July 30, 2024 • 36 mins
Heather talks with Denise Medved, Chief Commercial Officer, Informa Markets North America. This episode explores Medved's extensive career in the B2B and B2C events industry, her current role at Informa, and the challenges and opportunities in leveraging data for revenue growth and business transformation in the events sector.
Denise is an executive advisory board member of H2K Labs' new C-suite network, Revenue Room™ Connect. Revenue Room™ Connect helps leaders in media, events, data/information and marketplace businesses fuel enterprise value by leveraging data, digital and AI.
Key points from the discussion:
• Medved's diverse career path led her to her current role at Informa, where she focuses on creating consistency across multiple business units.
• Informa Markets was created through several acquisitions, resulting in complex data environments and multiple instances of Salesforce CRM.
• Medved's primary mission is to focus on sales excellence and enablement, maximizing efficiencies and optimizing revenue growth through data and technology.
• The company standardized opportunity records in Salesforce across all business units, creating consistency in forecasting and reporting.
• Informa is using talent assessment tools combined with performance data to ensure the right people are in the right sales roles.
• The importance of understanding different data sources, definitions, and appetite for change when implementing new data-driven processes.
• Medved emphasizes patience, empathy, and clear communication when driving organizational change and adopting new technologies.
• The growing importance of data in driving business decisions and the excitement around CEOs embracing data-driven approaches.
The discussion highlights the critical role of data in transforming B2B media and events businesses and demonstrates the challenges and opportunities of standardizing data practices across a large, complex organization. It underscores the importance of strategic data management, sales enablement, and change management in driving revenue growth and business value in the modern events industry.
ATTEND REVVEDUP 2025
RevvedUP is an event designed specifically for CEOs and their C-Suite teams leading B2B/B2C media, event, information, data and marketplace businesses. Join the industry leaders and visionaries leveraging digital, data assets and AI to drive exceptional growth and superior enterprise value. To register and learn more, please visit https://www.accelevents.com/e/revvedup-2025.
ABOUT H2K LABS
H2K Labs is a tech-enabled value creation specialist that helps media, data/information, event, and marketplace businesses accelerate revenue, drive profitability, and fuel enterprise value using data, digital, and AI. We host The Revenue Room™ Podcast, curate Revenue Room™ Connect, a professional network for CEO and their revenue-critical C-Suite teams, and produce events including RevvedUP 2025. For more information, please visit https://www.h2klabs.com
To join Revenue Room™ Connect, please visit https://info.h2klabs.com/revenue-room-connect-information-request
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to the Revenue Roompresented by H2K Labs.
Here's your host, HeatherHolst-Knudsen.
Hello, and welcome to therevenue room podcast, where we
talk about everything data,digital AI, and revenue.
(00:21):
Before I kick off with our greatguest, I'm excited to announce a
new solution from H2K labsrevved up is an in person event
for CEOs and their revenuecritical C suite teams.
And it takes place November 13thand 14th in Sarasota, Florida.
We've architected Rev'd Up forexecutives who are truly serious
about data enabled enterprisevalue creation and business
(00:42):
transformation.
But why now?
There's a seismic shift underwayin how CEOs fuel enterprise
value creation and sustainablegrowth.
What worked yesterday, no longerworks today.
They must harness data, digital,and AI.
But yet an astounding 86 percentof CEOs, while they believe AI
will maintain or grow theircompany revenues and value, they
(01:04):
have no idea where tostrategically focus their
efforts and investments, andthat's from Gartner.
This isn't limited to 100qualified CEOs and C suite
revenue critical leaders.
Visit h2klabs.
com slash revved up with two V'sto learn more.
All right, so now onto theprogram.
Today I'm delighted to welcomeDenise Medved, Chief Commercial
(01:26):
Officer in Forma Markets, NorthAmerica.
Denise has a deep background inB2B and B2C events and trade
shows and has held executivelevel leadership roles at Money
2020 USA.
Informa in a previous role andConsumer Technology Association,
among many other businesses.
She also was the founder and CEOof the Metropolitan Cooking and
(01:47):
Entertaining Show for eightyears.
Denise is what I call anadvanced data leader.
She truly gets it.
And she's very serious.
She's a trusted advisor andexpert when it comes to data
fueled revenue and profitacceleration in multi sided
business environments.
Welcome, Denise.
Oh, thank you, Heather.
I really appreciate you invitingme.
(02:09):
Can you, Anad, you've such avaried career.
You've been, you've worked indifferent, like the B2C side,
B2B.
Now you're at one of the largestevent organizers in the world.
Can you tell the audience a bitabout your background?
Sure.
I'm going to start with, if Ilooked at my resume, number one,
I would never hire me.
And number two, I would neverbelieve it.
(02:29):
So let's just start with that.
I, I've not had a job at oneplace for more than four and a
half years with the exception ofowning my own company.
But I think that's okay.
I feel here I am at the end ofmy career.
I have strung together all thesedifferent experiences that just
got me to where I am, quitehonestly.
I was a finance major at GeorgeWashington University.
(02:51):
I worked on the Hill as anintern while I was at GW.
Graduated, I went to New York,and I worked on Wall Street for
four and a half years.
I moved back to Alexandria,Virginia, my hometown, and I
just stumbled into the tradeshow industry.
And I started out at natural,National Trade Productions in
Alexandria and it's owned by BobHarar.
(03:15):
He had launched a show, afederal IT show for the, for the
government and was doing aregional launch.
And I had no idea what I wantedto do when I moved back from New
York, but I knew that I didn'twant to be in finance.
Because if I wanted to stay infinance, I would have stayed in
New York.
It was very simple, the jobcriteria that I had.
And I know that this is crazy,but this is the truth.
(03:35):
I didn't want to have to get ona highway to go to work.
I was living in my parents housefor temporarily, and I didn't
want any more than a 10 minutecommute.
I wanted to be in sales becauseI wanted to be able to dictate
how much money I brought home atthe end of every single month.
And I went down to the careeroffice at George Washington
University, and there was anindex card on the cork bulletin
(03:56):
board.
And it said trade shows,national trade productions,
Alexandria, Virginia, and salesand Alexandria, Virginia caught
my eye.
I said, this is probablysomething I can do.
And that's how I got into thetrade show business to be
perfectly honest.
And from there, I've been inmany different, I worked at Read
Exhibitions.
I worked at, like you said,Consumer Technology Association.
(04:18):
I did a stint at IDG World Expo.
I'm not even sure if they'rearound anymore.
I launched my own company, aconsumer event, the Metropolitan
Cooking and Entertaining Show.
And I sold that and then I endedup a CES after that.
And stayed for four and a halfyears and thought that I was
really at the end of my career.
Then I was very content, notworking full time.
And fast forward, here I am nowas a chief commercial officer
(04:42):
at, at informal markets.
But all along the way in everysingle one of those jobs, I
always had very specific goalsin mind of what I wanted to be
able to accomplish and what Iwanted to be able to learn.
I had no idea where things weregoing to take me after I owned
my own company.
I always knew that I wanted toown my own company.
So prior to owning it,everything I did was purposeful.
(05:04):
And so anything in my careerbeyond owning my own company and
after I sold it has just been abonus for me.
Yeah, being an entrepreneurmyself, and you sound very much
like an entrepreneur.
There's all of these wordsyou're saying, and even just the
way you started off, I've onlybeen places a year or something,
which is actually not quitetrue, but you're definitely an
(05:24):
entrepreneur at heart.
