operating inthe opportunity, and for good
(21:36):
reason, right, that is theirgolden opportunity, that's their
source of truth, that's whatthey're, you know, that's how
they get paid.
That's how they get paid right,that is the most profitable
(21:57):
thing.
So I absolutely understand,like the the the bone deep.
No, that comes full throatedfrom the sales team when
marketing's like oh yeah, andwe'll just update your
opportunities and it'll be sogreat.
And they're like absolutely not, please stay away from
everything that we're doing.
And I think we have to takethat really seriously, because
(22:19):
nothing is going to get adaptedright If you're fighting with
people across the board.
I think sales has some very goodreason to be so hesitant.
You know, to let otherdepartments go in and tinker in
this object that is so crucialto their business, to the
organization at large.
And so what we've done is we'vecreated the ability to build
(22:41):
out these buying groups in acontainer, in a custom object
container.
That's pre-opportunity so youcan build in Salesforce.
So think of a buying groupobject in Salesforce that
marketing can start.
Your MQL is your buying groupof one right?
And then you work with salesand you say, okay, how many
(23:02):
people would you want in thisbuying group before you would
want to jump on a call with them?
How many people would you needto have?
And who are those people?
You know.
And sales says you know I wantsix people.
I don't think you're ever goingto do that.
You know, get me six people andmake sure the decision makers
on the call and then I'll payattention Right.
And now, what marketing has isthey have an understanding of
(23:23):
who those those people need tobe, what those roles are.
They have the ability, throughall of these new, through all of
these technologies and thestack that they were already
doing, to find all of thosepeople.
Through lean data, we have theability to associate them into
this unique container that wecan track so that we see exactly
(23:44):
how we've been touching themand what they've been doing and
what they're engaging and all ofthat fun, contextual, great
data.
And then, when it gets to thatpoint, we can turn to sales and
say, great, here it is, it'sready to go, and then that is
something that sales can thencreate the opportunity and
associate, and that can be donemanually, it can be done
automatically, but it givesmarketing the ability to play in
(24:05):
that sandbox without saying I'mgoing to stomp on your
sandcastle to make it happen.
We have two sandcastlesBuilding a bridge between them.
If you'll, let me belabor thatanalogy.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Sorry, now I'm thinking about the beach.
Yeah, it's interesting becauseI've had similar experience, but
I think I just want to clarifysomething.
So I think you said like, oh,we need to understand the six
people.
It feels like it's really likeif we say we typically win when
we have these six roles involved, right, and whoever those
(24:43):
people are.
But it also feels like maybe itcould be a self-validating
model, right?
So we think, based onhistorical data, that we win
when we have these six people,but what we find is okay.
So now we get a new opportunity, we've got the three people and
we actually win, right?
Does that change the model?
(25:03):
I see Christine's like nodding.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
I'm like, yeah, okay, yeah, of course, all right,
yeah and I think there'sreporting that comes with it,
right, and I mean, this is likeanything else.
You're going to need to runmodels off of it, you're going
to need to track performance,you're going to need to see how
these things go.
That's what our clients aredoing.
(25:32):
Typically, what we see withbuying groups is people will run
a pilot or a smaller rolloutwith one product or one segment
and then they start seeingresults and they start to see
those numbers and all of asudden, people start paying a
little bit better of attention,right, because your conversion
rates start going up and in somecases, the total opportunities
are going up in pretty largenumbers, and so once that starts
happening in a small space,then you start getting the buy
in Right.
A lot of what this is, you know,from my perspective, is
(25:55):
building back up, in some cases,marketing's credibility with
sales.
Having that executive champion,that executive stakeholder yeah
, having that executive champion, that executive stakeholder
Ideally it's the CMO and the CSOare working really closely
together and the CSO is kind ofblessing all of this.
And you have, you know, we havea product that will run all of
(26:16):
the analysis on what thosenumbers should be and what those
titles are.
