May 29, 2025 • 27 mins
In part 1 of this talk with Guy Rubin, founder and CEO of Ebsta, we examine how data-driven strategies are impacting leadership and sales performance, emphasising the significance of accurate CRM data, actionable relationship insights, and aligning teams around a precise ideal customer profile (ICP). We look at how replicating the behaviours of top performers and prioritising engagement trends can help organisations drive scalable, predictable growth.
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Matt Best (00:00):
Hello and welcome to the Growth Workshop Podcast with
(00:02):
myself, Matt Best and thewonderful Jonny Adams. Today,
we're thrilled to have Guy Rubinhere with us. Guy is the founder
and CEO of Ebsta, and Ebsta arethe only revenue platform that
guarantees to improve sellerquota attainment in the first
six months and improve theaccuracy of sales forecasts to
within 10% of their number. Guy,thank you so much for joining us
(00:24):
today.
Guy Rubin (00:25):
I'm really excited to be here. It's, it's so nice to
finally make it onto thepodcast. I've done a few
podcasts over the year, but butactually doing one in person is
a completely differentexperience. So really, really
lovely to be here.
Matt Best (00:36):
Fantastic. So Guy, as is customary on the Growth
Workshop Podcast, we like toopen up by just asking you a
fairly, hopefully easy to answerquestion, like, what's been good
in your world over the last weekor so?
Guy Rubin (00:47):
Well, I've just had a massive family celebration. My
daughter's just had her batmitzvah, which was a lot of fun,
so bringing the whole familytogether was fantastic, and
taking a couple of days out toreally enjoy the moment. It's a
big milestone in her life, butreally it's more of a big
milestone in the family's life.Because, you know, we have
celebrations for weddings whenyou bring two different families
(01:09):
together, but the idea of a BatMitzvah is a it's a celebration
of everyone who's been togethernow for quite, quite a long
time. So, you know, she's 12years old now, and while she
thought it was all about her, inreality, it's really all about
the family. So we had about 120people that were brought
together big celebration over awhole four or five days. And
yeah, I'm still recovering fromit, but it was, it was really
(01:30):
excellent. And, you know, reallyput a smile on my face.
Matt Best (01:33):
Wonderful. So Guy, we'd love to you know, as the
founder of Ebsta, we'd love tounderstand a little bit more
about your journey, right? Whatour listeners on the Growth
Workshop Podcast love to hearis, you know, some of the
experiences that you wentthrough as you developed the
business since 2012 I think waswhen it was was when it was
launched. So could you talk usthrough just how Ebsta came
about and your journey on, onfounding the business?
Guy Rubin (01:55):
Yeah, sure. So my previous company was in
recruitment technology. Iconsider myself a bit of a data
geek, as well as a student ofthe art of sales. So we set up
Ebsta, really initially, tosolve a very specific problem
with the quality and theconsistency of data inside
Salesforce, and so what we nowcall relationship intelligence.
It wasn't always called that tostart with, but we built an
(02:17):
engine that would take the adminburden away from the seller,
basically allow a machine to beresponsible for updating
Salesforce with the latestcontacts activities, and giving
the leadership team confidenceand comfort that 100% of the
activities and engagement goingon during every sales cycle was
actually captured inside thesystem of record. So we went
down this journey, and veryquickly it became apparent that
(02:41):
the opportunities that had moreactivity, that had more
engagement, were those that weremost likely to close, and that
took us down a path to createwhat we now call our engagement
score, or what's been known asthe ebster score. The Ebsta
score is, in essence, a single adata point. It's a number out of
100 and IT trends up and downover time, and it tells you if
(03:01):
the engagement with thatspecific contact is trending
upwards or downwards. And sowhen we started, it was just
about capturing activities andcontacts. Now we're capturing
relationships and recording allthat information back in that
system of record. And it's agreat data point to monitor how
multi threaded you are onopportunities or on specific
accounts, but also whether thoserelationships are trending up or
down over time. So if you'rerunning a complex sales process,
(03:25):
knowing that the stakeholders,or the key stakeholders, or the
C suite have suddenly droppedoff a cliff, allows the manager
to know that actually thisaccount or this opportunity
might be in danger, and viceversa. If you're a we've
actually quite recently steppedinto the customer success side
as well, and knowing that you'vegot a spike of engagement, maybe
with your finance department oryour support team, is a great
(03:46):
way of knowing that actuallymaybe there's an issue here with
this account. So we introducedthe engagement score, which kind
of opened up our world to this,this new world of revenue
intelligence, and it took usdown a path of developing our
own revenue intelligenceplatform that sits inside
Salesforce, trying to make itreally easy to address the
challenges around quotaattainment and forecast
accuracy. And today we've gotwe're servicing just under 400
(04:08):
customers on the platform. Justover half of those are in North
America, and the balance areeverywhere else. And all of our
customers are kind ofexclusively, kind of B to B
businesses, because the wholeprinciple of the platform we
built is all around this ideathat relationships drive
revenue, and yeah, the businessis growing fast. I genuinely
think we're at the at theinfancy of what revenue
intelligence can deliver thisindustry. We saw there's so many
(04:31):
inefficiencies in the way salesteams operate. And if you can,
if you can address thosechallenges, the impact you can
have, not just on growth, but onthe valuation of these
businesses, is just sosubstantial.
Matt Best (04:40):
Amazing. Jonny and I spoke to a number of founders
here on this sofa. What we knowis it all sounds like it's so
easy. That's probably not thecase, and rarely the case for
any kind of business startup. Sowhat are some of the hurdles
that you had to climb over toget to where you are today?
Guy Rubin (04:56):
Oh my goodness.
Matt Best (04:57):
Some.
Guy Rubin (04:58):
Some of them, how much time have we got? Yeah,
probably made every mistake inthe book, but I suppose the key
is to only make the mistakesonce. I think focus is key, and
we certainly fell down on anumber of occasions, trying to
do too much and trying to reallywork out what you're here for,
what you're good for. Ebstaworks just as well for HubSpot
(05:19):
CRM customers as it does forsales, for CRM customers. And
so, you know, we're a bootstrapbusiness, and we have limited
resources, and we would sell andservice any customer that would
come along. But in reality, theaverage deal values and the
impact we can have on smallorganizations is relatively
limited. And so while if aninbound lead comes in for a
HubSpot customer, we'll talk tothem, we spent a lot of time
(05:40):
spinning our wheels, doingreally very small deals with
customers that perhaps wecouldn't have the biggest impact
on, because they weren'tparticularly large. They loved
the dashboards they wanted toplay. But lasering in on our ICP
transformed our business. And ifI go back two years, our average
deal value was under five granda year per customer. Last year,
our average deal value was28,800 and we're trending at
(06:03):
58,000 pounds a deal on averagedeal value. So that focus on
slightly larger businesses,where ultimately we can have the
biggest impact, gave us thefocus that we needed. And the
reality is, it doesn't takelonger to sell to these bigger
organizations, and actually itdoesn't cost us more to service
them, or not particularlyhigher. I mean, there's this,
there's processing costs, butthe actually, having a larger
(06:24):
organization means that they'veprobably got more resources at
their end for us to work with.So I think my advice to those
that are dialing in is, is, istry and work out what your focus
is. What do you what do you wantto be world famous for, and put
that within your walled gardenand let everything else can
burn. It doesn't really matter.You can't do everything for
everyone. But if you can workout what's inside that walled
garden and make it amazing andbe the world leader at that one
(06:48):
thing, then you've got focus.And if you can extend that focus
into your ICP and really getlaser focused on the types of
businesses, you can support andservice and make it super easy
for the sellers to understandwhen they should be closing
deals off as lost. If it doesn'tmatch that ICP, you'll release
them and allow them to scale thebusiness much faster.