And it sounds like a learner.
What actually, that's a greatpoint that you brought up about
always Wanting to learnsomething from where you are.
What is it that you're learningnow at Informa Markets in this
role?
Oh, wow.
I would say probably one of thebiggest things that I am
learning, and I have the lastcouple of years, is working with
(05:46):
generations that are One, two,maybe generations younger than I
am.
I'm old enough to be manypeople's mother.
I could probably even be somepeople's grandmothers.
And their work style is verydifferent.
The workplace is very differentnow than it was when I say I was
their age.
Like the, just like.
(06:06):
The gap between when I was theirage and people who are my age
was maybe this wide and how wework in our philosophies and
what have you, whereas now thegap is this wide and I'm not
saying that there's nothingwrong with that gap, it's just a
fact, things are different.
So I learned so much from thatyounger generation and I would
say that's probably the biggestthing that I'm learning.
(06:26):
That's a really fascinatingpoint.
And I agree that You've got allof these different generations
now working together becausethey're still the boomers.
I think the silent generation iseither already out or going out
and like my dad's age.
Then you have the boomergeneration, you have Gen X, then
you have the Millennials and theMillennials for some reason It's
(06:47):
you could be qualified as a likean old or a young one.
Now.
This is what I'm hearing Sothey're in this millennial side
They're they're considered oldand then you have the Gen Z and
now I don't know what the newones called But they're all in
the world Gen Z the beginning ofGen Z is in the workforce now.
Yeah.
Yeah And it's fascinatingbecause I really love, I love
(07:09):
learning from them.
I love coaching them andmentoring them.
And so I would say to me, one ofthe biggest challenges of this
job is how do I park mythoughts, my work habits and
everything at the door.
Okay.
And not force or impose them onthe different generations.
Well, at the same time, helpingto drive the growth of the
(07:32):
business, because there's lotsof different ways to skin the
cat in my way, the way I grewup, the experiences that I have
clearly isn't the only way.
And so I would say that one ofthe biggest challenges was like
being really patient, learningfrom them a lot and, and being
very open minded.
You've got to be very openminded.
And I, we should dive into thisa little later in the podcast
(07:53):
because I'm very curious to knowif there is a difference, do you
see a difference in thesegenerations in terms of how they
want to and demand to use datain order to help them do their
jobs better?
Well, yeah, that's a reallyinteresting question because
(08:14):
there are data analysts nowwe've got a lot of data analysts
or financial analysts in thebusiness, whereas maybe 15 years
ago we didn't have quite as manyand there certainly wasn't the
demand on the sales side of themarketing side for people to
have the, the, that skillset.
And so there's a lot of that inthe workforce now.
When it comes down to therevenue producers and people
(08:38):
managing revenue producers,there's lots of tools in place.
Salesforce happens to be our CRMof choice.
And I would say it's 50 50 ofwhat I've experienced here at,
at Informa.
50 percent are like reallywedded to it and they rely on
it.
And that the other 50 percentthey're getting used to it
because that's the way we'redoing business now.
(08:59):
And once they start seeing thebenefits of it, they're, they're
on board, but I would say thatif you help them understand how
to use the data, particularly bybuilding dashboards and telling
the story for them.
You get a whole lot more andbetter user adoption.
They're not the ones that shouldbe responsible for bringing the
data together and massaging itto tell the story.
(09:21):
There should be people in thebackground doing that can create
these dashboards and help peopleunderstand what the meaning is
behind it and how they shoulduse it to do their job and how
it will make them just be moreefficient, drive more growth,
and just be a better all aroundsalesperson.
Yeah.
So that you, you, There's like adivide in a way and again, we
(09:42):
should do a study on this, butit's, there's the ones who are
coming in and automaticallybeing trained about how data is
going.
That's part of their job, right?
What am I looking at?
What do I need to learn?
How to, how do I interpret itand how do I use it in my
workflows and how do I measurehow I'm using my workflows to
help me do my job better versus.
(10:03):
And they do it just because it'spart of their natural DNA versus
the other side, where you're,you have to pitch them and sell
them on why it's good for themand what they're going to get
out of it in order to convincethem to start adopting it.
Yeah, I mean, I would say we'revery much in a transition period
now where we still have peoplewho didn't grow up on data now
(10:26):
in the workforce with people whodid grow up on data.
So it's a co mingling ofdifferent types of people.
And, and the folks who grew upon the data, it's usually the
digital natives because theylearned it in school.
Like I didn't, we weren't taughtExcel.
Excel didn't even exist when Iwas in school, in high school or
college.
Now they're learning it soearly.
So we're in this transitionperiod of people who, who didn't
have to use it.
(10:47):
And now all of a sudden it's,they've got to learn it.
And people who came with it,cause that's what they know.
So just moving into a more of amacro topic, which is the
company you work for InformaMarkets, which to me is a really
interesting data story in that.
It's, and again, time goes by soquickly you forget, but that
(11:08):
Informa is essentially builtfrom various acquisitions,
right, of different markets, andwith that brought to the,
brought to the business, alldifferent types of data, how
data is managed, stored, used,platforms.
Can you talk about how that hasimpacted, you know, your role as
(11:30):
a new role ish, new ish, right?
I think you're the first ChiefCustomer Officer that Informant
Markets has.
Why they created that, and isthat actually a result of the
data environment created bythis, the quilt of Yeah, I don't
know that it's, that it'sspecifically a result of the
data environment.
To your point, Informant wascreated by several acquisitions.
(11:53):
And, and there are, under NanWall, she's my boss and who I
love to death and is the reasonthat I'm here, quite honestly.
So she has eight families thatare reporting up into her.
We've got the fashion family,the INC family, the natural
products family, supply side,etc.
So there's eight families.
They were all differentacquisitions.
Typically when an acquisition isbrought into Informa or any
(12:15):
business, quite honestly, youbring in the tech stack with it.
Okay.
You bring in the tech stack withit because it's embedded and it
has historical data and it's,and their processes are wedded
to it.
And the tech stack, if you lookat it from a sales perspective,
yeah, your CRM and they allhappen to be on Salesforce.
So we actually have fivedifferent instances of
Salesforce, believe it or not.
But then also integrated intothat is the floor plan systems.
It could be map your show.
(12:36):
It could be A to Z.
It could be ExpoCAD.
And then tethered into thatcould be another financial
system.
And then there could be also amedia system that is serving the
digital platforms.
So it comes with a tangled webof integrated technology.
And anytime you have systems,you typically have data that's
being driven out of thosesystems, okay?
So they're all woven together,they are interconnected.
(12:58):
And then, and being able tounlock all of that data so it
becomes usable, and like I said,you can tell these stories out
of the data.
Is a gigantic lift.
Okay, being able to get thebusinesses working consistently
across everybody.
It's sales working pretty muchconsistently is a gigantic lift.
So one of the reasons that thatNan created this position was.
(13:20):
There was really eight differentfamilies working independently
because when Informa buyssomething, they, they want to
keep it intact and have itoperating.
They, they're not of the mindsetthat everything is a cookie
cutter and it all must operatelike this.
There are commercial leads, veryseasoned, very talented
commercial leads of all of thesebusinesses.
And what I, what was importantwas bring some commonality to
the, to the businesses.
(13:40):
So when Nan took over as thepresident of North America, she
started creating a relationshipAcross all of the commercial
leads.