Many organizations mightalready have that and then you
report on that and it's like anyother program, right?
You iterate once you have thedata.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Yeah, no, it makes sense, maybe shift gears a
little bit.
So you've been developing theproduct and then, christine I
think I don't want to use theprevious sort of analogy but you
drink your own champagne now.
Right, so you're using thisinternally.
How, like?
How do you approach this kindof stuff, like when you're
(26:49):
because this is not just atechnology change?
Right, this is a it's not evena process change, like it's,
it's kind of a mindset change,because I was talked about,
right, you, you have to buildthis trust as a along the way
too.
So just how do you approachthat when you're doing something
like this internally?
Speaker 2 (27:04):
This was.
This is kind of funny, it'swe're not unique.
I had to sell our own productinternally.
So I the thought was, you knowwho is the best fit for buying
groups?
Is it enterprise?
Is it commercial?
Is it anyone selling to theenterprise?
Is it anyone who has a productthat sells into a buying group?
(27:27):
What does that look like?
So we talked a lot about thatand, you know, finally convinced
them like, let me be our guineapig.
And so I had to pitch thisinternally to our internal
stakeholders and convince themthat I wanted to do the
(27:51):
historical analysis that weprovide and our partners guy and
our CEO and found our partner,opsfocus, and we ran the
(28:14):
blueprint.
The product's called Blueprint,but we ran the historical data
and we're just about to gothrough the analysis and so for
us, the thought is we will run,like Alice said, this just for
our enterprise segment of ourbusiness.
I do think we're going to findthat the commercial business is
(28:36):
going to start wanting it towhen I start sending
opportunities to the enterprise,they're going to want it to.
So we are just in the middle ofour rollout.
And it is interesting becausewhat we're trying to do is not
only drink our own champagne butgain empathy for the change
management parts of the process,and not just the change
(28:56):
management from a people.
But what does the system needto do?
What changes am I going to needto make to the system Now?
Thankfully, we've already donesome of the things that I think
set us up for success, and Ipresented on this and I'll share
some of the things that I thinkanyone can do today to kind of
(29:17):
set the groundwork for buyinggroups and really just for I
don't know preparing for the.
Sometimes I call them therobots.
I don't know what that robotwill be whether it's.
AI or your buying group orwhatever next piece of
technology there is.
So you've got to know whoyou're talking to, right, and so
(29:41):
one of the gaps that I do knowis that, regardless of what
engagement tool you're using,there are people that your reps
are talking to that are not inthe system.
Oh a hundred percent.
The biggest what I when I ran umI I ended up using Nectar.
You can.
There's lots of vendors outthere Um.
(30:01):
What I found actually were ourbiggest offenders were our
customer success side of thebusiness Interesting.
Which is interesting becauseone of our bigger term risks are
loss of a point of contact.
And if I don't even know whothat point of contact is.
I don't know when they've leftand I do use software to know
when people leave, but if Idon't know the person, I won't
know that they left.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Right.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
So one of your risks and won't know that they left.
So, um, so you're, you're oneof your risks, um, and I don't
know how buying groups will playinto renewals.
That's.
That's the next piece of whereI want to go with.
Buying groups is not just newbusiness enterprise maybe
commercial, but definitelyrenewals, because, um, keeping
up with relationships andexisting accounts is actually
harder than it is in the buyingand the selling process because
(30:43):
you're actively engaged wherethe renewals is a whole nother
thing.
So, not only know who you'retalking to know who you don't
know.
So scrape all that data and,while you're at it, get all of
your activities and meetings.
But, but beware of duplicates,because you're going to get it
from something like outreach orsales loft.
How do you get those otherpieces without duplicates?
(31:05):
Because you're going to get itfrom something like outreach or
sales loft.
How do you get those otherpieces without duplicates?
And do you need all of the dataor just the?
Is it an email on the subject?
You probably don't need all thedata and attachments.
