The Revenue Room™ - The Journey to Revenue Excellence - The Revenue Room™, by H2K Labs

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to the Revenue Room,presented by H2K Labs.

(00:05):
Here's your host, HeatherHolst-Knudsen.

Heather Holst-Knudsen (00:12):
Hi there.
How's everybody?
Welcome to the Revenue Room BootCamp.
This is our third session, andI'm just going to give it
another 30 seconds or so to leta few more people log in.
Okay, so let's kick off.
I'm very excited to haveeveryone here today.
The Revenue Room Bootcamp is a aseries of educational content

(00:34):
offerings that we produce at H2KLabs.
They're meant to be interactive,so when we kick off the session,
there's a chat mechanism to yourright.
Just quick questions in there.
And we'd appreciated that.
We'll send a survey afterward,which we hope you can provide
feedback and every participantif in your need.

(00:55):
We're offering a free consultinghour to help you monetize your
data.
So H2K Labs.
I've been an operator in B2Bmedia events and digital
information for more decadesthan I care to share.
But I, cut my teeth at MillerFreeman and worked at IDG and
then went to my family business,Thomas Publishing.

(01:15):
But I've always been verypassionate about the two sided.
business model and puttingbuyers and sellers together
through whatever format and theway data can not only facilitate
that, but impact your revenueand financial outcomes.
So each two K labs offersstrategy and execution services
to businesses with datacomplexity, such as media and

(01:37):
events.
And we deliver that through notonly our expertise and a network
of partners but platforms thatwe offer that have been purpose
built for the unique nature ofthe business models of our
client.
We're also gifting the book,Data is Everybody's Business,
The Fundamentals of DataMonetization.
This is published by MIT Press.
I took the course.

(01:58):
I, every, can't I say this?
It is really a phenomenal courseto take.
especially for businesses thathave the level of data.
The data asset is as huge as itis.
But we're, we'll be sending thisto you.
So if you haven't given us youraddress, please do.
So the agenda for today is weare going to First, I'm gonna
introduce our revenue expertsour speakers that will talk

(02:20):
about revenue Kaizen, revenue asa business process, operating
principles and an introductionto a capabilities framework
we're building out.
So with that, I'd like tointroduce our wonderful panel of
revenue room experts.
Denise Medved, who is the CCO ofInforma Markets North America
and Matt York.
Global Chief Revenue Officer ofFoundry.

(02:41):
Denise, you want to go first andgive people a background about
your experience and what you'reworking on now?

Denise Medved (02:47):
Sure.
Thank you, Heather, for invitingme to be part of this panel and
apologies up front.
I'm having some difficultieswith my camera, so I can't get
it any lighter.
So apologies that I'm a littlebit in the dark here.
So I've been in the trade showindustry 30 plus years, maybe
more than 35 years.
I don't know.
I stopped counting.
But I'm in a new role atInforma, which was newly created

(03:09):
back in May, and I came on as achief commercial officer for
Informa Markets in NorthAmerica.
And Informa was really createdthrough several acquisitions.
And so we have nine differentfamilies, actually, that were
all different acquisitions,operating businesses
independently, silo their ownprocesses and what have you.

(03:29):
Because that's the way Informafocuses, like they buy the
businesses and then they justlet them continue to run intact.
And they created this positionbecause they wanted to really
create some sales excellenceacross the entire business and
consistency and continuityacross the business.
And most of my career has been.
spent on the sales side, drivingrevenue, growing companies, but
I also love technology because Iunderstand the importance of

(03:53):
technology can make in abusiness.
And so one of the primaryobjectives that I have here at
Informa is really harmonizingthe way we are using the
technology.
Sales force is the primarycenter of everything we do on
the sales side.
And then there's a number ofother platforms that are in the
tech stack.
But what I'm really focused onin the immediate future is

(04:15):
getting everybody to.
Run pipelines consistentlyforecast consistently so that
when all eight of the businessunits or actually it's nine.
Now we just bought another oneare rolling up their data and
their numbers.
It's coming across in aconsistent format.
It's real time because thechallenge has been it takes
hours and hours and hours andhours to get these forecasts and

(04:35):
pipelines together.
At the North America level.
And it has just run into a majorchallenge because the data is
basically dead on arrivalbecause of the time it takes.
So anyway, so what I'm doing isI'm bringing sales excellence
across the entire North Americanbusiness.

Terrific.
I love the forecast is dead onarrival.
You'll notice I've used that ina blog or two and you'll see it
here in the deck.
Thank you, Denise.
Matt.

Matt Yorke (05:02):
Thank you.
And thank you, Heather, forhosting this and everyone for
joining.
I'm the global CRO at Foundry,formerly IDG.
I came back to Foundry threeyears ago for this role, which
was the first ever time thatwe've had that role.
In the company, and we've beenon a journey essentially, and I

(05:23):
didn't realize, Heather, thatyou worked at AG, essentially
unpacking almost 60 years ofextreme decentralization, where
every country was a separatemarket with separate systems or
no systems or few systemsmultiple business units in the
U.
S.
all on different systems and P&Ls to actually moving in the

(05:44):
other direction where we are nowextremely centralized.
And so we've gone through thethe painful process of
essentially building anddeploying one global sales
stack.
And that's really importantbecause what made the company
great in the analog era waslocal products for local

(06:08):
customers.
And you stay close to yourcustomer.
That doesn't work in a digitalera, which is all about
platforms and volume andvelocity of data with
consistency.
So a little bit of backgroundthat you asked for.
So we're 225 sellers.
We operate across six primarytrading regions which are