I don't think that thoserelationships that established
before had been establishedbefore.
She took that because they wereall operating independently.
So she established that toprelationship at the commercial
lead level.
Then she created my position,which said, I want some
(14:01):
consistency across Howard,across the business on how we
are doing sales and salesexcellence.
And so getting down to that nextlayer of not just the commercial
leads, but those who are responddirectly responsible for the
sales of the sales VPs and thesales directors and what have
you.
And, and she wanted somebody whounderstood a new technology and
new data, because at the heartof all of this is Salesforce.
(14:23):
And we'd had discussions veryearly on when I had done, I call
it my internship with Informa.
I had done like a eight or ninemonth stints before I went to
money 2020.
Which I did a one year stintbefore I came back here in this
position.
But we would talk frequentlyabout, Denise, why can't I just
get a forecast report?
Like, why does it take us weeksand weeks to get a forecast
(14:43):
report that, you know, that issomewhat meaningful?
And oh, by the way, it's dead onarrival because it's about 40
days old.
And we've had scores of manhours into this because it's
nine families.
Or eight families and fivedifferent instances of
salesforce and I said you got adata problem So anyway, so one
of the things that I that hasbeen my mission and really my
goal is to focus on How do wecreate sales excellence and
(15:06):
sales enablement so that we cantake the investments that we are
making in our people and our?
technology Use them, maximizethe efficiencies out of them,
and optimize the growth and therevenue that we're getting out
of them.
So that is really what my roleis.
And obviously technology andSalesforce play a big part of
this, and the data plays agigantic part of this.
And getting the consistencyacross the business.
(15:29):
Wow.
Okay.
So.
I know that was a mouthful,wasn't it?
Yeah, it's a lot.
It's, it is.
No, it's, and it's a huge, it'sa huge job.
If you just think about all ofthe data you're dealing with
those seven businesses and.
Yeah.
I'm assuming you, youencountered some friction trying
to normalize things becausepeople were used to doing it
(15:50):
their way.
I think one of your first thingsI remember when we first spoke
was you were tackling, was it 70pipeline stages that you were
able to get one to seven?
Yep.
Yep.
And so what we did was like,look, the intent is not to make
every single thing a cookiecutter and, and you need to
understand that every event hassome very unique aspects to that
(16:15):
event that you can't just makeit look like the other event.
So.
That's just a given.
So what I did as I started onthis journey of saying, okay,
how do we create someconsistency in how we are
forecasting and knowing that allthe instances of Salesforce were
a little bit different, I said,let me find the lowest common
denominator.
And at the end of the day, whatis the most important thing to
(16:36):
get some good consistentpipelines and forecasting?
And it boils down to, for thoseof you that know Salesforce, it
boils down to that opportunityrecord, when you are opening up
an opportunity, you For acustomer that may buy something
from us.
Just creating consistency andgetting the account name,
putting in a close date on whenyou think that opportunity is
(16:58):
going to close, assign it astage and assign it a dollar
amount.
And so we just focused on that.
If we can teach all of thefamilies to do that
consistently, Then we've got afantastic starting point and we
have consistent data.
And quite honestly, anybodyrunning a sales organization
should be requiring those foursimple pieces of data on any
(17:21):
opportunity that's in apipeline.
It's not an unreasonable ask.
No, not, not at all.
And you wouldn't believe thenumber of companies I talked to
where the CEO and I talk aboutCRM, like I said, I have 50
percent of our sales people areusing it and you're sitting
there, but that's notacceptable.
Yeah.
But why are you investing in theplatform?
(17:42):
But I digress.
I have a question for you withthat.
Have you measured, are you, withthe things that you've been
doing and, and normalizing and,and standardizing, have you been
able to, for example, tightenthe timeframe of the, the
forecasting, for example?
I think you mentioned 45 daysout now, has it, have you been
able to improve that?
Yeah, now it's on demand.
Now you hit a button becausewhat we did was we got
(18:04):
everybody, we got everybodyusing the opportunity object
consistently.
And so, uh, the data isstructured well.
So once you do that, you cancreate an unlimited number of
reports.
So we standardized the set ofreports and a set of dashboards
within each one of the systems.
So if I wanted to go into anyone of our five systems and look
at any one of our 70 plusproperties, or including media,
(18:27):
I could run a pipeline report.
So it's there, it's all indemand and it's all in a
consistent format across theentire business.
Excellent.
And are you guys usingSalesforce?
Uh, I think they used to call itEinstein.
I'm not sure too.
I don't know if they still do,but the revenue intelligence
layer.
We are not using that revenueintelligence layer consistently
across the business.
(18:47):
What I was focused on was let'sjust use that opportunity, that
opportunity object, the same,get that rolled out across the
whole, all these families.
Create this consistent set ofreports and dashboards and give
ourselves a solid foundationupon which to grow.
So we now have that very solidfoundation.
We have a set of dashboards.
(19:07):
We have an executive level setof dashboards that I could look
at or a commercial lead couldlook at or a head of sales or an
ad if she was selling a clientcould look at and spot really
early on.
What's a potential risk?
Like, what should we look intoon a show that might not be
performing the way we think itshould be performing?
So from there, now that we'vegot the baseline, the foundation
set, okay, we went from here tohere and now we've got a great
(19:31):
foundation and we can startgoing there and there.
So Einstein is definitely on theradar for us to look at.
CRMA, which is their CRManalytics, which allows you to
make much fancier dashboards.
It allows you to bring in datafrom five instances of
Salesforce into one and createreports and dashboards so that
we could look at the entirebusiness.
(19:51):
instead of having to, to, to logon to five different systems.
Yeah, no, and it's, that'sreally smart and very well, it's
disciplined.
Capabilities building and youbuild over and over.
So we spoke at, uh, an event youand I both attended, and you
brought up a really cool usecase, which was how you through
(20:13):
this process and looking at thedata, you start, you were, and
some training and testing youdid with the sales teams.
You actually were able to useCombining those, you were able
to say, this salespersonactually is selling enterprise
when they should be doingtransactional and by utilizing
that and actually changing rolesor what they were focused on,
(20:35):
you, you saw some reallyexciting outcome.
Can you talk about it?
It's, it's, it's all reallyinteresting because it's all
based on data and our wholefocus and approach is to data
driven sales management, datadriven sales performance.
Okay.
And we've got our Salesforcedata.
And one of the things that.
That Nan and I had discussedlike back in the fall was we
(20:56):
really need to understand thetalent that we have a little bit
more than we currently do.
Because again, my role was a newrole.
The families may understandtheir talent, but I don't
necessarily understand all ofit.
And so I, and there was oneparticular team that I was
working on.
They needed to do a salesreorganization and I was taking
the lead on that.
I said, But I don't know, Idon't know these people.
Okay.
(21:16):
I can see their performancenumbers.
I don't know who's a hunter,who's a farmer, this, that, and
the other.
So the upshot of all of that iswe decided to, to use a talent
assessment tool called Talogyand give it to all the
salespeople, all the revenueproducers, and all of the people
who are responsible for managingrevenue producers.
And what it does is it just.
(21:38):
It measures people's instinctbehaviors that identifies what's
your instinctive behavior likewhat motivates you instinctively
and that's literally all itdoes.
And then you can match it up to,I don't know, I think they have
65 different job profiles andthere are several of which are
sales.
So we took this and then wemarried people up against these
different job profiles.
(21:58):
Hunter, Farmer, StrategicSelling, Sales Leadership.