Jonny Adams (07:06):
I think that's amazing. You know, we we work a
lot as a business withorganizations across the world,
but hearing you really doubledown on that ICP focus is
something that we can all takeaway from this conversation. And
I wonder if people are thinkingabout their own approach towards
the sectors, the segments, andthen identification around how
strong is their ICP awareness, Imean, just that small takeaway
(07:27):
around from, you know, afounder, then you've driven your
own AOV, or average order valueper customer demonstrably over
the last couple of years. Socongratulations.
Guy Rubin (07:36):
Oh, thank you very much.
Jonny Adams (07:37):
I'm curious. So away from Ebsta, but still with
your entrepreneur founder haton. You know, you've referenced
a few mistakes that you've madethere in the past, and you said
you done them all, which is,which is really open and honest
from you, I imagine, and I'm notone, but an entrepreneur, CEO
founder, I've heard it's quitelonely. How do you get that sort
of balance? Where do you get thesupport from as a CEO founder,
(08:00):
where you might be feeling likeyou're on that island on your
own. Is there anything that youdo to create that support
network, that resilience?
Guy Rubin (08:07):
Yeah, I think be cautious who you allow in the
inner circle. We had a bigchange in the business about a
year ago. I allowed some of thesenior managers to become part
of the senior leadership team,and while they were passionate
about it, and they loved that,we then had to have a separate
exec team to have kind ofdifficult conversations. So I
think it's important that theteam feel that you've got a plan
that they can come to you withwhatever concerns that they've
(08:29):
got, and you're always going tobe resilient. Don't worry,
everything will be fine. Here'show we'll address that
challenge, and we'll move on tothe next one. But at the same
time, it's really important thatyou've got your own network that
you can be vulnerable with sofor me, personally, I'm a big
fan of the of community. I'vetaken an active role in the
pavilion community. I'm the CEOAmbassador now, and finding
(08:49):
other CEOs that are goingthrough a similar journey, and
being able to have aconversation with them has been
transformational for me. AndI've got to support a number of
support networks within thepavilion community. And we meet
every every couple of weeks, andwe get the opportunity to kind
of open up and talk about thechallenges. And what's
fascinating is, I don't thinkI've ever come up with with a
challenge that someone else inthe room hasn't already had had
to deal with. And so yeah,finding your network, find your
(09:10):
tribe, because that will helpyou to execute.
Jonny Adams (09:13):
And last question on this, there must be some
great parts about being amanager, if you had to pick one,
like, what you know, what wouldbe this sort of thing that you
absolutely love about whatyou're doing?
Guy Rubin (09:22):
I think we're in charge of our own destiny,
right? I think the key is thatwe make our own mistakes, and
we'll either rise or fall basedon decisions that we make. And
that's very empowering, and itcan be quite scary, and if we
get 51% of the decisions right,then we're winning. So be
decisive. Make those decisions,you know, people always want
clarity. And if the answer isblack, say it's black. And if a
(09:45):
week later, it turns out thatyou were wrong and it was white,
then jump on it and make themaware. No, it's not black, it's
white. Okay? What they'relooking for is clarity and
confidence from theirleadership. It's okay to be
vulnerable, just make sureyou're careful who you're
vulnerable in front of.
Jonny Adams (09:58):
Yeah, that's interesting. What I hear there
is the destiny piece around thefact you're, you're in control
as an individual.
Guy Rubin (10:04):
Yeah, I can't, I can't shy away from the reality
I am a control freak. And yeah,being in charge of our own
destiny is, is something Ireally enjoy.
Matt Best (10:15):
One of the points you talked about there was, was ICP,
and we did quite a lot of worklooking at our ICP recently, and
some really fascinating taketakeaways, I think, when we
looked at the data from 2023 sojust over a year ago now, very
few businesses can hit quota in2023 and they were left in a
situation where, well, what dowe do to solve this problem? And
really, in my opinion, they wereleft with two choices, right? So
(10:37):
choice number one was right.It's a leadership problem. We
haven't been giving the salesteam enough structure, enough
process to consistentlyunderstand what's expected of
them at every stage of the salescycle, what they should be
doing, how they should be goingthroughout that journey. And so
we're going to double down onthat. We're going to introduce
that consistency, and we'regoing to get more and more of
the B players performing likethe A players. The alternative
(10:58):
is to get rid of the bottomthird of your sellers and double
down on your marketing spend.And unfortunately, most people
did that, we end up with a wholelot more leads coming into the
business. We've replaced ourbottom third of our sellers with
someone else's bottom third oftheir sellers, right? Because
everyone got rid of them, and wejust changed hands. We ended up
getting a bunch of someoneelse's under performers into the
business. And now, not only arethey do, we now need to train
(11:21):
them and get them and get themon boarded at the same time, but
now the vast majority of theleads that are coming in don't
match ICP. So while the volumeof leads increased last year
dramatically, the number ofleads that matched ICP didn't
really change. And so what youend up with is trying to find
needles in haystacks, and theA's players, they're already
competent at doing that. Theycan sniff out the ICP
opportunities, but the but the Bplayers, they really struggle,
(11:43):
and now we've made that evenharder to find the good deals.
Targeting ICP is so important,but it can be difficult if
you're just trying to shortcutthe process by just overspending
on marketing and getting rid ofthe underperforming sellers. So
the answer sounds Guy like,actually, you need a combination
of the two, which is, understandwhat your focus should be,
define your ICP, then maybeincrease your marketing spend
(12:05):
and support those top performersin your in your sales team to
really maximize thatopportunity.
Guy Rubin (12:11):
Yeah, look our target audience, our B to B sales
organizations using Salesforcewith 20 to 250 sellers, but most
importantly, we work best withorganizations where maybe 20% of
the sellers are consistent.Sellers are consistently hitting
quota, and then you've got thislong tail of underperforming
sellers. And that the secret tofixing that problem is
understanding in granular detailwhat those top performers are
(12:32):
doing at every stage of thesales cycle and making it super
easy for the B and C players tofollow suit. And so the top
performers don't have a problemidentifying ICP. In fact, the
top performers are two and ahalf times more likely to self
source their own opportunities,but at the same time, the top
top performers, on average, willclose 30% of their opportunities
offers lost at the discoverystage. So the target that
(12:54):
they're much more focused andwhat we need to do is understand
their behaviors and make itsuper easy for the B and C
players to follow that playbookand have the confidence to close
those deals off as lost and notwork the deals that inevitably
are never going to actuallyclose in at the end of the day
anyway.