(06:28):
basically Germany, Central andEastern and Southern Europe
Western Europe.
The Nordics ASEAN, which isreally all things from Singapore
Middle East and Africa,including India Australia, New
Zealand, and then lastly the U.
S.
And so with that stack now inplace we've totally transformed
how we think about our businessand, it's not unkind to say it,

(06:52):
we used to have sort of 45 dayvisibility, which would be, we
would close a month.
Finance would then roll upeverybody's P& L and then we
take about, 15 days and then wewould discover how we had done
in Germany.
And, of course, you may discoverthat you haven't had a good
month.
So you'd go, you jump on thephone and no, this month to be

(07:15):
much better.
Don't worry.
And of course, 45 days later,you discover it isn't any
better.
Now you've got a real problemand you've already lost a
quarter.
And so we moved from that fromwhen I came back to immediately
seven days, right?
So we moved the company to everyweek.
We want to know exactly whereyou are.
against the cadences that we'veput in place.

(07:36):
But, that was self reported andit's just an output.
And where we are now is we areessentially real time, right?
I actually now I can look and Ican see what's been added to the
pipeline in any country at anygiven time.
you and what's been sold,obviously.
But those are what I typicallycall outcomes, right?
But bookings and revenue of theoutcome.

(07:57):
So what we've done is we've nowwe've got everything in place.
We've moved beyond that toalmost looking backwards to what
drives those outcomes, right?
So actually, the metrics wetrack against every single
individual contributor.
And then, by country and then byregion, etcetera, are things
like the number of meetings andthe type of meetings.

(08:19):
The number of proposals, the A.
C.
V.
On those proposals, the bid towin ratios, the days to close
because those give us theinsights as to what is going on
in our pipeline and where we'relikely to end from an outcomes.
I bookings.
point of view.
you know, we've made atremendous amount of um,
progress.

(08:40):
I would say it's a journey.
It's not a destination.
It's continuous improvement.
We are never going to get to theend of whatever it is.
We do deploy a prime co primemodel.
And that's because obviously atfoundry, we're selling a lot of
different things.
We sell events, we sellresearch, we sell.
know, Digital media demand.
Then we sell sophisticatedmarketing services.
We sell a fast platform.

(09:02):
We sell a desk platform.
And so a prime co prime model,is there a primary account
holders?
And then they're supported bysubject matter experts.
If somebody really wants tounderstand our orchestration
platform they will be supportedby someone who works on the
Foundry orchestration platform.
And they'll work across thattogether.
Likewise with events.

(09:23):
We have four very simple salesmotions that we deploy globally.
One is what we call GAM, whichis our global accounts.
The next one is what we call ourhigh red accounts.
Then we have what we call ourhigh potential accounts, and
then we have our net new logo.
So new customer acquisition,which is a 60 40 split between

(09:44):
prospecting and marketing led.
And our goal that we strive foris to get to a place where we
have bookings and revenuepredictability by product, by
region.
And that we can, continue tomanage our business against that

(10:05):
data that is now flowing everyaction.
Everything somebody does in themarket is a tiny grain of data,
and it creates that sort of dataflywheel.
But it's an insight, right?
And if you get enough grains ofdata, you essentially get a
beach.
And that's our view is everymeeting is offering us something
back.
But now we have the stack inplace.
We can begin to learn and itwill help us help inform the

(10:28):
business on a continual goal.
Go forward motion.
So that's where we are atfoundry.

That's fascinating.
And so you're actually Veryadvanced in this.
And it sounds like you'reactivating predictive analytics
in a very highly complex dataenvironment.
So I would love to dig intothat.
If anyone has any questions,please put them in the chat.
We'll stop and answer them.
But that was a great overview.

(10:57):
Okay, so the difference betweenwho will win and who won't.
So first of all, 60 percent ofB2B sales organizations will
transition from experience andintuition based selling to data
driven selling by 2025.
That could hit a whole bunch ofdifferent points.
But for me and I think that theold school is no longer a viable

(11:24):
I can't go by gut anymorebelieve what my top seller that
they are not tell it's got gutgets killed quick radical
changes in we have experiencedover and if you are using data
to activate better financialreturns, especially in your

(11:46):
revenue organization, thereturn, the returns are too
great to ignore.
And there are so many studiesabout this.
This is a combination fromBoston Consulting and Forrester.
At the bottom line is that datadriven organizations are more
profitable, they have betterstock price, they're more
attractive from an acquisitionstandpoint, and they're actually
more attractive to companiesthat want to be acquired.

(12:07):
Customers, they have bettercustomer health.
And they attract betteremployees, especially on the
sales side.
I, these are the six things thatI had identified as the world
has changed.
But, Denise, in addition tothese, new competitors and new
customer demands, Obviously, theeconomy one, do you want to play

(12:27):
some perspective on some ofthese points that may be more
pressing fewer?
Am I missing something here?

No, I think you've got I think you've really
nailed it here.
One of the other things that Imight add is in the events
business.
I think what customers attendeesand exhibitors alike are looking
for is more experiences.
So I think that there's a littlebit of a shift in just I think

(13:01):
that they're looking for realtrue experiences.
I just spent a I spent a 1 yearstint over at money 2020, which
is just a really interestingbusiness model.
And it's all about.
Experiences and they're not evenmeasuring that square footage as
as a measurement.
They're measuring how manymeaningful meetings and we
facilitate on site.
So it's a whole differentbusiness, but a whole different
metric.
But I think I think, these allnailed it.

(13:23):
But I think the world isshifting in terms of events and
what people want.