And we could see how well, orexcuse me, we could see what
someone's natural affinity wasto a particular job function.
Then we took the performancedata, okay, how are they
performing against their quota.
And we said, okay, gosh, thisperson might not be a natural
(22:23):
salesperson, according to thisTalengy data.
However, they're performingreally well.
They're hitting their goals allthe time, which means it is a
learned behavior.
They love what they're doing somuch they have learned how to do
it.
I, I, I say that because We nowhave two different sets of data.
We have performance, raw numberdata, did you make your quote or
(22:43):
didn't you, and we have anunderstanding of what makes them
tick instinctively, and we usethat information very
thoughtfully to say, do we havethe right people in the right
seats?
Do we need more hunters on thisshow?
Do we need more farmers?
Do we need more hybrid people?
Is there somebody who's gotgreat potential to be a sales
leader?
And we've got them here and wehave an opening for a sales
(23:04):
leader.
We are using all of thisinformation as we're examining
our teams.
And in fact, at the SISOLeadership Conference in August,
we're going to have a session onthis.
Oh, wonderful.
I wish I, I wish I could go tothat.
So that's a really wonderfuloutcome.
And then another, I know anotherpoint you and I discussed, I
don't know if you've been ableto solve for this yet, just
given everything on your plate,but I think anyone would, any
(23:25):
event organizer would be excitedto hear any progress is the
inventory.
And you brought up a number of,we have unsold inventory of, and
if we were able to just maximizeor improve that by X number of
points, you're talking millionsof dollars.
Yeah.
One of the things, one of thethings we've done is we've hired
somebody, to oversee thesponsorships for all of North
(23:46):
America.
Kate Granite does, and she'samazing.
She, she had been at Reed awhile ago, but we just hired
her.
So she's taking a look at all ofthe sponsorship inventory across
the business and understanding.
How are we pricing it?
What are our margins?
Gosh, of the sponsorshipinventory, what's actually
selling, what's not selling, andhow do we maybe scoop up some of
that stuff that's not selling?
And if we could just sell 10percent more of it, how many
(24:09):
millions of dollars does thattranslate into?
So that's on the sponsorshipside and that's underway right
now.
We're literally just at thebeginning stages of that.
With regards to the, uh, theexhibit space inventory, I
haven't tackled that yet, butwith systems like A to Z
ExpoCAD, there's a way to go inand look at the data and see the
under, the under, unsoldinventory and roughly get some
(24:32):
sort of a dollar amount on that.
We have not tackled that yet.
But what, but what I havefocused on is And I've done
this, I did it at CES, I did itat my own business, I've just
always done it, is keep theinventory moving, okay?
Don't let a, a booth sit on holdfor weeks on end, months on end,
okay?
Because if you do that, youdon't have a commitment, and
(24:53):
keep the inventory moving.
And don't let a contract sit outthere for weeks and months on
end.
Like just either get in the showor get out of the show.
And if you're not ready to signthe contract now, that's fine.
Mr.
Customer, we're going to releasethe exhibit space when you're
ready.
We'll find some appropriatespace for you and, and we'll
send a new contract.
(25:14):
And that creates a level playingground.
Now, I say that with anasterisk.
There are always exceptions.
Sometimes there are alwaysexceptions.
You have to do that.
But that's my focus on keepingthe inventory moving.
And yeah, so we're just at thebeginning stages of that here.
So just for other players in thespace that are in your role,
what are the biggest, Landmines,if someone were coming in, in
(25:37):
your type of role, faced withthis mammoth amount of data that
they're trying to normalize,what are some of the landmines
you would, that you'd say, theseare the five things you should
avoid or watch out for?
I would say avoid, avoid drawingconclusions on face value of
data.
Number one, number two,understand all of the systems
and the sources of data becauseSalesforce, for example, may not
(25:59):
always be the source of truthfor the data.
Understand what other systemscould be the source of truth and
how are they integrated intoSalesforce so that you have a
full and complete understandingof that.
Understand when financialreports are being run and sent
up the line, have a crisp, clearunderstanding of sort of the
(26:19):
buckets of revenue.
Okay, what constitutes exhibitspace revenue?
What constitutes?
Sponsorship revenue versusdigital revenue, because I have
found there are differentdefinitions across the business.
So truly understand, listen,understand your systems,
understand the data, understandthe structure, understand the
appetite for the changes thatyou are going to embark on and
(26:40):
then plan accordingly.
What are the biggest mistakes oragain, landmines in trying, once
you, you launch this, you, yougetting people on board and
changing the way.
People are working with what allof the things you've, or you've
done, right?
There's a tremendous amount ofwork there and investment.
And now you have to see thefinal, you don't have to see the
(27:01):
return.
Yeah.
This is like the fourth timethat I've done one of these
transformation kinds of thingsof introducing, I'm really using
the technology and running thebusiness based off of it.
And I would say, instead ofsaying, what are the landmines,
I'm going to say, what, what hasworked and what's been
successful for me and being ableto transform these teams.
(27:22):
And I would, number one, youhave to have a tremendous amount
of patience and empathy.
You're coming into anorganization from the outside.
People have been there for awhole lot longer than you have.
you're coming in with somethingthat is very intuitive to you
and very natural to you.
And, and not everybody is goingto be on board.
So you've got to understand youraudience.
(27:43):
Know your audience.
Who in that audience is going tobe receptive to this?
So Who's going to be fighting ittooth and nail?
How do you make it easy andunderstand who's going to be an
early adopter versus who's goingto be take a little bit more
time?
And it does not happenovernight.
So I would say those are thethings, if you come in like a
(28:05):
bull in a china shop, you arenot going to be successful at
all.
It's going to take a lot longerthan you think you need to set
out small, bite sized,Milestones of accomplishments.
You need to bring the team alongwith you.
You need to provide a lot oftraining, a lot of resources
being there for them.
It's not a one hour trainingsession.
(28:26):
Say we're done on to the nextfamily.
It is months and months andweeks and give the resources,
provide resources to that teamas a go to people to help them
and coach them and get themalong.
And most importantly, help themunderstand how it's going to
help them make more money.
Yeah, no, for sure.
That, that last point is reallyimportant.
(28:46):
Yeah, how is this going to helpme be sick?
Yeah, it's going to help me.
And, and explain to them,explaining why the organization
has chosen to do what it isdoing, putting it in context.
Makes it a whole lot easierinstead of coming and saying,
this is what we're going to do.
And it's because this is what Iwas told to do is not helpful
for anybody.
Yes, this is a, this is thejourney that we're going to
(29:08):
take.
Here's why it's important.
Here's how it's going to impactyou.
Here's how it's going to impactyour team.
And here's how it's going toimpact the overall business.
Here's the roadmap that I thinkwe're going to be able to take
to get there.
We may discover some thingsalong the way that.
Is a speed bump or is it, uh, aturn in the road that we didn't
anticipate?
(29:29):
And we'll cross that bridge whenwe come to it, because we're
going to be flexible.
Mm hmm.
That's really great advice.
We're coming to the conclusionof the, of our podcast, but I
wanted to talk about a fewthings.
We're delighted that you'rejoining our executive advisory
board for Revenue Room Connect,which is a professional network
for CEOs and their revenuecritical C suite teams.
(29:51):
What excites you about the,about Revenue Connect and what,
and what inspired you to join?
I think what excites me is thatfinally businesses on the sales
side are taking data.