Be careful what you bring in,but bring it in, because if you
want to know who you're talkingto, you gotta kind of know, when
you're talking to them whoyou're talking to, what type of
what it is, so that if it'smeaningful, you've captured it,
(31:26):
so you can repeat that type of.
You have that data tounderstand what meaningful is.
You don't need you probablydon't need all of the text.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
That's one thing, so can I.
So I want to interrupt realquick a couple of questions that
popped into my head.
Let me do the first one.
So one I don't think we'vetalked about this who do you
what?
Who do you roll up to Christinein the organization?
Speaker 2 (31:46):
I roll up to um the CSO.
Okay, so you're on this.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Okay, all right.
Um, the second question.
I don't know how you approachthis.
So when I've done pilot stuffand I like the idea of finding a
small group building somesuccess and some momentum
snowball effect, if you will,Did you go after people who were
actively receptive to it, ordid you go over people who felt
(32:13):
like they were almostantagonistic to the idea first
and try to convince them,because I've done both and they
both work, but I've, I've, I've.
The second one is harder, but Ifound it ultimately more
successful.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
so this time I went after the people who were well
for it.
To be honest, okay, um, I it'snot that we had people who were
against it, but I was was justlike, hey, we have this
opportunity.
I really want it to be ready by2025.
And I think we have anopportunity in the enterprise
(32:48):
and you know, I don't have a lotof people saying no when it
comes to our own productinternally, but the thing was
more about time constraint.
They're like it's Q4.
Do you have the time?
We have a lot going on.
We have a lot of marketinginitiatives.
We have a lot of sales planningto do and I kind of looked left
(33:11):
, looked right and was likelet's do it, because I really
want to do it and yeah, thehistorical analysis is really no
lift.
For me it's a very little lift,but I think the readout is going
to put us in a really goodposition to give them enough
information to make the rightdecision.
(33:31):
So it's the and some companiesoffer this and some don't, but I
think I don't have enoughinformation to make a good
recommendation without thehistorical analysis and I have
enough data for the robot.
So I need the data.
Give me the readout.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Right.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
And we'll go from there.
So I needed data to be reallycompelling, and so the thing
that they worried about was mytime, and for me they didn't
need to know, but it reallydidn't take any time for me to
roll out Interesting.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Okay, so you talked about this historical data.
What types of data?
I imagine opportunities was apart of it, and if you had
contact roles, that would bepart of it too, but what other
things did you include in thatanalysis?
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Yep Opportunities, contacts, leads, tasks, events.
If you have OCRs, ocrs Campaigndata, I think so Let me grab it
.
Yes, campaign data You're right, got it.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
Was there anything that you actually intentionally
excluded, that other people werelike we really should include
this?
I'm curious.
I'm throwing a curveball at youhere.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
I generally exclude some marketing stuff, um email
sends like lists.
I exclude any type of email insthat are um and I do this for
all of my analysis email insthat are automatic replies out
of office, um sure, anythingthat I I do a lot of.
(35:19):
I keep data that's duplicatesometimes, but I mark it as a
duplicate, so duplicate data Um,what else do I exclude that?
Um, I don't exclude unqualifiedpeople because they may not
have been unqualified at thetime.
So generally I excludeunqualified.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
But for this analysis .
Speaker 2 (35:38):
I did not exclude unqualified, so that's that's
one of the reasons I don'talways delete unqualified people
from the system.
If they have any relationshipto anything that is relevant, I
keep them.
It's part of my datadestruction policy, but so so in
this scenario I would analyzeunqualified where normally I
(36:03):
wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Interesting, alice.
Um, as you're taking this outto customers, are they doing
like, are they using sort of asimilar pattern of stuff they're
looking at?
Um?
Speaker 3 (36:15):
yeah, so we have two different, um, two different
offerings that we have aroundbuying groups, and one is called
Buying Groups Blueprint.
That does essentially whatChristine just itemized, and so
we would do that in the same way.