Matt Best (13:08):
That's a lot of the work that we would do, Jonny
with sales organizations thatthat that bit at the end there
be able to say, Well, look, wecan identify where that
opportunity is or where thatrisk is, or where, you know
where we should be focusing, andthen helping codify some of that
best practice, codify,capturing, understanding what
those top performers are doing,and then codifying that in a way
that can be replicated then outacross those B and C planes.
Guy Rubin (13:29):
Yeah. Well, we had recently had a business that had
about 100 sellers. They had arev ops team that had been in
place for two or three years,and they banging the same drum
during that period. They knewwhat they needed to do, but they
couldn't get buy in from theleadership and the sellers on
the ground. And so when we camein, what was great is they
already knew the challenges thatthey were facing. But when we
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when you turn the insights intopictures, when you make it so
easy to understand, Look, Mr. Bplayer, you've got an average
win rate of 12% but you're onlyengaging with three stakeholders
when the top performers have gotstick six stakeholders actively
involved by stage two, and oneof those is always the finance
persona with an engagement scoreabove 67 now all of a sudden, if
we put that in as a gate, andyou're not allowed to leave
(14:11):
stage two until you've achievedthat level of engagement. Now,
the B players are replicatingwhat the A players are doing,
and it makes it super easy tofollow that guide. And the
saving grace here is that eventhe B players want to win. And
so if you can make it super easyand turn it into pictures and
help them understand how to win,it can be transformational, and
it doesn't have to take verylong. You can influence this
(14:34):
quarter's numbers, but there'sno shortcut. You need a
combination of data, insights,technology and change and that
change agent is vital. If youdon't have competent senior
enough to change agents withinthe organization, you're not
going to achieve the outcomesyou're aiming for.
Jonny Adams (14:49):
It's so true that last point, and you talk about
you really liking data, you cantell I mean, and it's great,
right? But you need to turn dataand that insight into some
intelligent decision making.Thing and the point around
change, if we think about thesuccessful or unsuccessful
projects, when we're talking toorganizations that might be
wanting to work with aconsultancy like SBR and spend a
(15:11):
quarter of a million or amillion or 1.5 million over a
period of months and years, wetypically openly say that the
difference between a greatprogram and an unsuccessful
program has changed. So just onthat particular point, I think
it'd be great if we can go intothe report. Guy is going to
share a little bit about how hebuilds a fantastic annual
benchmarking report. There's acouple out there in the market
(15:33):
per year that I like to see. Andwhen this comes across my email
inbox, I absolutely love readingthrough the ebster report, the
annual report there. It's allabout go to market benchmarks,
but there's some real punchystatistics that when we at SBR,
we focus in one of our teammeetings. We have 12 a year
every month. We go through thisreport with rigor, because this
(15:53):
is fresh first party data fromyour clients, and I'm sure
you're going to share a littlebit more about that, but what
we're going to do now is we'regoing to transition into three
core parts of this report.You're going to share a little
bit of background around how youget to the output, which is
excellent. And then we're goingto go into three areas. The
first area we're going to focuson is that post sale, post
client acquisition, motion. Whatdo we do with that CS function?
And look at some statistics. Thesecond part we actually look at
(16:16):
the pre sale and have a littlelook at that as well. And the
final part is we're going tohave a little look at what's
sort of the next phase ofselling, and how are businesses
structuring themselves towardsthis motion called full cycle
selling. So we look at threeparts in a moment, but just
before we do that, guy, pleasedo give us a high level
explanation around how you getto this beautiful output.
Guy Rubin (16:35):
Well, thank you for setting me up. So it's the
fourth year we've done thereport, and the third year we've
done it in conjunction withpavilion. So last year, we
analyzed six, just over 650,000opportunities representing
nearly $50 billion worth ofpipeline. We also, for the first
time, survey 2000 CROs and VPsof sales to get their input as
well. We also analyzed hundredsof 1000s of hours of call
(16:59):
recordings as well, looking atthe the insights coming from
discovery calls. So some reallyinteresting data points that
we've analyzed to kind of get towhere to the numbers that we
that we see in the report. Youcan download the report for
free. There's a banner at thevery top of the ebster website,
ebster.com you click on thebanner, and you can download the
report, and if you sign up forit, there's quarterly updates as
well. So all of the dataflushing through our platform we
(17:20):
use and we turn into genericinsights and benchmarks, and we
deliver it back to the marketevery quarter.
Jonny Adams (17:25):
Fantastic. Well, so what we're gonna do is gonna
transition into some of theinsights, as we discussed in the
report. Let's focus on postsale. There is some fab insights
in there. So if you can kick offwith, what are those insights?
Guy, and then between the threeof us, let's try and sort of
chew through it, and let's tryand come up with some solutions.
If that's okay.
Guy Rubin (17:42):
Yeah, absolutely. Very exciting. So one of the
really surprising data pointsthat we saw from the data last
year is that 52% of new revenuelast year didn't come from new
logos. It came from existingaccounts. And so it just shows
us that if you aren't investingtime and energy in expansion,
there's money left on the tablethere. That in itself, really
sets the scene for where themarket's at. And so if you're
(18:04):
lucky enough to have a wholeclient base, lean into it right
and invest the time and energywith those customers. And when
we talk about the engagementwith the customer, we have an
engine that monitors momentum orengagement with different
stakeholders at every account.And one of the really
fascinating takeaways from thedata last year was that if the
last two QBRs you've done withyour customer happen to be with
the C suite, you are now seventimes more likely to open a
(18:27):
cross sell up sell opportunitywith the customer at the renewal
date. And the beauty ofopportunities created with
existing accounts is you have anaverage win rate of 45% and you
need less stakeholders involvedin the sales cycle, and it takes
a lot shorter to actually closethe deal.
Jonny Adams (18:42):
That's fascinating, just on that point, Matt, your
expertise is in this particularspace, just for the audience.
What is a QBR and just in itsvery sort of sentence based
example, what is it?
Matt Best (18:51):
QBR stands for quarterly business review,
right? It should be a strategicmeeting held on a quarterly
basis with a standing agendathat helps get a perspective
from the customer of what theirstrategic priorities are, an
opportunity to share thedirection of your business as
the representative. So if you'rea CSM listening or account
manager, that's your job, andthat's your opportunity to talk
(19:11):
to the customer about whatyou're doing. It's not a service
review. And I think, like areally important definition for
those out there is, don'tconfuse this really important
strategic engagement. And Ithink actually Guy, the data
you've you've shared with thestaff, sort of reflects that
this isn't about gettingtogether all of the different
project leads that you've gotacross and up across your client
for the various things thatyou're doing. This is about
(19:32):
taking it up a level, into the Csuite, into those key decision
makers to talk strategy.