I totally agree.
And I think that going tocontinue to radically shift as
the next generation gets intothe roles of attending these
events, they're expecting muchmore of a help me, tell me who I
should meet with and make themeetings happen.
And, give me a GPS to where I'msupposed to go to get it and
inspiring lately.
Totally true that any thoughts?

Matt Yorke (13:50):
No, I think I just pick up on a yeah, thanks.
a couple of points, right?
So there are a lot of newcompetitors who the advantage of
when you start a company today,you're immediately digital and
you're immediately cloud basedand you're designed to scale,
right?
Which are not the things that ifyou started a business six years
ago 60 years ago that where youwould be.
Yeah.
And then you've got competitorsthat are.

(14:11):
Pure place, right?
So they're only operating in onelane and that makes their life a
lot easier.
Certainly for the seller andunquestionably, customers are
expecting to see a lot more fora lot less.
Because, that's the pressurethey're under as well.
And, I think what we have to dois recognize that it isn't just
about the sellers, right?

(14:32):
It's really about the processand the product we put around
them.
Thank you.
And how we enable them to bemore successful when we build
our stack that's a techexecution.
But the deployment of that is amassive cultural shift, right?
Because you're asking people todo things they're not accustomed

(14:52):
to do.
And the key messaging is, look,we're asking you to do that,
one, because we do need thedata, but two, it's designed to
make your life easier, right?
We're trying to create systemsthat will show you the best.
Materials to put in front of acustomer on this conversation or
that conversation or combo oftwo different products that's
most likely to.

(15:12):
Most likely to sell.
And when you're living in a verydemanding environment, which we
all are right now, right?
The more power and data you canput at the point of the customer
contact, the better you're goingto be

Heather Holst-Knudse (15:26):
absolutely that we just touched on a
massive landmine when it comesto any type of data driven
change is it's what's in it forme.
And especially with sales forcesthat are a combination of the
old guard with new guard comingin is You the proof of what, how
am I going to make more moneybecause you're asking me to
change is really I hear it allthe time.

(15:47):
So really great point.
All right.
So then, so these are signs Isee when I talk to somebody and
an account or a customer and tryto like diagnose, do you have a
problem in your revenue room?
And.
Some of them are obviouslymissed forecast or they have low

(16:08):
quota attainment.
Sometimes I'll talk to them andtalk about churn and here.
We actually really don't trackchurn.
That's huge.
But there's something else thatI that I like to bring up in the
world of media and events or anybusiness that has multiple
revenue streams that a customercan buy.
Churn takes a very long time.

(16:28):
And but there is a slow tricklejourney that takes place, which
gets ignored because the logo isstill there.
And that is the reduced bend ordrops bend in certain streams.
If you're not tracking that'ssomething that I identify, more
of an old way of thinking.
And then Denise, you gave methis one, which is category five
hurricanes, which I'll have youexplain.

(16:50):
But I've been there and I knowthat terrible situation and, but
there's finger pointing to I'vebeen in, my own business where
we were running events and mediaand lead gen programs.
And if something didn't perform,the salesperson's, saying that
the audience team didn't do it,the audience team saying they
oversold.
That's because there's noorganizational alignment.

(17:10):
And then there's things likeExcel hell and low quality
revenue, which is revenue thatchurns a lot.
But.
On this list.
Am I missing anything?
And actually, I'm going to startwith you because I'd love for
you to talk about category five.
Let me know if I'm missinganything.

I'm going to talk about category five in one
moment.
But I think that I think animportant thing to point out
here is you don't need to waitfor these signs to modernize.
I think every organizationshould be modernizing in real
time.
And here's a perfect example.
I I've been all over the placein the trade show industry and I
had a stint at CES and I gotthere, I guess it was in 2014,

(17:45):
biggest annual show, waitlistproblems that every single
customer or every single personin the trade show industry would
love to have.
And they were running their 70million business on spreadsheets
on C drives.
And so that's a gigantic risk tothe business.
They didn't need to make anychange.
There were no signs that theyneeded to modernize because
everything was going really wellfor them.

(18:06):
But they recognize that theyneeded to make a change and
sometimes the time to make thechange is when things are going
really well.
So they brought me in becausethey knew I, I'd done these
kinds of transformations before.
And when I got there, Salesforcehadn't been logged into in two
years.
And so what we did over thenext, four or five years that I
was there was we made Salesforcethe epicenter of the business.

(18:28):
And, folks were saying why do weneed to do this?
We're like, we're growing everyyear and we have waitlists and
this and that.
I said, Because when the tablesturn and something goes wrong,
either in the world or theeconomy or the sector, you're
going to be really glad that we,we've gotten our house in order
here and fast forward to thepandemic.
I wasn't there.
I left just before that.
But they did come back and sayto me, boy, we're really glad

(18:49):
you did what you did.
So I just wanted to put that outthere.
Don't wait for the sign.
Just be very proactive.
But the category five hurricane.
There's always things that arehappening in the business.
There's always unexpected Stuff.
You missed the numbers or somebig exhibitor pulls out or
something major happens in anindustry.
And I use the term category 5hurricane because not everything

(19:11):
can be a category 5 hurricane.
Some problems are going to cropup and you're going to say,
yeah, you know what, it's aninconvenience, but we're not
going to, halt the presses, haveeverybody pivot and change.
And, perfect example, when I wasat Money2020, there was a
legitimate Category 5 hurricanethis past February when Sam

(19:35):
Bankman Fried decided to turnthe crypto world upside down.
He turned the entire bankingworld upside down.
And I said to, the folks that Iworked with, I said, Okay, this
is a Category 5 hurricane.
If we didn't sell, if we fellshort on selling two delegate
passes last week, that's not acategory five.
It's just, it's not even aspring shower.
It's a sprinkle.
We missed by two, not the end ofthe world.