Right, we're already goingthrough that process at our
organization, the same as wewould roll it out for anyone
else, and that's providing themwith not only what your buying
(36:40):
groups should look like, whatthose meaningful events are, the
titles, roles or personas thatyou would want to base your
buying groups around but alsomore of a holistic assessment of
overall readiness between thesystem, your tech stack, your
business process, the changemanagement, kind of a holistic
approach to getting started withbuying groups.
(37:01):
So it's same same, but in somecases we have, you know, a
number of organizations thathave, you know, really robust
data science departments,frankly, and really robust ways
of analyzing the data.
That's not something that theyneed the support on.
Some people do, just becauseit's easy to build out as a
(37:21):
proof of concept, to kind ofreally jumpstart the motion, and
so, you know, in some of thosecases where they're using our
product, it's going to lookexactly as Christine just
identified and for those whoalready have their information,
you might see some variance, butacross the board it's pretty
much always the same of you know.
Really, going back to just the,the obvious fundamentals, you
(37:43):
have to know who you're talkingto.
You have to know what they careabout.
You have to know how they wantto digest information.
You have to know the role thatthey play in the sales cycle
you're in.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
That sounds a lot like personas, so it's a little
bit of personas.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
It's a little bit of personas.
It's a little bit ofattribution.
It's a little bit of um, youknow, full cycle reporting.
It's um.
None of these past trends inmarketing or past things that
have just kind of the names havegone out of vogue but none of
them ever really fully went awaybecause they were created for a
reason right?
Speaker 1 (38:14):
no, I, I think so, and that's why I was like this
sounds very familiar if you'vedone any of that kind of work.
Yes, so, so, christine, you'vedone this analysis or you're in
the final stages, I guess.
Right, has there been anyanything that has surprised you
about it?
Right, like, were you, like,have you been able to say, oh,
this opportunity we really have,we have this one point of
(38:35):
contact, but we really needthese other two or three or four
, whatever the number is.
Like what?
What kinds of interestingthings have you uncovered that
you might not have otherwiseexpected?
Speaker 2 (38:46):
not yet, because we're just about to do our
readout, um, but what I will sayis um, we know that
multi-threading works, um, thisis kind of a little off topic,
but I do want to make sure Icover this, because
multi-threading is superinteresting, right, and not
(39:09):
because we don't do it, butbecause we don't pay anyone to
do it.
And I thought this wasinteresting in that I was
talking to an organization theother day and they said they pay
their SDRs on multithreading.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
So just for my own notification, maybe your eyes.
When you say multithreading,what do you mean?
Speaker 2 (39:29):
Making sure that they have multiple people at the
account and paying them to reachout to more than one person on
the account.
Reach out to more than oneperson on the account, and so
what we did?
Because I don't know exactlywho yet, but I'm going to
approach it in two ways.
Once I know the exact two, Istarted automating bringing in
(39:53):
the right people on the account.
So I think I'll know soonexactly who those people are the
account.
So I think I'll know soonexactly who those people are.
I think I need two RevOps, twomarketing ops, depending on the
size of the company, could beone or two.
If they don't have it, I sendit out to Sixth Sense or User
(40:13):
Gems and I pull in those peopleand add it on.
Now I don't pay the SDRs todayby multi-threading, but I'm
looking into it for next yearbecause we know and again maybe
I'll automate it through buyinggroups but we know you have to
be talking to X number of peopleand soon I'll know the number
and soon I'll know the personas.
But why not pay someone to dothat if I know that it's going
(40:39):
to improve the win rate?
And talking to it was again, itwas Cognizant the other day the
co-founder there.
He said they actually that'show they comp their SDRs on
multi-threading and they foundit to be very successful not
even on you know number ofmeetings booked multi-threading.
(41:00):
So I don't know the output yetof the analysis.
It's going to give us a fewthings.