Taking data seriously is thewrong phrase.
They are putting data at theforefront and they understand
the importance of data andhelping them drive and run their
(30:12):
business.
I have always been a data geek.
I've been a technology geekforever.
And how can you use technologyto make things work more
efficiently?
So I am so excited that this isfinally coming to the forefront
of CEOs.
And, uh, you know, the CEO ofInforma is, this is all, this is
(30:34):
what they are wanting.
And.
And I just happened to be theperson it was, it was a
coincidence that Patrick Martelgot promoted or not promoted.
He had already been withInformant and he moved over from
another division that was soldand took over as, as president
of all of Informa Markets.
It was just serendipitous thathe took over at the same time
(30:58):
Nan was recruiting me, and he isso data driven, so it was just
serendipity, and I am sothrilled that we have somebody
who is as driven by data as I amin that leadership position.
That makes it easy for me to domy job.
That's awesome.
That's awesome.
What, one of the things we'regoing to be doing with the
(31:18):
network as we're hosting ourfirst event in November 12th
through 14th in Sarasota, it'scalled Rev'd Up and we, our
theme is a formula one themebecause when you use data,
digital and AI effectively toaccelerate revenue, drive
profitability and fuelenterprise value creation.
Oh, love it.
you really need things like arelentless pursuit of
(31:40):
excellence, precision, skill, onconsistent skills development.
And I learned a lot as westarted developing this program
about the pit crew, which is,great drivers have fantastic pit
crews.
They can't do without oneanother.
We're going to be talking a lotabout that at the event.
And, I'm assuming you will bethere.
(32:01):
I've got it on my calendar.
Excellent.
So we can ask more.
Now let's run into just a realfun part and then we'll, we'll
end.
But I'd like to do this littlequick rapid fire where I ask you
a little question and you answerand I go on to the next one.
So what are.
You've read lately, I'm sorry,the best book I've read lately.
Yeah.
What's the best book you've readon a personal level lately?
(32:23):
Okay.
Does it have to be lately?
Cause I'm going to go back toone that I read probably, I
don't know, 30 some odd yearsago that had that just like
stays with me.
Yeah, go ahead.
Okay.
So I was at this point in mylife, I think I was in my late
twenties and my life wasn'tturning out the way I thought it
was supposed to be turning out.
All my friends were married,they were having kids and what
have you, and I'm still here andI think I had just started at
(32:45):
national trade productions orwhatever.
And everybody else was marriedand they had kids and they
weren't working and I was likeWell, why isn't my life turning
out like this?
And so I happen to be at thegrocery store one day and you
know how they have those littlecarousels like these tiny little
books?
There was a book there and itwas called You're Late Again,
Lord, the Impatient Woman'sGuide to God's Timing.
(33:07):
Okay.
And I'm bringing this up becauseI have referred it to many
people to this book as they'regoing through a crossroads in
their life or they're in whatthe book describes as a waiting
room.
You think your life should be.
Here, it's not, and if you wantto make God laugh, tell him your
plans, and because it hasnothing to do with your plans.
(33:28):
And so I read this book and Iwas like, I'm in a waiting room.
There are great things out therefor me.
And it changed my wholeperspective on just life in
general.
And if anybody had ever told meX number of years ago that I
would be the cheap commercialofficer for Informa, I never
would have believed it.
After I read that book, I knewthe only thing that I really
(33:49):
ever wanted to do was have theexperience of owning my own
company, and I had accomplishedthat.
And then anything beyond thatwas just a bonus.
So my point in saying that thiswas just a really impactful book
for me is because I remember it30 some odd years later.
I have referred it to multiplepeople.
We can't always be impatient.
There's a plan.
(34:09):
We can't always be impatient andyou never can tell where your
career is going to take you.
Amen.
And I don't mean that as a pun.
That's so true.
It's True, and I think forwomen, unless you read the book
30 years ago, like you did.
I think you only startunderstanding that as you get
into your late forties andfifties.
(34:30):
That's a, I actually have to,I'm going to read that.
Yeah.
I've seen it's like for anyyounger people listening to this
podcast, like male, female, itdoesn't matter.
Don't be impatient.
Have your plan of, and, and ifyou're in a situation, make the
best of it.
What can I learn out of thisparticular job?
I didn't get the promotion,doggone it, I should have
deserved this, that, and theother, whatever.
Use all of these as learninglessons and saying, what
(34:50):
positives can I take out of it?
What can I do to better myself?
And things are going to takecare of themselves.
Yeah, no.
Great advice.
All right, where's the weirdestplace you've ever been?
You know what?
I saw you, you had sent thatquestion.
I think any weird places I havebeen.
I've been to some very excitingplaces and I can tell you like
the most exciting thing that Ihave ever witnessed with my own
(35:12):
eyes is the, the terracottasoldiers in Xi'an, China.
And this was like a couple ofdays after I had been to the
Great Wall, which wasmagnificent.
So we got to the TerracottaSoldiers in Xi'an, and I was
mesmerized.
So that's the most likeincredible thing I've ever
witnessed with my own two eyes.
(35:33):
Okay.
It's not weird, but it was justfascinating.
I can't think of a weird place.
No, that's fair.
Very fair.
I would say my most fascinatingin that.
Same area ish.
It was going to Anger Watt inCambodia.
Very mystical and Thank you somuch for joining work today.
It's been a pleasure of thedivorce.
Thank you, Heather.
It was great.
(35:54):
Yeah, I appreciate you invitingme.
Absolutely.
You can find us at h2klabs.
com.
Thank you.
Thank you for listening to TheRevenue Room by H2K Labs.
Subscribe to our channel today.
Welcome to the Revenue Roompresented by H2K Labs.
Here's your host, HeatherHolst-Knudsen.
Hello, and welcome to therevenue room podcast, where we
talk about everything data,digital AI, and revenue.
(00:21):
Before I kick off with our greatguest, I'm excited to announce a
new solution from H2K labsrevved up is an in person event
for CEOs and their revenuecritical C suite teams.
And it takes place November 13thand 14th in Sarasota, Florida.
We've architected Rev'd Up forexecutives who are truly serious
about data enabled enterprisevalue creation and business
(00:42):
transformation.
But why now?
There's a seismic shift underwayin how CEOs fuel enterprise
value creation and sustainablegrowth.
What worked yesterday, no longerworks today.
They must harness data, digital,and AI.
But yet an astounding 86 percentof CEOs, while they believe AI
will maintain or grow theircompany revenues and value, they
(01:04):
have no idea where tostrategically focus their
efforts and investments, andthat's from Gartner.
This isn't limited to 100qualified CEOs and C suite
revenue critical leaders.
Visit h2klabs.
com slash revved up with two V'sto learn more.
All right, so now onto theprogram.
Today I'm delighted to welcomeDenise Medved, Chief Commercial
(01:26):
Officer in Forma Markets, NorthAmerica.
Denise has a deep background inB2B and B2C events and trade
shows and has held executivelevel leadership roles at Money
2020 USA.
Informa in a previous role andConsumer Technology Association,
among many other businesses.
She also was the founder and CEOof the Metropolitan Cooking and
(01:47):
Entertaining Show for eightyears.
Denise is what I call anadvanced data leader.
She truly gets it.
And she's very serious.
She's a trusted advisor andexpert when it comes to data
fueled revenue and profitacceleration in multi sided
business environments.
Welcome, Denise.