(19:56):
I think it's really important tobe able to identify what's truly
a category five hurricane, whereyou need to stop everything,
pivot, regroup versus, asprinkle, a spring shower.
Maybe a tropical storm.
I think just really important tokeep things in perspective.

I agree.
And to me, one of the categoryfives that I've experienced what
I call the controllable one isthat if you're seeing trends on
sales, for example, or attendeeacquisition, that's not going in
the direction you needed to go,but you can see that and your
data so good that you canactually say, okay, This is

(20:33):
where it is working.
And so we pivot our marketinginstead of continuing to spend
money and go down that wrongpath.
That's what I hear happens allthe time with event organizers
is that inability to pivotbecause the data is too late.
But no, I totally agree that youhave to pick and choose what you
label.
Skip the five.
Matt

Matt Yorke (20:55):
I would probably add sales attrition, right?
Like you've got low quotaattainment, but some people
happy with that.
I think if you've got goodperformers and they're still
doing well quota wise, but they,they're not staying for any
length of time, meaningfullength of time.
That's also probably a leadingindicator that they're

(21:16):
frustrated.
They recognize it's just anatural kind of glass ceiling in
terms of being able to besuccessful.
I agree.

Heather Holst-Knuds (21:24):
Absolutely.
It's a really good ad.

I would say low quota attainment is is it can be
attributed to not managingpeople to performance?

Absolutely.
And for sure.
And you could modernize thatutilizing a lot of data.

Matt Yorke (21:40):
Yeah so that's a great point.
Denise.
That's one of the things thatwe've tried to do with our kind
of backwards view on the metricsthat we look at.
Because, you could be the bestrep in the world.
You've just got Yeah.
a bad territory, right?
And it's, accounts moved in.
It's moved out.
They've got something going on.
And you're just not going to getthere.
Or you'd likewise, you could bea pretty poor rep and you've

(22:00):
literally fallen on a bed ofgold and you look like a
rockstar.
You've got to look beyond thatsingular metric, right?
So it's what's your activitylevels?
What are you at?
What type of activities are youdoing?
If all your meetings arevirtual, Then you're not in
market, right?
You haven't adapted to the newworld where we've come out of
COVID.
And if you do all thesemeetings, but we get very low

(22:23):
pipeline activity, that'sobviously a problem.
Or if we see that you only eversell one thing, right?
You're not cross selling orupselling.
or your ATV is incredibly low.
Those are the indicators we wantto understand because one that
might, we might be able to trainyou and get you to a better
place or two, you might not bein the right territory for us.

No, absolutely.
And actually using data, if youactually map what your A players
are doing and then utilize thatas a data point or data points
for the B and C players saying,Hey, listen, this is what's
working with this kind ofaccount.
Here's the proof.
But also to your point, beingable to diagnose what is the
cause of the low quotaattainment?
Cause there are a lot, it's notalways the salespersons.

(23:08):
All right.
So the next part I wanted to getinto, and we just want to brush
on this quickly because it's theterm I use.
It feels very big.
And as, as Matt said it's ajourney.
And you said this too, there'sno end, right?
But you need to start.
And I like to call it revenueKaizen that you're just
starting.
It's you're going to start,you'll pick an area, you'll

(23:31):
start doing operationalimprovements.
You'll start tracking.
Maybe you do it in one part ofthe organization to see if it
works.
Before scaling out, but itreally is a way to reduce risk
and upheaval.
While gaining proof and tractionthat taking on these challenges
using a a revenue excellencestrategy is really important.
The importance of this is thatit's a continuous process and

(23:54):
includes risk taking changemanagement and constant
evaluation iteration.
And I'll also say that while yougo through this type of process
you will identify.
Who can jump on your train andwho will not because one of the
biggest landmines I see is Icall it the saboteur in the
room, and that's the person thatjust does not want this to

(24:18):
happen.
And they exist everywhere.
So this helps you identify thatwithout too much.
Any comments before I move on tothe next section on this?

Matt Yorke (24:28):
No, look, you're right about the train analogy.
And ultimately there's just noroom for those people because
you can't be in a position in,Denise's role in my role where
you're being undermined by thelack of data because certain
people are just choosing not todo it right.
At the end of the day, thebusiness has to have

(24:49):
predictability and we have to beat a forecast across all lines
and across regions.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it doesn't matter whetheryou're a good person or, you've
been a great rep or not.
It's just, it's not fair to thebusiness.
And if you're not on board,then, we'll have to leave you at
the train station.

I think another important thing is that it needs
to come from the leadership.
So I know one of the reasonsthat I was hired into this
position is because I have atrack record of growing, driving
revenue and growing businesses.
But I think more importantly isthat I have a track record of
understanding the technology andusing the technology to make the
business better.

(25:27):
And I understand literally thenuances, the ins and outs of
Salesforce, probably as well asany Salesforce admin or
developer out there, because Ijust believe in it so much.
So anyway, so at Informa, wehave five different instances of
Salesforce.
Over eight different businessesand they're all unique and they
all have their differentprocesses.
So there hasn't been anyconsistent pipeline management

(25:48):
whatsoever.
And so my challenge is to say,how do we get consistency?
And and it's not an option.
It's not negotiable.
This is where the company isheaded.
And we're going to give you allthe training, all the tools, all
the support, all the reasoning,show us how it's going to
benefit you, but it justbasically isn't going to be an
option.
It's not a choice for anybody.