Jonny Adams (19:38):
Let's shape this conversation, because you've
bought the stats. Here's aperson that spent how many years
in customer success?
Matt Best (19:43):
Plenty.
Jonny Adams (19:45):
So the experts over here, right? So we can have a
good debate. Just repeat thestat again, Guy.
Guy Rubin (19:50):
There's a couple. So first of all, if the last two
QBRs are done at the C level,you're seven times more likely
to open up a cross sell upsetopportunity, and the average win
rates are much higher with.Success and with a cross sell
opportunity than it is with anew logo opportunity. But on the
on the flip side, if you've notbeen able to maintain engagement
with the C suite, if your QBRsare being done below the C
level, you are four times morelikely to churn the customer.
Jonny Adams (20:12):
Right? Okay, so now, when we're talking to
clients in our space, becausewe're doing the fourth part of
what you described, which is thechange and the consultancy, a
lot of organizations, and thepeople within these account
management roles are saying, Howdo I access the C suite? There's
your problem. Matt, how do youaccess the C suite? Because
clearly, if you don't access theC suite, you've got a higher
(20:33):
risk of churn. If you do accessthe C suite, you've got a higher
opportunity to grow the account.
Matt Best (20:38):
Yeah, and I think that is often that challenge.
There's a couple of things, andwe'll talk a little bit about
this later. One, bit about thislater. One, I think, is the the
richness of the transition ofthe relationship, because quite
often that access to the C suitedisappears between the
transition from the sales teaminto customer success or account
management. I think that's onekey area.
Jonny Adams (20:55):
So like, if the CFO is signing off the deal, what
you're saying is that CFO signsit off and then exits the
relationship. Is that, is thatwhat you may exit the
relationship?
Matt Best (21:03):
Or they're exited from the relationship. What I've
seen on a number of occasions,we talk about this in in
software development, you'll bevery familiar. It's that over
the fence motion, right? It'sother developers develop
something. They launch it overthe fence. It's somebody else's
problem that can sometimeshappen, I think, between sales
and account management orcustomer success in that the
sale is done. The job is done.I've had my and we'll talk about
(21:23):
how much, how long you hold onto that, and how in a moment,
but the seller now feels thattheir job is done. They launch
it over the fence and go, here'sa relationship with the person
who's going to lead the project.Here's a relationship with your
key user, buyer. And none of therelationships at that strategic
level are handed overeffectively. That can also
happen as a result ofinefficient and ineffective
(21:45):
introductions of, say, a CSM oran account manager. I've been in
meetings myself where, muchearlier in my career, where the
salesperson comes along and it'ssort of patch you on the head in
a sort of in a slightlypatronizing way. So look, this
is your CSM. They're going tolook after you from now on. It's
like the transition between adoctor and and then the person
(22:06):
who's whose job it is to, youknow, just to administer the
medicine, right? You're alwaysgoing to go back to the doctor
for the advice, so clients goback to the seller for the
advice that transition isineffective. So I think that's a
key pinch point. The other isjust, I think, comes back to a
lot of the time, thatcapability, and also that sort
of desire and understanding, theneed to maintain that level of
(22:27):
engagement with the C suite. Sowhat's the process that's in
place to kind of maintain thatengagement? You can't send a C
co an email once a quarter andexpect them to turn up to a Q,
b, r. You've got to nurture themas the sales person was doing
that on ongoing.
Jonny Adams (22:41):
So three clear points there, and let's twin
that with the insights thatEbsta creates. So what you know
to solve that problem? Youyou're running a successful
platform, right? So what's thefunctionality within Ebsta that
then solves this problem?
Guy Rubin (22:53):
I'm going to take it a step back. The way you solve
this challenge is you delivervalue. It's as simple as that.
If you run a QBR, the seller hasmanaged to get the customer
bought in enough to be able toto sign a contract. Okay, the
chances are they've had, theyhave engagement with the C
suite. You have enough momentumthere to at least get the C
suite turning up to the initialQBR. Now, if you turn up at that
(23:15):
QBR, and, as you say, run it asa, you know, a general kind of
catch up project meeting,they'll never turn up at another
QBR ever again. You turn up atthat meeting and talk about the
fact that you share the samesports team that you both
support, they'll never turn upat that QBR ever again. It
doesn't matter how much theylike you or think that you're a
lovely person, they'll neverturn up at that QBR again. We
(23:37):
need to deliver strategic valueat those sessions so that they
believe they look forward tomeeting with you every quarter,
because you're going to rocktheir world. You are the subject
matter expert at the thing thatyou do, you have access to all
of the data and insights thatyou've delivered your customer,
and you've got an opportunity todistill that down for the C
suite. So for us, ebsta has awhole host of insights that are
(24:00):
within our platform, everythingfrom the level of coverage each
rep needs to hit quota, numberof days they spend in stage when
they win versus when they lose,accuracy of their forecast,
their conversion rates at eachstage, you name it. There is
hundreds of data points withinour platform, and all the C
suite needs to do is log intoSalesforce. They can see all of
this, and none of them do. Sowhat did we do? We decided to
(24:22):
extract the latest insights fromour platform and turn it into a
PDF. And I sit with the tier 1csuites every quarter, and I take
them through a 20 minutepresentation of how their
business is pacing, and what ifit was up to me, I would be
prioritizing that needs work andchange. And I leave that session
they are, and we've give, we'vedelivered value, and they can't
wait to turn up at the next oneand find out whether the the
(24:45):
actions that they've agreed tokick off internally, whether
that's with an internal rev opsfunction or with an external
agency, whether that's had aninfluence and had a chat,
whether that change has actuallytaken place, and what influence
that's had on win rates orgrowth, because ultimately,
that's what they care about.Yeah, and so dialing into what
is it that makes that'simportant to them, and we know
what it is because they signed acontract, and then focusing on
(25:06):
how you've had that impact, and,most importantly, what they need
to do next to enhance thatimpact, means that they will
turn up at every single QBR.
Jonny Adams (25:14):
That's so true. Yeah. I love the fact that the
value statement, you know, ourour theme this year at SBR is
impact, and the fact that ifwe're able to deliver impact,
both internally and for ourcustomers, then that's super
crucial. I love that you alsotalk about not just value, but
also, I think, bringing insightto that C suite. Whenever we
(25:34):
talk to CEOs, they I regularly,what are you hearing in the
market? What's going on withother organizations, and I
think, twinned with the growthagenda that you referenced,
because ultimately, C suitepretty much had built around not
just the revenues and the P andL, but they're actually on
EBITDA and enterprise value,right? So if you can talk to the
insights driving enterprisevalue, you can probably unlock
(25:56):
what really means to them, whichis, let's be honest, the payout.