Oh, thank you, Heather.
I really appreciate you invitingme.
(02:09):
Can you, Anad, you've such avaried career.
You've been, you've worked indifferent, like the B2C side,
B2B.
Now you're at one of the largestevent organizers in the world.
Can you tell the audience a bitabout your background?
Sure.
I'm going to start with, if Ilooked at my resume, number one,
I would never hire me.
And number two, I would neverbelieve it.
(02:29):
So let's just start with that.
I, I've not had a job at oneplace for more than four and a
half years with the exception ofowning my own company.
But I think that's okay.
I feel here I am at the end ofmy career.
I have strung together all thesedifferent experiences that just
got me to where I am, quitehonestly.
I was a finance major at GeorgeWashington University.
(02:51):
I worked on the Hill as anintern while I was at GW.
Graduated, I went to New York,and I worked on Wall Street for
four and a half years.
I moved back to Alexandria,Virginia, my hometown, and I
just stumbled into the tradeshow industry.
And I started out at natural,National Trade Productions in
Alexandria and it's owned by BobHarar.
(03:15):
He had launched a show, afederal IT show for the, for the
government and was doing aregional launch.
And I had no idea what I wantedto do when I moved back from New
York, but I knew that I didn'twant to be in finance.
Because if I wanted to stay infinance, I would have stayed in
New York.
It was very simple, the jobcriteria that I had.
And I know that this is crazy,but this is the truth.
(03:35):
I didn't want to have to get ona highway to go to work.
I was living in my parents housefor temporarily, and I didn't
want any more than a 10 minutecommute.
I wanted to be in sales becauseI wanted to be able to dictate
how much money I brought home atthe end of every single month.
And I went down to the careeroffice at George Washington
University, and there was anindex card on the cork bulletin
(03:56):
board.
And it said trade shows,national trade productions,
Alexandria, Virginia, and salesand Alexandria, Virginia caught
my eye.
I said, this is probablysomething I can do.
And that's how I got into thetrade show business to be
perfectly honest.
And from there, I've been inmany different, I worked at Read
Exhibitions.
I worked at, like you said,Consumer Technology Association.
(04:18):
I did a stint at IDG World Expo.
I'm not even sure if they'rearound anymore.
I launched my own company, aconsumer event, the Metropolitan
Cooking and Entertaining Show.
And I sold that and then I endedup a CES after that.
And stayed for four and a halfyears and thought that I was
really at the end of my career.
Then I was very content, notworking full time.
And fast forward, here I am nowas a chief commercial officer
(04:42):
at, at informal markets.
But all along the way in everysingle one of those jobs, I
always had very specific goalsin mind of what I wanted to be
able to accomplish and what Iwanted to be able to learn.
I had no idea where things weregoing to take me after I owned
my own company.
I always knew that I wanted toown my own company.
So prior to owning it,everything I did was purposeful.
(05:04):
And so anything in my careerbeyond owning my own company and
after I sold it has just been abonus for me.
Yeah, being an entrepreneurmyself, and you sound very much
like an entrepreneur.
There's all of these wordsyou're saying, and even just the
way you started off, I've onlybeen places a year or something,
which is actually not quitetrue, but you're definitely an
(05:24):
entrepreneur at heart.
And it sounds like a learner.
What actually, that's a greatpoint that you brought up about
always Wanting to learnsomething from where you are.
What is it that you're learningnow at Informa Markets in this
role?
Oh, wow.
I would say probably one of thebiggest things that I am
learning, and I have the lastcouple of years, is working with
(05:46):
generations that are One, two,maybe generations younger than I
am.
I'm old enough to be manypeople's mother.
I could probably even be somepeople's grandmothers.
And their work style is verydifferent.
The workplace is very differentnow than it was when I say I was
their age.
Like the, just like.
(06:06):
The gap between when I was theirage and people who are my age
was maybe this wide and how wework in our philosophies and
what have you, whereas now thegap is this wide and I'm not
saying that there's nothingwrong with that gap, it's just a
fact, things are different.
So I learned so much from thatyounger generation and I would
say that's probably the biggestthing that I'm learning.
(06:26):
That's a really fascinatingpoint.
And I agree that You've got allof these different generations
now working together becausethey're still the boomers.
I think the silent generation iseither already out or going out
and like my dad's age.
Then you have the boomergeneration, you have Gen X, then
you have the Millennials and theMillennials for some reason It's
(06:47):
you could be qualified as a likean old or a young one.
Now.
This is what I'm hearing Sothey're in this millennial side
They're they're considered oldand then you have the Gen Z and
now I don't know what the newones called But they're all in
the world Gen Z the beginning ofGen Z is in the workforce now.
Yeah.
Yeah And it's fascinatingbecause I really love, I love
(07:09):
learning from them.
I love coaching them andmentoring them.
And so I would say to me, one ofthe biggest challenges of this
job is how do I park mythoughts, my work habits and
everything at the door.
Okay.
And not force or impose them onthe different generations.
Well, at the same time, helpingto drive the growth of the
(07:32):
business, because there's lotsof different ways to skin the
cat in my way, the way I grewup, the experiences that I have
clearly isn't the only way.
And so I would say that one ofthe biggest challenges was like
being really patient, learningfrom them a lot and, and being
very open minded.
You've got to be very openminded.
And I, we should dive into thisa little later in the podcast
(07:53):
because I'm very curious to knowif there is a difference, do you
see a difference in thesegenerations in terms of how they
want to and demand to use datain order to help them do their
jobs better?
Well, yeah, that's a reallyinteresting question because
(08:14):
there are data analysts nowwe've got a lot of data analysts
or financial analysts in thebusiness, whereas maybe 15 years
ago we didn't have quite as manyand there certainly wasn't the
demand on the sales side of themarketing side for people to
have the, the, that skillset.
And so there's a lot of that inthe workforce now.
When it comes down to therevenue producers and people
(08:38):
managing revenue producers,there's lots of tools in place.
Salesforce happens to be our CRMof choice.
And I would say it's 50 50 ofwhat I've experienced here at,
at Informa.
50 percent are like reallywedded to it and they rely on
it.
And that the other 50 percentthey're getting used to it
because that's the way we'redoing business now.
(08:59):
And once they start seeing thebenefits of it, they're, they're
on board, but I would say thatif you help them understand how
to use the data, particularly bybuilding dashboards and telling
the story for them.
You get a whole lot more andbetter user adoption.
They're not the ones that shouldbe responsible for bringing the
data together and massaging itto tell the story.
(09:21):
There should be people in thebackground doing that can create
these dashboards and help peopleunderstand what the meaning is
behind it and how they shoulduse it to do their job and how
it will make them just be moreefficient, drive more growth,
and just be a better all aroundsalesperson.
Yeah.
So that you, you, There's like adivide in a way and again, we
(09:42):
should do a study on this, butit's, there's the ones who are
coming in and automaticallybeing trained about how data is
going.
That's part of their job, right?
What am I looking at?
What do I need to learn?
How to, how do I interpret itand how do I use it in my
workflows and how do I measurehow I'm using my workflows to
help me do my job better versus.
(10:03):
And they do it just because it'spart of their natural DNA versus
the other side, where you're,you have to pitch them and sell
them on why it's good for themand what they're going to get
out of it in order to convincethem to start adopting it.
Yeah, I mean, I would say we'revery much in a transition period
now where we still have peoplewho didn't grow up on data now
(10:26):
in the workforce with people whodid grow up on data.