(26:09):
And so it really comes down tothoughtful, getting buy in from
the key stakeholders, coachingthem, letting them know that,
we're not going to let themfail, but we have expectations
and what have you.
And so that's the beginning ofthe journey that I'm on here at
Informa.

You just hit on some really important
points there.
So one of the things, one of theuse cases in the MIT course was
Microsoft, who again, verysimilar to me.
I connected the dots betweentheir change and what's
happening in media and events.
So they went from selling thesebig license packages to, sass,
massive change for Microsoft,like you'd think one of the

(26:43):
biggest players in the world.
So the CEO is we need data todrive our journey.
And he literally would pull uphis dashboards at every single
meaning.
He then got the leaders to doit.
Then there are the leadersfunctional next in line.
And so that everybody waslooking and, when they got up in
the morning, when they left forlunch, but they were all living
by this, the data and thedashboards.

(27:06):
But it started with the CEO.
So really critical.
And I also think the technologysavvy of sales leaders is
critical.
These, the data you're capturingin and outside the CRM has
massive impact on yourforecasting, and you need to
have that knowledge and notrely, it really, and I think
it's a big trade in terms ofhiring moving forward.

(27:28):
All right, let's see.
So the revenue is a businessprocess.
It's one of the most importantones.
And I follow a lot of theserevenue leaders in sass and this
concept that it's a business ofcourse it's a business process.
But then when you think aboutit, how people have, in the past

(27:49):
looked at, it's oh, they're, letthe sales people do what they
need to do.
They're bringing in thebusiness.
Let's not rock the boat.
So the really what it was not abusiness process and there it
was disconnected from what'shappening in marketing is
disconnected to what's happeningafter the deals closed, leading
to a lot of revenue left on thetable and in fact, probably a
high impact on churn.

(28:10):
So what we did is here at H2K isunder this, our revenue
framework is we have defined.
the business, making revenue abusiness process.
And there are four components ofthis particular framework.
One is you need a revenueoperating plan.
Two, you need to align revenuecritical roles.
Three, aligning KPIs andoutcomes.

(28:31):
And four, standardization.
There is a lot to unpack here,so we'll go through each one of
these with some input from Mattand Denise.
But if you have questions again,put them in the channel.
And these are things that weclearly can dive into.
In more detail with you offline.
And we'll also be writing aplaybook about that.

(28:52):
But the first is the operatingplan.
And Matt, I think you, you'vereally nailed this.
Can you talk about youroperating plan at Foundry?

Matt Yorke (29:02):
Yep.
A big part of it is, untanglingthat journey and creating a new
company within the framework ofan old company.
And we didn't, we don't want tolose what, It's great about the
former IDG and a lot of that is,is cultural and the people but
we need to have a forward facingbusiness.

(29:25):
And so the idea of localproducts sold locally is totally
gone, right?
So it's now global products soldlocally with the exact same
KPIs, the exact same cogs and amargin contribution.
with the exact same branding.
So then customers market bymarket are able to understand
what they're buying.

(29:45):
And, for us, it was really aboutbeing more customer centric
globally, right?
Where we can have, because it isa global world, where we can
have conversations withcustomers.
And the conversation they havein Singapore about a product is
the same conversation they wouldhave in London or Munich.

(30:06):
And if one of the sellers putsin a great proposal, then their
counterpart in London or Munichcould see that proposal, adapt
it for that market and theirbuyer and drive that forward.
So it's trying to become, and weactually call up my group One
Commercial, right?
So we wanted to break, part ofour operating plan was...

(30:28):
Keep the best of what made IDGgreat, which is the people and
the cultures and the recognitionthat it's not the U.
S.
kind of approach andtransplanted into markets.
But we've got to create onecohesive team who are all facing
the same direction, who are allcustomer centric, and who are
all on the same systems with thesame KPIs.

(30:51):
Right, and that's why we call itOne Commercial, is it's just
very simple.
It kind of captures...
I'll go to market approach andwhat it is we're trying to
achieve.

Kate, any thoughts here?

No, I think that this is this is a terrific
beginning of an operating plan.
Right now I am I'm at the pointof, we're just trying to get
consistent pipeline.
So we're really early in thisjourney, but I have no doubt in
a year.
We'll have a different story.

No, absolutely.
And just my feedback on this iswhen you develop consistent
processes and people arefollowing them, it's much easier
to identify what's working,what's not, and what needs to
pivot and change.
And also you'll startidentifying areas to optimize.
And pull out what I call wastein the customer journey which in

(31:41):
turn will improve your speed todeal speed to renewal and speed
to expanded wallet share.

You also can spot yellow flags before they turn
into red flags and you can pivotmuch earlier and recover from,
and preventing something fromturning into a category five
hurricane.

Yes, absolutely.
Matt.

Matt Yorke (32:01):
Yeah, I was just gonna say, when I think about
this slide, it's also take Youknow, take one step back, which
is what is it?
You are.
What is the business challengeyou're trying to address?
All right, or the marketchallenge.
And then it becomes how cantechnology and your revenue plan
fix that, right?
Because if you start with, Hey,we just want to grow.

(32:23):
Okay, everybody just wants togrow, right?
That's not really a question.
I think you have tofundamentally, what is the
question you're trying toaddress within the business that
will give you sustainablesuccess, right?
And then once you understandthat you begin to have, you know
as you've got here This sort ofoperating revenue operation
plan, which is designed toaddress that.