So talking at that level isreally crucial, I think that's
topic one which is reallyinteresting. Some fantastic
stats there, Guy.
Matt Best (26:06):
So thank you so much. Guy, thank you so much for
joining us. We look forward tohaving you again on part two.
Hello and welcome to the Growth Workshop Podcast with
(00:02):
myself, Matt Best and thewonderful Jonny Adams. Today,
we're thrilled to have Guy Rubinhere with us. Guy is the founder
and CEO of Ebsta, and Ebsta arethe only revenue platform that
guarantees to improve sellerquota attainment in the first
six months and improve theaccuracy of sales forecasts to
within 10% of their number. Guy,thank you so much for joining us
(00:24):
today.
Guy Rubin (00:25):
I'm really excited to be here. It's, it's so nice to
finally make it onto thepodcast. I've done a few
podcasts over the year, but butactually doing one in person is
a completely differentexperience. So really, really
lovely to be here.
Matt Best (00:36):
Fantastic. So Guy, as is customary on the Growth
Workshop Podcast, we like toopen up by just asking you a
fairly, hopefully easy to answerquestion, like, what's been good
in your world over the last weekor so?
Guy Rubin (00:47):
Well, I've just had a massive family celebration. My
daughter's just had her batmitzvah, which was a lot of fun,
so bringing the whole familytogether was fantastic, and
taking a couple of days out toreally enjoy the moment. It's a
big milestone in her life, butreally it's more of a big
milestone in the family's life.Because, you know, we have
celebrations for weddings whenyou bring two different families
(01:09):
together, but the idea of a BatMitzvah is a it's a celebration
of everyone who's been togethernow for quite, quite a long
time. So, you know, she's 12years old now, and while she
thought it was all about her, inreality, it's really all about
the family. So we had about 120people that were brought
together big celebration over awhole four or five days. And
yeah, I'm still recovering fromit, but it was, it was really
(01:30):
excellent. And, you know, reallyput a smile on my face.
Matt Best (01:33):
Wonderful. So Guy, we'd love to you know, as the
founder of Ebsta, we'd love tounderstand a little bit more
about your journey, right? Whatour listeners on the Growth
Workshop Podcast love to hearis, you know, some of the
experiences that you wentthrough as you developed the
business since 2012 I think waswhen it was was when it was
launched. So could you talk usthrough just how Ebsta came
about and your journey on, onfounding the business?
Guy Rubin (01:55):
Yeah, sure. So my previous company was in
recruitment technology. Iconsider myself a bit of a data
geek, as well as a student ofthe art of sales. So we set up
Ebsta, really initially, tosolve a very specific problem
with the quality and theconsistency of data inside
Salesforce, and so what we nowcall relationship intelligence.
It wasn't always called that tostart with, but we built an
(02:17):
engine that would take the adminburden away from the seller,
basically allow a machine to beresponsible for updating
Salesforce with the latestcontacts activities, and giving
the leadership team confidenceand comfort that 100% of the
activities and engagement goingon during every sales cycle was
actually captured inside thesystem of record. So we went
down this journey, and veryquickly it became apparent that
(02:41):
the opportunities that had moreactivity, that had more
engagement, were those that weremost likely to close, and that
took us down a path to createwhat we now call our engagement
score, or what's been known asthe ebster score. The Ebsta
score is, in essence, a single adata point. It's a number out of
100 and IT trends up and downover time, and it tells you if
(03:01):
the engagement with thatspecific contact is trending
upwards or downwards. And sowhen we started, it was just
about capturing activities andcontacts. Now we're capturing
relationships and recording allthat information back in that
system of record. And it's agreat data point to monitor how
multi threaded you are onopportunities or on specific
accounts, but also whether thoserelationships are trending up or
down over time. So if you'rerunning a complex sales process,
(03:25):
knowing that the stakeholders,or the key stakeholders, or the
C suite have suddenly droppedoff a cliff, allows the manager
to know that actually thisaccount or this opportunity
might be in danger, and viceversa. If you're a we've
actually quite recently steppedinto the customer success side
as well, and knowing that you'vegot a spike of engagement, maybe
with your finance department oryour support team, is a great
(03:46):
way of knowing that actuallymaybe there's an issue here with
this account. So we introducedthe engagement score, which kind
of opened up our world to this,this new world of revenue
intelligence, and it took usdown a path of developing our
own revenue intelligenceplatform that sits inside
Salesforce, trying to make itreally easy to address the
challenges around quotaattainment and forecast
accuracy. And today we've gotwe're servicing just under 400
(04:08):
customers on the platform. Justover half of those are in North
America, and the balance areeverywhere else. And all of our
customers are kind ofexclusively, kind of B to B
businesses, because the wholeprinciple of the platform we
built is all around this ideathat relationships drive
revenue, and yeah, the businessis growing fast. I genuinely
think we're at the at theinfancy of what revenue
intelligence can deliver thisindustry. We saw there's so many
(04:31):
inefficiencies in the way salesteams operate. And if you can,
if you can address thosechallenges, the impact you can
have, not just on growth, but onthe valuation of these
businesses, is just sosubstantial.
Matt Best (04:40):
Amazing. Jonny and I spoke to a number of founders
here on this sofa. What we knowis it all sounds like it's so
easy. That's probably not thecase, and rarely the case for
any kind of business startup. Sowhat are some of the hurdles
that you had to climb over toget to where you are today?
Guy Rubin (04:56):
Oh my goodness.
Matt Best (04:57):
Some.
Guy Rubin (04:58):
Some of them, how much time have we got? Yeah,
probably made every mistake inthe book, but I suppose the key
is to only make the mistakesonce. I think focus is key, and
we certainly fell down on anumber of occasions, trying to
do too much and trying to reallywork out what you're here for,
what you're good for. Ebstaworks just as well for HubSpot
(05:19):
CRM customers as it does forsales, for CRM customers. And
so, you know, we're a bootstrapbusiness, and we have limited
resources, and we would sell andservice any customer that would
come along. But in reality, theaverage deal values and the
impact we can have on smallorganizations is relatively
limited. And so while if aninbound lead comes in for a
HubSpot customer, we'll talk tothem, we spent a lot of time
(05:40):
spinning our wheels, doingreally very small deals with
customers that perhaps wecouldn't have the biggest impact
on, because they weren'tparticularly large. They loved
the dashboards they wanted toplay. But lasering in on our ICP
transformed our business. And ifI go back two years, our average
deal value was under five granda year per customer. Last year,
our average deal value was28,800 and we're trending at
(06:03):
58,000 pounds a deal on averagedeal value. So that focus on
slightly larger businesses,where ultimately we can have the
biggest impact, gave us thefocus that we needed. And the
reality is, it doesn't takelonger to sell to these bigger
organizations, and actually itdoesn't cost us more to service
them, or not particularlyhigher. I mean, there's this,
there's processing costs, butthe actually, having a larger
(06:24):
organization means that they'veprobably got more resources at
their end for us to work with.So I think my advice to those
that are dialing in is, is, istry and work out what your focus
is. What do you what do you wantto be world famous for, and put
that within your walled gardenand let everything else can
burn. It doesn't really matter.You can't do everything for
everyone. But if you can workout what's inside that walled
garden and make it amazing andbe the world leader at that one
(06:48):
thing, then you've got focus.And if you can extend that focus
into your ICP and really getlaser focused on the types of
businesses, you can support andservice and make it super easy
for the sellers to understandwhen they should be closing
deals off as lost. If it doesn'tmatch that ICP, you'll release
them and allow them to scale thebusiness much faster.