So it's a co mingling ofdifferent types of people.
And, and the folks who grew upon the data, it's usually the
digital natives because theylearned it in school.
Like I didn't, we weren't taughtExcel.
Excel didn't even exist when Iwas in school, in high school or
college.
Now they're learning it soearly.
So we're in this transitionperiod of people who, who didn't
have to use it.
(10:47):
And now all of a sudden it's,they've got to learn it.
And people who came with it,cause that's what they know.
So just moving into a more of amacro topic, which is the
company you work for InformaMarkets, which to me is a really
interesting data story in that.
It's, and again, time goes by soquickly you forget, but that
(11:08):
Informa is essentially builtfrom various acquisitions,
right, of different markets, andwith that brought to the,
brought to the business, alldifferent types of data, how
data is managed, stored, used,platforms.
Can you talk about how that hasimpacted, you know, your role as
(11:30):
a new role ish, new ish, right?
I think you're the first ChiefCustomer Officer that Informant
Markets has.
Why they created that, and isthat actually a result of the
data environment created bythis, the quilt of Yeah, I don't
know that it's, that it'sspecifically a result of the
data environment.
To your point, Informant wascreated by several acquisitions.
(11:53):
And, and there are, under NanWall, she's my boss and who I
love to death and is the reasonthat I'm here, quite honestly.
So she has eight families thatare reporting up into her.
We've got the fashion family,the INC family, the natural
products family, supply side,etc.
So there's eight families.
They were all differentacquisitions.
Typically when an acquisition isbrought into Informa or any
(12:15):
business, quite honestly, youbring in the tech stack with it.
Okay.
You bring in the tech stack withit because it's embedded and it
has historical data and it's,and their processes are wedded
to it.
And the tech stack, if you lookat it from a sales perspective,
yeah, your CRM and they allhappen to be on Salesforce.
So we actually have fivedifferent instances of
Salesforce, believe it or not.
But then also integrated intothat is the floor plan systems.
It could be map your show.
(12:36):
It could be A to Z.
It could be ExpoCAD.
And then tethered into thatcould be another financial
system.
And then there could be also amedia system that is serving the
digital platforms.
So it comes with a tangled webof integrated technology.
And anytime you have systems,you typically have data that's
being driven out of thosesystems, okay?
So they're all woven together,they are interconnected.
(12:58):
And then, and being able tounlock all of that data so it
becomes usable, and like I said,you can tell these stories out
of the data.
Is a gigantic lift.
Okay, being able to get thebusinesses working consistently
across everybody.
It's sales working pretty muchconsistently is a gigantic lift.
So one of the reasons that thatNan created this position was.
(13:20):
There was really eight differentfamilies working independently
because when Informa buyssomething, they, they want to
keep it intact and have itoperating.
They, they're not of the mindsetthat everything is a cookie
cutter and it all must operatelike this.
There are commercial leads, veryseasoned, very talented
commercial leads of all of thesebusinesses.
And what I, what was importantwas bring some commonality to
the, to the businesses.
(13:40):
So when Nan took over as thepresident of North America, she
started creating a relationshipAcross all of the commercial
leads.
I don't think that thoserelationships that established
before had been establishedbefore.
She took that because they wereall operating independently.
So she established that toprelationship at the commercial
lead level.
Then she created my position,which said, I want some
(14:01):
consistency across Howard,across the business on how we
are doing sales and salesexcellence.
And so getting down to that nextlayer of not just the commercial
leads, but those who are responddirectly responsible for the
sales of the sales VPs and thesales directors and what have
you.
And, and she wanted somebody whounderstood a new technology and
new data, because at the heartof all of this is Salesforce.
(14:23):
And we'd had discussions veryearly on when I had done, I call
it my internship with Informa.
I had done like a eight or ninemonth stints before I went to
money 2020.
Which I did a one year stintbefore I came back here in this
position.
But we would talk frequentlyabout, Denise, why can't I just
get a forecast report?
Like, why does it take us weeksand weeks to get a forecast
(14:43):
report that, you know, that issomewhat meaningful?
And oh, by the way, it's dead onarrival because it's about 40
days old.
And we've had scores of manhours into this because it's
nine families.
Or eight families and fivedifferent instances of
salesforce and I said you got adata problem So anyway, so one
of the things that I that hasbeen my mission and really my
goal is to focus on How do wecreate sales excellence and
(15:06):
sales enablement so that we cantake the investments that we are
making in our people and our?
technology Use them, maximizethe efficiencies out of them,
and optimize the growth and therevenue that we're getting out
of them.
So that is really what my roleis.
And obviously technology andSalesforce play a big part of
this, and the data plays agigantic part of this.
And getting the consistencyacross the business.
(15:29):
Wow.
Okay.
So.
I know that was a mouthful,wasn't it?
Yeah, it's a lot.
It's, it is.
No, it's, and it's a huge, it'sa huge job.
If you just think about all ofthe data you're dealing with
those seven businesses and.
Yeah.
I'm assuming you, youencountered some friction trying
to normalize things becausepeople were used to doing it
(15:50):
their way.
I think one of your first thingsI remember when we first spoke
was you were tackling, was it 70pipeline stages that you were
able to get one to seven?
Yep.
Yep.
And so what we did was like,look, the intent is not to make
every single thing a cookiecutter and, and you need to
understand that every event hassome very unique aspects to that
(16:15):
event that you can't just makeit look like the other event.
So.
That's just a given.
So what I did as I started onthis journey of saying, okay,
how do we create someconsistency in how we are
forecasting and knowing that allthe instances of Salesforce were
a little bit different, I said,let me find the lowest common
denominator.
And at the end of the day, whatis the most important thing to
(16:36):
get some good consistentpipelines and forecasting?
And it boils down to, for thoseof you that know Salesforce, it
boils down to that opportunityrecord, when you are opening up
an opportunity, you For acustomer that may buy something
from us.
Just creating consistency andgetting the account name,
putting in a close date on whenyou think that opportunity is
(16:58):
going to close, assign it astage and assign it a dollar
amount.
And so we just focused on that.
If we can teach all of thefamilies to do that
consistently, Then we've got afantastic starting point and we
have consistent data.
And quite honestly, anybodyrunning a sales organization
should be requiring those foursimple pieces of data on any
(17:21):
opportunity that's in apipeline.
It's not an unreasonable ask.
No, not, not at all.
And you wouldn't believe thenumber of companies I talked to
where the CEO and I talk aboutCRM, like I said, I have 50
percent of our sales people areusing it and you're sitting
there, but that's notacceptable.
Yeah.
But why are you investing in theplatform?
(17:42):
But I digress.
I have a question for you withthat.
Have you measured, are you, withthe things that you've been
doing and, and normalizing and,and standardizing, have you been
able to, for example, tightenthe timeframe of the, the
forecasting, for example?
I think you mentioned 45 daysout now, has it, have you been
able to improve that?
Yeah, now it's on demand.
Now you hit a button becausewhat we did was we got
(18:04):
everybody, we got everybodyusing the opportunity object
consistently.
And so, uh, the data isstructured well.
So once you do that, you cancreate an unlimited number of
reports.
So we standardized the set ofreports and a set of dashboards
within each one of the systems.
So if I wanted to go into anyone of our five systems and look
at any one of our 70 plusproperties, or including media,
(18:27):
I could run a pipeline report.
So it's there, it's all indemand and it's all in a
consistent format across theentire business.