Absolutely, and to your point about growth
is I was reading somethingyesterday and that's You know,
there is a fundamentaldifference in high quality
revenue and low quality revenueAnd a lot of investors and
private equity partners arereally honing in on the high
quality revenue which is yourexisting customers growing and

(33:06):
expanding.
And what are the processes anddata around that?
And in order to do that, you doneed to have an operating plan.
So this is the actually,interestingly enough, this slide
here, this was The germ for mefor the revenue, which I
trademarked in 2018, and thatwas from working with a group

(33:27):
that they actually had a foursided room, four walls, and they
were putting their SDRs, theiraccount executives and their
customer success teams togetherin the room.
And then when I came in toadvise we furthered it to create
sales pods that where the SDR,the AE and the customer success
teams were all sitting aroundthe same sort of hub.

(33:49):
And focused on the samecustomers and my, and the reason
for that is we wanted to makesure that the SDRs we're talking
and do and aligned with what thesales people were wanting to
sell what was on them.
They were doing events.
And that what was sold was whatcould be delivered.
And so that the customer successteam was almost like a sales

(34:11):
engineering team presale andthen was delivered.
They were, supporting theaccounts.
And then as they were supportingthe accounts, they could loop
back leads.
from those accounts for Oh, Iwas just talking to the customer
and they want to do a lead genprogram.
And so it really shortened andtightened up sales cycles.

(34:31):
It reduced a ton of friction.
But my bigger vision for thisconstruct was that how do you
get marketing involved so thatthe marketing messaging is the
same or online?
Or we pivot it because we seesales doing really well in this
category and we need moremarketing about that.
And then product like what'sthis loop so that we are
completely customer centric.

(34:52):
So it's not that these thingsdon't exist in the business
right now.
It's just that.
Are they connected with the plussign?
Any thoughts

Matt Yorke (35:00):
I think that slide captures the complexity in it,
right?
Because there's a lot of there'sa lot of different roles and
responsibilities.
And I think with the rightapproach, if you approach it
from the point of view thatthere's roles and
responsibility, butfundamentally, it's about
customer accountability, right?

(35:21):
As a group, that's what we'refocused on.
No matter who sits where orwhether we're in the room or not
in the room, we will be in abetter place.
Now, of course, to do that, youcan't have bits of paper moving
around and Excel spreadsheets.
As transparently.
People have access to, to, todata, right?

(35:42):
That's helping them understandthat we're doing a good job or
we're doing a bad job.
Is there an opportunity for anupsell or a bust?
So it's a great, it's a verysimple slide, but I think it's a
great slide.

Thank you.
Denise?

I agree.
You have to really focus on thecustomer experience and all of
these departments are equallyimportant in delivering that
customer experience.
And I go back to the old dayswhen I first started in this
business where I think Heather,you had mentioned at the
beginning of the call, sales isjust let me do it my way.
I'm just I'm bringing in all themoney and don't worry about how
I'm doing it.
Yeah, no, you have to worryabout how you're doing it now

(36:16):
because.
Everybody needs to be alignedand also the old model in the
trade show business was themarketing departments were
focused on attendee marketingand that's beginning to shift.
You really have to focus onattendee marketing is still
critical, obviously but thereneeds to be some resources that
are applied to lead gen on theexhibitor and sponsor side,
because The markets are shiftingthe expectations of the

(36:39):
customers are shifting, and youalways want to be able to find
that new growth, not necessarilyhave to stay in one tiny little
universe.
Shows are just evolving so much.
You've got to be on theforefront of finding that new
potential set of kinds ofcustomers that you want.

I'll make one more point before we go on
to three.
And that is there are a lot ofbusinesses I talked to that are
in this position where theyhave, again, the old guard
salespeople used to selling inthis very, square foot or print
or even just you're going to get5, 000 leads.
Very transactional.
But if you put that those folkstogether with some of the new

(37:14):
entrants who are better atselling these more integrated
programs, more solutionoriented, two things happen.
One is either they're gonna,they're gonna scale up and learn
and do it in a way that is notconfrontational to them.
Or you will find out veryquickly if that person is not
You know, wanting to jump on thetrain.
It's a, I think this is a veryimportant mindset to adopt.

(37:38):
Okay.
So the next part of this is theKPIs and outcomes.
And I'm just going to, this is alot.
So we'll just touch on it, butthe net here is revenue critical
roles should all have some levelof target and KPI That's
connected to revenue and thatincludes on the product side.

(38:03):
Content teams.
It includes the user experienceoperationally of how you're
connecting.
And these are some of those KPIsthat we've identified in
addition to their regularfunctional KPIs.
But this is a huge shift.
But I thought I think it'ssomething that absolutely has to
take place.

(38:23):
What are your thoughts do?

I agree with you 100%.
In fact, when I was at CES theyhad a really good way of
structuring bonus plans and itwas all driven around these KPIs
and every single person in thecompany had a goal that was
focused on revenue.
So I couldn't agree more becauseat the end of the day that's
what's, that's what keeps thebusiness in the business.

Yep.
And then this also, and Matt,I'll get to you in a second,
requires you to have your datain order because in order to
track all of this.
Yeah, it's the data.
The data sits behind everythinghere.
Matt, what are your thoughts?