Jonny Adams (07:06):
I think that's amazing. You know, we we work a
lot as a business withorganizations across the world,
but hearing you really doubledown on that ICP focus is
something that we can all takeaway from this conversation. And
I wonder if people are thinkingabout their own approach towards
the sectors, the segments, andthen identification around how
strong is their ICP awareness, Imean, just that small takeaway
(07:27):
around from, you know, afounder, then you've driven your
own AOV, or average order valueper customer demonstrably over
the last couple of years. Socongratulations.
Guy Rubin (07:36):
Oh, thank you very much.
Jonny Adams (07:37):
I'm curious. So away from Ebsta, but still with
your entrepreneur founder haton. You know, you've referenced
a few mistakes that you've madethere in the past, and you said
you done them all, which is,which is really open and honest
from you, I imagine, and I'm notone, but an entrepreneur, CEO
founder, I've heard it's quitelonely. How do you get that sort
of balance? Where do you get thesupport from as a CEO founder,
(08:00):
where you might be feeling likeyou're on that island on your
own. Is there anything that youdo to create that support
network, that resilience?
Guy Rubin (08:07):
Yeah, I think be cautious who you allow in the
inner circle. We had a bigchange in the business about a
year ago. I allowed some of thesenior managers to become part
of the senior leadership team,and while they were passionate
about it, and they loved that,we then had to have a separate
exec team to have kind ofdifficult conversations. So I
think it's important that theteam feel that you've got a plan
that they can come to you withwhatever concerns that they've
(08:29):
got, and you're always going tobe resilient. Don't worry,
everything will be fine. Here'show we'll address that
challenge, and we'll move on tothe next one. But at the same
time, it's really important thatyou've got your own network that
you can be vulnerable with sofor me, personally, I'm a big
fan of the of community. I'vetaken an active role in the
pavilion community. I'm the CEOAmbassador now, and finding
(08:49):
other CEOs that are goingthrough a similar journey, and
being able to have aconversation with them has been
transformational for me. AndI've got to support a number of
support networks within thepavilion community. And we meet
every every couple of weeks, andwe get the opportunity to kind
of open up and talk about thechallenges. And what's
fascinating is, I don't thinkI've ever come up with with a
challenge that someone else inthe room hasn't already had had
to deal with. And so yeah,finding your network, find your
(09:10):
tribe, because that will helpyou to execute.
Jonny Adams (09:13):
And last question on this, there must be some
great parts about being amanager, if you had to pick one,
like, what you know, what wouldbe this sort of thing that you
absolutely love about whatyou're doing?
Guy Rubin (09:22):
I think we're in charge of our own destiny,
right? I think the key is thatwe make our own mistakes, and
we'll either rise or fall basedon decisions that we make. And
that's very empowering, and itcan be quite scary, and if we
get 51% of the decisions right,then we're winning. So be
decisive. Make those decisions,you know, people always want
clarity. And if the answer isblack, say it's black. And if a
(09:45):
week later, it turns out thatyou were wrong and it was white,
then jump on it and make themaware. No, it's not black, it's
white. Okay? What they'relooking for is clarity and
confidence from theirleadership. It's okay to be
vulnerable, just make sureyou're careful who you're
vulnerable in front of.
Jonny Adams (09:58):
Yeah, that's interesting. What I hear there
is the destiny piece around thefact you're, you're in control
as an individual.
Guy Rubin (10:04):
Yeah, I can't, I can't shy away from the reality
I am a control freak. And yeah,being in charge of our own
destiny is, is something Ireally enjoy.
Matt Best (10:15):
One of the points you talked about there was, was ICP,
and we did quite a lot of worklooking at our ICP recently, and
some really fascinating taketakeaways, I think, when we
looked at the data from 2023 sojust over a year ago now, very
few businesses can hit quota in2023 and they were left in a
situation where, well, what dowe do to solve this problem? And
really, in my opinion, they wereleft with two choices, right? So
(10:37):
choice number one was right.It's a leadership problem. We
haven't been giving the salesteam enough structure, enough
process to consistentlyunderstand what's expected of
them at every stage of the salescycle, what they should be
doing, how they should be goingthroughout that journey. And so
we're going to double down onthat. We're going to introduce
that consistency, and we'regoing to get more and more of
the B players performing likethe A players. The alternative
(10:58):
is to get rid of the bottomthird of your sellers and double
down on your marketing spend.And unfortunately, most people
did that, we end up with a wholelot more leads coming into the
business. We've replaced ourbottom third of our sellers with
someone else's bottom third oftheir sellers, right? Because
everyone got rid of them, and wejust changed hands. We ended up
getting a bunch of someoneelse's under performers into the
business. And now, not only arethey do, we now need to train
(11:21):
them and get them and get themon boarded at the same time, but
now the vast majority of theleads that are coming in don't
match ICP. So while the volumeof leads increased last year
dramatically, the number ofleads that matched ICP didn't
really change. And so what youend up with is trying to find
needles in haystacks, and theA's players, they're already
competent at doing that. Theycan sniff out the ICP
opportunities, but the but the Bplayers, they really struggle,
(11:43):
and now we've made that evenharder to find the good deals.
Targeting ICP is so important,but it can be difficult if
you're just trying to shortcutthe process by just overspending
on marketing and getting rid ofthe underperforming sellers. So
the answer sounds Guy like,actually, you need a combination
of the two, which is, understandwhat your focus should be,
define your ICP, then maybeincrease your marketing spend
(12:05):
and support those top performersin your in your sales team to
really maximize thatopportunity.
Guy Rubin (12:11):
Yeah, look our target audience, our B to B sales
organizations using Salesforcewith 20 to 250 sellers, but most
importantly, we work best withorganizations where maybe 20% of
the sellers are consistent.Sellers are consistently hitting
quota, and then you've got thislong tail of underperforming
sellers. And that the secret tofixing that problem is
understanding in granular detailwhat those top performers are
(12:32):
doing at every stage of thesales cycle and making it super
easy for the B and C players tofollow suit. And so the top
performers don't have a problemidentifying ICP. In fact, the
top performers are two and ahalf times more likely to self
source their own opportunities,but at the same time, the top
top performers, on average, willclose 30% of their opportunities
offers lost at the discoverystage. So the target that
(12:54):
they're much more focused andwhat we need to do is understand
their behaviors and make itsuper easy for the B and C
players to follow that playbookand have the confidence to close
those deals off as lost and notwork the deals that inevitably
are never going to actuallyclose in at the end of the day
anyway.