It's going to give us thepersonas, the clusters that we
call it, alice, the personaclusters that are important Not
only it's what it looks like ina one deal and a closed lost
deal.
(41:20):
That's the other thing that Iwould analyze, that I don't
always analyze.
In some of my reporting I'mgoing to also look at what lost
and bad looks like, the clustersof titles that make up each of
the personas, the number ofpeople in those personas needed
to close deals and the number ofpersonas, and then figure out
(41:43):
what we either automate versuswhat we have.
A human do we're still going tohave humans.
Yeah, at least next year.
At least next year, guys, we'restill going to have humans.
So big promises from Christina.
So that's what I do with theoutput.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
AI is dead.
Speaker 3 (42:02):
Big word.
That's the title of thisepisode.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
So that's what I do with the output, even though I
don't have it yet is reallyfocusing on identifying the gaps
and risks and closing them withautomation and people.
And if that moves the needle,I'm going to keep repeating
automating, paying people,closing the gaps and then
(42:29):
hopefully rolling it out to theother segments, not only for
commercial but renewals, whichis super interesting to me.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (42:38):
And I think the whole concept of the sdr is a really
like.
We could probably spend anotherhour talking about it here.
It's super juicy, um, and it'ssomething that I think is going
to continue to evolve.
I don't know that anyone has anice, neat, pat answer.
You know, for what do you do inthis environment with the sdrs,
or you know the bdrs orwhatever you want to call them.
(42:58):
Right this, moving fully tothis model, it's part of why,
you know, as Christine alluded,there's such a huge change
management aspect associatedwith this.
It's fundamentally a largescale process change across the
entire organization.
That has comp impacts, right,um, real, real finances that
(43:21):
need to be accounted for and theidea of, okay, if marketing is
putting together a buying grouppre-opportunity that's ready to
go to sales and start selling it, how does that work for the bdr
?
What does that mean?
What are they?
getting what are they doing?
then, um, I think you're goingto see it done in a lot of
interesting ways TechTarget, foranyone wanting more information
(43:42):
, john Steinhardt has got areally, really good approach.
He recently wrote a blog aboutit that's up on the Lean Data
website, palo Alto Networks.
You'll see, marketing is justworking really closely with the
BDRs and when marketing fillsthat out for pre-opportunity,
they send it to the BDR and thenthe BDR is comped on building
that out even further and doingthose initial calls.
(44:04):
So there's a lot of differentways it can go and I think it's
good that there's noprescriptive one size fits all
flavor to it.
Right, because these companiesand systems are so complicated.
Anyone who says they've got thesolution is, you know, selling
you snake oil.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
Well, I mean, this is what I always talk about.
Is the sort of fallacy of bestpractices, right?
Because, like it's not.
I mean there's not aone-size-fits-all place.
I mean there's too many nuances, and I think.
What I do believe, though, isthat, like these kinds of
technologies, ai, whatever Istill think there's going to be
a place for that human element,no matter what, in all
(44:43):
seriousness, but people willneed to adapt, and it will
change the nature of the workthat they do, and they need to
be able to adapt to that.
And if you can't adapt to that,that's and in some ways, it
could be way more interesting,right?
If you're, if you're spendingyour time like oh, now, I know
I'm not just completely throwingdarts at a big ocean of people
at this account and I can targetbecause I get specific people
(45:06):
right I can imagine that beingway more interesting and less,
you know, soul crushing.
If you're just doing that kindof outbound stuff, it is hard to
do that and get hung up on andcursed out or whatever, right?
So well, why don't we do this?
So, we've covered a lot ofground and we're kind of tight
(45:28):
on time here, but maybe can yougive us a quick rundown Like
what's next, christine, in thisrollout?
Speaker 2 (45:35):
The readout, which I'm super excited about.
It should be like I said we ranthe data, so we should have it
in the next few weeks while theyrun the analysis.
Again, if you have your owndata science team, you can do it
.