Matt Yorke (38:55):
Yeah, no, 100 percent agree.
There's products that maybe isnot the most profitable, but
it's highly sold by a group ofreps because they're comfortable
with it.
But when you look at it, yourealize that actually we
shouldn't even be in thatproduct, right?
And you need data to help usmake those decisions.
I think product management isreally important part of today's

(39:19):
modern world in the mediaevents.
business.
I think the integration ofmarketing is fundamentally
important.
You've got to make sure thattheir motions are aligned to
what is going on in the marketand the needs of the that
they're working in love withsales, right?
And there's a feedback loop.

(39:39):
And we're in this together,whether it's, like our high rev
accounts should be getting adifferent kind of motion.
Than our potential net newlogos, right?
Those are fundamentallydifferent messaging that need to
be aligned We need to be out oftrack and understand that.

Yep.
No, absolutely.
And with that customer success,I'm with accounts once they're
closed in order to profitablyrun the business.
And I've seen this just becausethe account looks really big.
And they get the hugestdiscount.
It doesn't mean they get themost support.
You really have to start lookingat the, those unit level
profitability metrics using thisdata.

(40:18):
And connecting the dots herehelps with that.

One of the other things that I want to point out
is we're starting to focus oninventory management.
So the difference betweenlettuce and garbage is timing.
One minute it's lettuce and whenit spoils.
It's garbage, right?
So the timing.
So we're in the business whereour inventory has an expiration
date.
If we left, 4000 square feetunsold, that's money we left on

(40:42):
the table.
If we, sold, fewer, banners ordigital opportunities are
surrounding a show that has adeadline.
That's inventory that we leftunsold.
So it's key.
Whether it's the operations teamor the marketing team with the
sales team that is looking atthe inventory or managing all of
the inventory, people need to bemindful of how much inventory is

(41:02):
left.
How much more revenue can wedrive for this particular show
or newsletter or whatever it is?
that has an expiration date onit

right there again, getting adding free
cash to the bottom line.
If you were able to tighten upthat inventory loss by X
percent, you're talking millionsof dollars,

Matt Yorke (41:20):
or even just pricing, right?
The oftentimes we'll haveconversations around pricing
and, people will yes.
And then you walk out the roomand it's no, because it might be
difficult for them.
And they, they don't want to tryand force that on a on a
customer, but you can use,essentially these platforms, the
software to drive that.

(41:41):
And, we always, I always use theexample.
If we do 2 million leads, yeah.
And on January the 1st, everyonewakes up and I've raised the
base CPL by 2.
That's 4 million to the bottomline before we've sold a single
thing.
And you can't get out of itbecause it's sitting inside the
system and the system is thatyou're going to configure your

(42:03):
quotes, right?
So there's no way around that.
So I think Denise's point oninventory management is really
important.
And I think the more data wegenerate commercial
organizations, we're going toget better at pricing, right?
You just think about Uber andhotels, how the prices fluctuate
wildly based on demand.
We don't necessarily do a goodjob of that in the kind of media

(42:25):
and events business.
And I think that's a massiveopportunity for us.

Yeah, absolutely.
Just being mindful of time.
We got 12 minutes, butstandardization is the next one.
And I honestly believe you can'tdo any of the other things
without standardization.
And again, it starts with data.
It's a process.
It's your products.
And I think Matt, you and Ispoke earlier in the year.

(42:49):
And one of the things thatreally struck me is when you
were talking about newsletters,for example, and you were like,
we have, we have the newsletter,we have the same name, but it's,
different format, different,delivery date, different so in
order to compare apples toapples, is this newsletter doing
well?
And can I report on it?
It was impossible.
And that's a very small exampleof standardization.

(43:10):
But if Whether you're a largecompany or you're a small
company or you're acquiringcompanies, it's this part is a
critical area and it's hits alldifferent levels, but we need to
standardize what we're doing sowe can identify what's working,
what's not.
We can speed up, get rid ofwaste.
We can hire better, we canupskill better, it's, I can't

(43:33):
talk more about how importantthis is.
Any thoughts on this?

A hundred percent.
I am literally at the beginningof this journey trying to
standardize across these eightbusiness units and all these
different platforms that we haveand different business processes
and different nuances to showsjust finding that lowest common
denominator to create thestandardization across the whole
North American business.

Matt Yorke (43:59):
That's part of our transformation, where we've got
global products sold locally.
Same name, same nomenclature,same cogs, same margin
contribution.
So now when we look, an apple isan apple.
It's not a bloody orange.
And we don't, we couldn't figureout why they're different.
We now know that we're lookingat two apples and then it's a,
then we can drill in andunderstand what's going on.

So these are operating principles, and
this is a lot of again more tounpack.
There are about 10 principlesthat, again, you take them on
and we've spoken about a lot ofthem.
We've already spoken aboutstarts with leadership.
We talked about the forecastinga slightly the governance, but
I'll quickly go into each ofthese.
And again, if you're interestedin diving deeper into the it.

(44:44):
this information.
We absolutely be happy to set upsome time.
But I talked about theleadership side.
Matt and Denise also spoke aboutit.
It's if you don't have a leaderat the top of your business that
believes that this has tohappen, it won't happen.
It's one of the biggestlandmines across the board.

(45:06):
You agree, Denise and Matt.

I agree.
And I also think has trueunderstanding of the technology
and how to use it.

Yeah,

Matt Yorke (45:18):
I think that's the key thing that what Denise just
said there.
Don't go buy stuff for the sakeof it.
Make sure you understand thatwhat you need to address the
business challenge.
And that needs to come from thetop.