Matt Best (13:08):
That's a lot of the work that we would do, Jonny
with sales organizations thatthat that bit at the end there
be able to say, Well, look, wecan identify where that
opportunity is or where thatrisk is, or where, you know
where we should be focusing, andthen helping codify some of that
best practice, codify,capturing, understanding what
those top performers are doing,and then codifying that in a way
that can be replicated then outacross those B and C planes.
Guy Rubin (13:29):
Yeah. Well, we had recently had a business that had
about 100 sellers. They had arev ops team that had been in
place for two or three years,and they banging the same drum
during that period. They knewwhat they needed to do, but they
couldn't get buy in from theleadership and the sellers on
the ground. And so when we camein, what was great is they
already knew the challenges thatthey were facing. But when we
(13:49):
when you turn the insights intopictures, when you make it so
easy to understand, Look, Mr. Bplayer, you've got an average
win rate of 12% but you're onlyengaging with three stakeholders
when the top performers have gotstick six stakeholders actively
involved by stage two, and oneof those is always the finance
persona with an engagement scoreabove 67 now all of a sudden, if
we put that in as a gate, andyou're not allowed to leave
(14:11):
stage two until you've achievedthat level of engagement. Now,
the B players are replicatingwhat the A players are doing,
and it makes it super easy tofollow that guide. And the
saving grace here is that eventhe B players want to win. And
so if you can make it super easyand turn it into pictures and
help them understand how to win,it can be transformational, and
it doesn't have to take verylong. You can influence this
(14:34):
quarter's numbers, but there'sno shortcut. You need a
combination of data, insights,technology and change and that
change agent is vital. If youdon't have competent senior
enough to change agents withinthe organization, you're not
going to achieve the outcomesyou're aiming for.
Jonny Adams (14:49):
It's so true that last point, and you talk about
you really liking data, you cantell I mean, and it's great,
right? But you need to turn dataand that insight into some
intelligent decision making.Thing and the point around
change, if we think about thesuccessful or unsuccessful
projects, when we're talking toorganizations that might be
wanting to work with aconsultancy like SBR and spend a
(15:11):
quarter of a million or amillion or 1.5 million over a
period of months and years, wetypically openly say that the
difference between a greatprogram and an unsuccessful
program has changed. So just onthat particular point, I think
it'd be great if we can go intothe report. Guy is going to
share a little bit about how hebuilds a fantastic annual
benchmarking report. There's acouple out there in the market
(15:33):
per year that I like to see. Andwhen this comes across my email
inbox, I absolutely love readingthrough the ebster report, the
annual report there. It's allabout go to market benchmarks,
but there's some real punchystatistics that when we at SBR,
we focus in one of our teammeetings. We have 12 a year
every month. We go through thisreport with rigor, because this
(15:53):
is fresh first party data fromyour clients, and I'm sure
you're going to share a littlebit more about that, but what
we're going to do now is we'regoing to transition into three
core parts of this report.You're going to share a little
bit of background around how youget to the output, which is
excellent. And then we're goingto go into three areas. The
first area we're going to focuson is that post sale, post
client acquisition, motion. Whatdo we do with that CS function?
And look at some statistics. Thesecond part we actually look at
(16:16):
the pre sale and have a littlelook at that as well. And the
final part is we're going tohave a little look at what's
sort of the next phase ofselling, and how are businesses
structuring themselves towardsthis motion called full cycle
selling. So we look at threeparts in a moment, but just
before we do that, guy, pleasedo give us a high level
explanation around how you getto this beautiful output.
Guy Rubin (16:35):
Well, thank you for setting me up. So it's the
fourth year we've done thereport, and the third year we've
done it in conjunction withpavilion. So last year, we
analyzed six, just over 650,000opportunities representing
nearly $50 billion worth ofpipeline. We also, for the first
time, survey 2000 CROs and VPsof sales to get their input as
well. We also analyzed hundredsof 1000s of hours of call
(16:59):
recordings as well, looking atthe the insights coming from
discovery calls. So some reallyinteresting data points that
we've analyzed to kind of get towhere to the numbers that we
that we see in the report. Youcan download the report for
free. There's a banner at thevery top of the ebster website,
ebster.com you click on thebanner, and you can download the
report, and if you sign up forit, there's quarterly updates as
well. So all of the dataflushing through our platform we
(17:20):
use and we turn into genericinsights and benchmarks, and we
deliver it back to the marketevery quarter.
Jonny Adams (17:25):
Fantastic. Well, so what we're gonna do is gonna
transition into some of theinsights, as we discussed in the
report. Let's focus on postsale. There is some fab insights
in there. So if you can kick offwith, what are those insights?
Guy, and then between the threeof us, let's try and sort of
chew through it, and let's tryand come up with some solutions.
If that's okay.
Guy Rubin (17:42):
Yeah, absolutely. Very exciting. So one of the
really surprising data pointsthat we saw from the data last
year is that 52% of new revenuelast year didn't come from new
logos. It came from existingaccounts. And so it just shows
us that if you aren't investingtime and energy in expansion,
there's money left on the tablethere. That in itself, really
sets the scene for where themarket's at. And so if you're
(18:04):
lucky enough to have a wholeclient base, lean into it right
and invest the time and energywith those customers. And when
we talk about the engagementwith the customer, we have an
engine that monitors momentum orengagement with different
stakeholders at every account.And one of the really
fascinating takeaways from thedata last year was that if the
last two QBRs you've done withyour customer happen to be with
the C suite, you are now seventimes more likely to open a
(18:27):
cross sell up sell opportunitywith the customer at the renewal
date. And the beauty ofopportunities created with
existing accounts is you have anaverage win rate of 45% and you
need less stakeholders involvedin the sales cycle, and it takes
a lot shorter to actually closethe deal.
Jonny Adams (18:42):
That's fascinating, just on that point, Matt, your
expertise is in this particularspace, just for the audience.
What is a QBR and just in itsvery sort of sentence based
example, what is it?
Matt Best (18:51):
QBR stands for quarterly business review,
right? It should be a strategicmeeting held on a quarterly
basis with a standing agendathat helps get a perspective
from the customer of what theirstrategic priorities are, an
opportunity to share thedirection of your business as
the representative. So if you'rea CSM listening or account
manager, that's your job, andthat's your opportunity to talk
(19:11):
to the customer about whatyou're doing. It's not a service
review. And I think, like areally important definition for
those out there is, don'tconfuse this really important
strategic engagement. And Ithink actually Guy, the data
you've you've shared with thestaff, sort of reflects that
this isn't about gettingtogether all of the different
project leads that you've gotacross and up across your client
for the various things thatyou're doing. This is about
(19:32):
taking it up a level, into the Csuite, into those key decision
makers to talk strategy.