I don't have the luxury ofhaving that, so I worked with
our partner and I plan giventhat I can have it rolled out,
(45:57):
the analysis in the next, youknow, two weeks.
I plan to have a proposal tothe executive staff for a 2025
rollout for the enterprise teamand, even if that seems too big
for them to roll out or ifthey're a little uncertain, I
have two reps that are reallyanxious to participate and I'm
(46:22):
going to propose that.
I know that everyone's going towant to do it.
Anyway.
I think maybe my biggest hurdlemight be marketing.
I don't know.
I'm curious to see how thisplays out, not that that would
be a hurdle.
They're going to ask me thetough questions, the questions
of how are we going to report?
(46:43):
What does success look like?
Speaker 1 (46:45):
What are the?
Speaker 2 (46:45):
metrics that you're going to be able to provide for
me to feel comfortable, um,understanding.
Month over month, year overyear, week over week.
Do we have historicals tounderstand data like this and
that?
So those are the things.
We have a very analytics-mindedCMO who, I think, is not going
(47:09):
to say no, he's just going toask me the tough questions.
Sales is going to be like oh,that looks good.
Speaker 3 (47:15):
I think they're going to see good numbers Make my job
easier, right, right, and so Idon't think marketing is going
to say no.
Speaker 2 (47:19):
I think good, yeah, I think I think they're gonna see
, like good, make my job easier,right, right and so, and so.
I don't think marketing isgoing to say no.
Speaker 1 (47:21):
I think they're going to ask me the tough questions
that are going to make me thinkyeah I can imagine I'm going to
automate it all yeah, yeah, Imean, I can imagine, coming
coming from a marketingperspective, how this would be
maybe seen as maybe a little bitof a threat, but also I think,
like I think it's a potentialopportunity too.
So I think it really depends onthe details.
(47:42):
Gosh, I wish we could go onlonger because I think we didn't
even cover everything we hadhoped to cover, but this has
been really fascinating to me.
Speaker 3 (47:52):
We'll just have to come back on again.
We'll do a part two.
There you go.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
There you go.
There you go, love it.
Well, thank you.
So if there's anything like iffolks want to keep up with
what's going on with either ofyou or learn more about buying
groups, what's going on withlead data, what's the best way
to do that, one of you go first.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
Yeah, you can connect with me on LinkedIn.
Just a maxi, and there is aLinkedIn buying groups
leadership group.
Do you have?
Speaker 1 (48:17):
it Really there Buying Groups.
Speaker 2 (48:17):
Leadership Group.
Speaker 3 (48:19):
Do you have it Really there?
Sure is, yeah, so, likewise,connect with me.
I'm on LinkedIn.
It's a great, great place to be.
Connect, alice A Walker is myURL Pretty easy to spell?
And then come join me in ourBuying Group Leaders group that
I am a member of.
The name of the group isliterally buying group leaders A
(48:42):
lot of good people from fromall across different company
sizes and industries andverticals.
Lots of great thoughtleadership in there, lots of
great conversation happening inthere.
So, yeah, if you want to learnmore, you want to follow along.
That's a.
That's a really great resource,as well as, of course, you
course, following along withwhat we're doing at Lean Data.
(49:02):
And, if you're interested,everybody loves a hand raiser,
that's right.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
Amazing.
Speaker 1 (49:10):
We'll have to get that LinkedIn group from you so
we can share it in the shownotes.
Absolutely Great stuff, alice.
Christine, thank you so much.
It's been a great conversation.
I truly do wish we had moretime, so thank you again.
Thanks to our audience forcontinuing to support us, as
always.
If you have ideas for a topicor a guest, or want to be a
(49:31):
guest and want to join us, reachout to Naomi Mike Rizzo or me,
linkedin or the marketingappscomSlack group.
Until next time, everyone Byenow.
Speaker 2 (49:43):
Bye, bye.
Speaker 3 (49:44):
Thank you.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.