I think the other one for me that's very
important on this is data fuelsthe journey.
Another thing I hear when I talkwith media and event organizers.
It's, they're so good on theaudience side, right?
They've got the audience datanailed down, with their C D P
and they can personalizemessaging, but somehow that does
not connect to the revenue side.
It just, this part has to beaddressed because you cannot

(45:56):
make.
center of excellence.
If you don't have a singlesource of truth with the right
types of data curation, lookingat the right metrics, the right
KPI.
So and it's transparent andeveryone can follow this so that
you can get better at what youdo.
So it's really critical aboutthe data.
Do you agree, Matt?

Matt Yorke (46:17):
Yeah, it's it's the fuel.
It's the you don't want data forthe sake of data, right?
But ultimately, we, you can onlymake informed decisions if you
are using data.
And that's the world we live intoday.
And it's, it's high volumes ofdata.
It's a very complex world.
Despite digital supposed to havebeen, make things easier, it's

(46:38):
made it much, much harder.
But if we work with data, we canactually make really smart and
informed decisions.

And I'm going to go to the next one.
And someone asked you to pipe inhere.
These are the next, the secondhalf of the principles, which
is, and we talked about it'sevolutionary.
That was the whole revenueKaizen.
There's the customer obsession,but forecasting as a core
competency.
I think this one is overlooked.
As how it actually has to beline and step with your Sales

(47:09):
cadence is forecasting cadence.
Do you agree with me?

I agree.
100 percent that forecasting isa core competency should be a
core competency, but noteverybody knows how to do it
correctly.
And when I asked all thesedifferent businesses saying,
help me understand how you'repreparing your forecast that's
going up the line.

(47:34):
Who's doing it?
Who's involved?
Where does the pipeline come in?
And there are some where it's wesit around the table and we say
we can do X number in the monthof October, because that's what
we did last year, but there's nodata behind it and supporting
it.
There's no opportunities there.
And those kinds of things makeme very nervous.
I would rather operate on thetrust, but verify because if

(47:55):
somebody is going to ask me, ifNan Walsh says to me, Denise,
how sure are you that, X, Y, Zshow is going to hit their
number.
Okay, I want to be able to sayI'm really sure because when I
look at the pipeline in thereand the opportunities that they
have and I overlay it with thecadence that they're on and what
they've done last year, theseare all the elements is going

(48:16):
into saying, I feel comfortableabout this number that I'm
presenting to you.
And I think that very often.
People who are presenting theforecast aren't, a lot of it's
like by the seat of their pants,which is a scary way to run the
business.

Yeah, that's that can't be intuition
based or gut based anymore.
And and if you're not looking atunderlying pipelines and just
trusting a forecast numberthat's being given to you,
you're in true danger.
Yep.
Been there.
Okay.
Just to wrap this up.
In today's world the mostimportant thing to investors, to

(48:53):
boards and CEOs is you've gotto, is your existing base and
how you're going to retain andgrow the high quality revenue I
mentioned before and buildingthese capabilities so that you
can as Denise mentioned, CESdidn't have to go off
spreadsheets.
They were 70 million business.
They were doing fine.
They knew they needed to do itto prepare for the what if this

(49:15):
is what this is all about.
We're putting this together foranother event.
This is the capabilities wheel,and we're going to put under
each one of these like abeginner level, a mid level and
the advanced level.
But these are the things youshould be thinking about in
terms of capabilities withinyour organization.
Am I missing anything on ourwheel, Denise and Matt?

I think it's pretty comprehensive.

Matt Yorke (49:41):
Yeah, I think it is very comprehensive.
I think when I look today, Iwould Almost further highlight
customer intimacy and then I,although you've got go to market
motions, I think the role ofmarketing, right?
And just having that connecteddata set that help is helping
drive that whole kind of willthere.

(50:02):
I think that's really importantbecause, even where you've got
the back end, their forecastingmanagement to Denise's point, if
we've gone off, if we were onback of the napkin, we'll get
back at the napkin results.
But if we know that marketing isabout to launch a campaign that
is, specifically aligned to acertain event or, a product, and
then we're immediately able tosee the impact of that.

(50:25):
That gives you confidence,right?
You can go.
Yeah, the pipeline is heretoday, but this is what's
happening, right?
And we're seeing it andtherefore we extrapolate.
However, many days out.
So I just think the role ofmarketing is fundamentally
important to how we think aboutour customers today.

Another thing that jumps out here is the data
fluency.
I think that a lot of peopledon't have the data fluency
people who need it.
We need to school them and trainthem on how the data tells
stories.
Absolutely.
And help them to run theirbusiness.
Yeah, I think that's a key thingwhere I think most sales
organizations could use somepolishing up.

Yeah, and you can't hire your way to data
fluency.
It actually does have to happenorganically.
Okay, we don't have time forquestions.
Please email me if you want afree consultation or want to
talk further about this.
Our next boot camp is onunlocking business value, data
driven strategies for C levelteams, boards, and investors.
This is all about the whetherit's you just, you're at an

(51:20):
inflection point in yourbusiness of we're at 60 million
and now we're at 100 and ourbusiness has changed and we need
to change with it.
Or we want to be acquired or wewant to acquire or we've got a
private equity investor and thedata requests are becoming more
and more.
Important for us.
That's what this webinar isabout.
And please check out the revenueroom.

(51:40):
We've got tons of great contentthere.
And I thank my awesome speakers,my revenue room experts, Matt
and Denise.
And I appreciate everyone whohas attended.
Thank you.
You can find us@2klabs.com.
Thank you.
Thank you for listening to TheRevenue Room by H2K Labs.
Subscribe to our channel today.

All Episodes

The Revenue Room™ - The Journey to Revenue Excellence

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The Revenue Room™ - The Journey to Revenue Excellence