Jonny Adams (19:38):
Let's shape this conversation, because you've
bought the stats. Here's aperson that spent how many years
in customer success?
Matt Best (19:43):
Plenty.
Jonny Adams (19:45):
So the experts over here, right? So we can have a
good debate. Just repeat thestat again, Guy.
Guy Rubin (19:50):
There's a couple. So first of all, if the last two
QBRs are done at the C level,you're seven times more likely
to open up a cross sell upsetopportunity, and the average win
rates are much higher with.Success and with a cross sell
opportunity than it is with anew logo opportunity. But on the
on the flip side, if you've notbeen able to maintain engagement
with the C suite, if your QBRsare being done below the C
level, you are four times morelikely to churn the customer.
Jonny Adams (20:12):
Right? Okay, so now, when we're talking to
clients in our space, becausewe're doing the fourth part of
what you described, which is thechange and the consultancy, a
lot of organizations, and thepeople within these account
management roles are saying, Howdo I access the C suite? There's
your problem. Matt, how do youaccess the C suite? Because
clearly, if you don't access theC suite, you've got a higher
(20:33):
risk of churn. If you do accessthe C suite, you've got a higher
opportunity to grow the account.
Matt Best (20:38):
Yeah, and I think that is often that challenge.
There's a couple of things, andwe'll talk a little bit about
this later. One, bit about thislater. One, I think, is the the
richness of the transition ofthe relationship, because quite
often that access to the C suitedisappears between the
transition from the sales teaminto customer success or account
management. I think that's onekey area.
Jonny Adams (20:55):
So like, if the CFO is signing off the deal, what
you're saying is that CFO signsit off and then exits the
relationship. Is that, is thatwhat you may exit the
relationship?
Matt Best (21:03):
Or they're exited from the relationship. What I've
seen on a number of occasions,we talk about this in in
software development, you'll bevery familiar. It's that over
the fence motion, right? It'sother developers develop
something. They launch it overthe fence. It's somebody else's
problem that can sometimeshappen, I think, between sales
and account management orcustomer success in that the
sale is done. The job is done.I've had my and we'll talk about
(21:23):
how much, how long you hold onto that, and how in a moment,
but the seller now feels thattheir job is done. They launch
it over the fence and go, here'sa relationship with the person
who's going to lead the project.Here's a relationship with your
key user, buyer. And none of therelationships at that strategic
level are handed overeffectively. That can also
happen as a result ofinefficient and ineffective
(21:45):
introductions of, say, a CSM oran account manager. I've been in
meetings myself where, muchearlier in my career, where the
salesperson comes along and it'ssort of patch you on the head in
a sort of in a slightlypatronizing way. So look, this
is your CSM. They're going tolook after you from now on. It's
like the transition between adoctor and and then the person
(22:06):
who's whose job it is to, youknow, just to administer the
medicine, right? You're alwaysgoing to go back to the doctor
for the advice, so clients goback to the seller for the
advice that transition isineffective. So I think that's a
key pinch point. The other isjust, I think, comes back to a
lot of the time, thatcapability, and also that sort
of desire and understanding, theneed to maintain that level of
(22:27):
engagement with the C suite. Sowhat's the process that's in
place to kind of maintain thatengagement? You can't send a C
co an email once a quarter andexpect them to turn up to a Q,
b, r. You've got to nurture themas the sales person was doing
that on ongoing.
Jonny Adams (22:41):
So three clear points there, and let's twin
that with the insights thatEbsta creates. So what you know
to solve that problem? Youyou're running a successful
platform, right? So what's thefunctionality within Ebsta that
then solves this problem?
Guy Rubin (22:53):
I'm going to take it a step back. The way you solve
this challenge is you delivervalue. It's as simple as that.
If you run a QBR, the seller hasmanaged to get the customer
bought in enough to be able toto sign a contract. Okay, the
chances are they've had, theyhave engagement with the C
suite. You have enough momentumthere to at least get the C
suite turning up to the initialQBR. Now, if you turn up at that
(23:15):
QBR, and, as you say, run it asa, you know, a general kind of
catch up project meeting,they'll never turn up at another
QBR ever again. You turn up atthat meeting and talk about the
fact that you share the samesports team that you both
support, they'll never turn upat that QBR ever again. It
doesn't matter how much theylike you or think that you're a
lovely person, they'll neverturn up at that QBR again. We
(23:37):
need to deliver strategic valueat those sessions so that they
believe they look forward tomeeting with you every quarter,
because you're going to rocktheir world. You are the subject
matter expert at the thing thatyou do, you have access to all
of the data and insights thatyou've delivered your customer,
and you've got an opportunity todistill that down for the C
suite. So for us, ebsta has awhole host of insights that are
(24:00):
within our platform, everythingfrom the level of coverage each
rep needs to hit quota, numberof days they spend in stage when
they win versus when they lose,accuracy of their forecast,
their conversion rates at eachstage, you name it. There is
hundreds of data points withinour platform, and all the C
suite needs to do is log intoSalesforce. They can see all of
this, and none of them do. Sowhat did we do? We decided to
(24:22):
extract the latest insights fromour platform and turn it into a
PDF. And I sit with the tier 1csuites every quarter, and I take
them through a 20 minutepresentation of how their
business is pacing, and what ifit was up to me, I would be
prioritizing that needs work andchange. And I leave that session
they are, and we've give, we'vedelivered value, and they can't
wait to turn up at the next oneand find out whether the the
(24:45):
actions that they've agreed tokick off internally, whether
that's with an internal rev opsfunction or with an external
agency, whether that's had aninfluence and had a chat,
whether that change has actuallytaken place, and what influence
that's had on win rates orgrowth, because ultimately,
that's what they care about.Yeah, and so dialing into what
is it that makes that'simportant to them, and we know
what it is because they signed acontract, and then focusing on
(25:06):
how you've had that impact, and,most importantly, what they need
to do next to enhance thatimpact, means that they will
turn up at every single QBR.
Jonny Adams (25:14):
That's so true. Yeah. I love the fact that the
value statement, you know, ourour theme this year at SBR is
impact, and the fact that ifwe're able to deliver impact,
both internally and for ourcustomers, then that's super
crucial. I love that you alsotalk about not just value, but
also, I think, bringing insightto that C suite. Whenever we
(25:34):
talk to CEOs, they I regularly,what are you hearing in the
market? What's going on withother organizations, and I
think, twinned with the growthagenda that you referenced,
because ultimately, C suitepretty much had built around not
just the revenues and the P andL, but they're actually on
EBITDA and enterprise value,right? So if you can talk to the
insights driving enterprisevalue, you can probably unlock
(25:56):
what really means to them, whichis, let's be honest, the payout.
So talking at that level isreally crucial, I think that's
topic one which is reallyinteresting. Some fantastic
stats there, Guy.
Matt Best (26:06):
So thank you so much. Guy, thank you so much for
joining us. We look forward tohaving you again on part two.
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