Excellent.
And are you guys usingSalesforce?
Uh, I think they used to call itEinstein.
I'm not sure too.
I don't know if they still do,but the revenue intelligence
layer.
We are not using that revenueintelligence layer consistently
across the business.
(18:47):
What I was focused on was let'sjust use that opportunity, that
opportunity object, the same,get that rolled out across the
whole, all these families.
Create this consistent set ofreports and dashboards and give
ourselves a solid foundationupon which to grow.
So we now have that very solidfoundation.
We have a set of dashboards.
(19:07):
We have an executive level setof dashboards that I could look
at or a commercial lead couldlook at or a head of sales or an
ad if she was selling a clientcould look at and spot really
early on.
What's a potential risk?
Like, what should we look intoon a show that might not be
performing the way we think itshould be performing?
So from there, now that we'vegot the baseline, the foundation
set, okay, we went from here tohere and now we've got a great
(19:31):
foundation and we can startgoing there and there.
So Einstein is definitely on theradar for us to look at.
CRMA, which is their CRManalytics, which allows you to
make much fancier dashboards.
It allows you to bring in datafrom five instances of
Salesforce into one and createreports and dashboards so that
we could look at the entirebusiness.
(19:51):
instead of having to, to, to logon to five different systems.
Yeah, no, and it's, that'sreally smart and very well, it's
disciplined.
Capabilities building and youbuild over and over.
So we spoke at, uh, an event youand I both attended, and you
brought up a really cool usecase, which was how you through
(20:13):
this process and looking at thedata, you start, you were, and
some training and testing youdid with the sales teams.
You actually were able to useCombining those, you were able
to say, this salespersonactually is selling enterprise
when they should be doingtransactional and by utilizing
that and actually changing rolesor what they were focused on,
(20:35):
you, you saw some reallyexciting outcome.
Can you talk about it?
It's, it's, it's all reallyinteresting because it's all
based on data and our wholefocus and approach is to data
driven sales management, datadriven sales performance.
Okay.
And we've got our Salesforcedata.
And one of the things that.
That Nan and I had discussedlike back in the fall was we
(20:56):
really need to understand thetalent that we have a little bit
more than we currently do.
Because again, my role was a newrole.
The families may understandtheir talent, but I don't
necessarily understand all ofit.
And so I, and there was oneparticular team that I was
working on.
They needed to do a salesreorganization and I was taking
the lead on that.
I said, But I don't know, Idon't know these people.
Okay.
(21:16):
I can see their performancenumbers.
I don't know who's a hunter,who's a farmer, this, that, and
the other.
So the upshot of all of that iswe decided to, to use a talent
assessment tool called Talogyand give it to all the
salespeople, all the revenueproducers, and all of the people
who are responsible for managingrevenue producers.
And what it does is it just.
(21:38):
It measures people's instinctbehaviors that identifies what's
your instinctive behavior likewhat motivates you instinctively
and that's literally all itdoes.
And then you can match it up to,I don't know, I think they have
65 different job profiles andthere are several of which are
sales.
So we took this and then wemarried people up against these
different job profiles.
(21:58):
Hunter, Farmer, StrategicSelling, Sales Leadership.
And we could see how well, orexcuse me, we could see what
someone's natural affinity wasto a particular job function.
Then we took the performancedata, okay, how are they
performing against their quota.
And we said, okay, gosh, thisperson might not be a natural
(22:23):
salesperson, according to thisTalengy data.
However, they're performingreally well.
They're hitting their goals allthe time, which means it is a
learned behavior.
They love what they're doing somuch they have learned how to do
it.
I, I, I say that because We nowhave two different sets of data.
We have performance, raw numberdata, did you make your quote or
(22:43):
didn't you, and we have anunderstanding of what makes them
tick instinctively, and we usethat information very
thoughtfully to say, do we havethe right people in the right
seats?
Do we need more hunters on thisshow?
Do we need more farmers?
Do we need more hybrid people?
Is there somebody who's gotgreat potential to be a sales
leader?
And we've got them here and wehave an opening for a sales
(23:04):
leader.
We are using all of thisinformation as we're examining
our teams.
And in fact, at the SISOLeadership Conference in August,
we're going to have a session onthis.
Oh, wonderful.
I wish I, I wish I could go tothat.
So that's a really wonderfuloutcome.
And then another, I know anotherpoint you and I discussed, I
don't know if you've been ableto solve for this yet, just
given everything on your plate,but I think anyone would, any
(23:25):
event organizer would be excitedto hear any progress is the
inventory.
And you brought up a number of,we have unsold inventory of, and
if we were able to just maximizeor improve that by X number of
points, you're talking millionsof dollars.
Yeah.
One of the things, one of thethings we've done is we've hired
somebody, to oversee thesponsorships for all of North
(23:46):
America.
Kate Granite does, and she'samazing.
She, she had been at Reed awhile ago, but we just hired
her.
So she's taking a look at all ofthe sponsorship inventory across
the business and understanding.
How are we pricing it?
What are our margins?
Gosh, of the sponsorshipinventory, what's actually
selling, what's not selling, andhow do we maybe scoop up some of
that stuff that's not selling?
And if we could just sell 10percent more of it, how many
(24:09):
millions of dollars does thattranslate into?
So that's on the sponsorshipside and that's underway right
now.
We're literally just at thebeginning stages of that.
With regards to the, uh, theexhibit space inventory, I
haven't tackled that yet, butwith systems like A to Z
ExpoCAD, there's a way to go inand look at the data and see the
under, the under, unsoldinventory and roughly get some
(24:32):
sort of a dollar amount on that.
We have not tackled that yet.
But what, but what I havefocused on is And I've done
this, I did it at CES, I did itat my own business, I've just
always done it, is keep theinventory moving, okay?
Don't let a, a booth sit on holdfor weeks on end, months on end,
okay?
Because if you do that, youdon't have a commitment, and
(24:53):
keep the inventory moving.
And don't let a contract sit outthere for weeks and months on
end.
Like just either get in the showor get out of the show.
And if you're not ready to signthe contract now, that's fine.
Mr.
Customer, we're going to releasethe exhibit space when you're
ready.
We'll find some appropriatespace for you and, and we'll
send a new contract.
(25:14):
And that creates a level playingground.
Now, I say that with anasterisk.
There are always exceptions.
Sometimes there are alwaysexceptions.
You have to do that.
But that's my focus on keepingthe inventory moving.
And yeah, so we're just at thebeginning stages of that here.
So just for other players in thespace that are in your role,
what are the biggest, Landmines,if someone were coming in, in
(25:37):
your type of role, faced withthis mammoth amount of data that
they're trying to normalize,what are some of the landmines
you would, that you'd say, theseare the five things you should
avoid or watch out for?
I would say avoid, avoid drawingconclusions on face value of
data.
Number one, number two,understand all of the systems
and the sources of data becauseSalesforce, for example, may not
(25:59):
always be the source of truthfor the data.
Understand what other systemscould be the source of truth and
how are they integrated intoSalesforce so that you have a
full and complete understandingof that.
Understand when financialreports are being run and sent
up the line, have a crisp, clearunderstanding of sort of the
(26:19):
buckets of revenue.
Okay, what constitutes exhibitspace revenue?
What constitutes?
Sponsorship revenue versusdigital revenue, because I have
found there are differentdefinitions across the business.
So truly understand, listen,understand your systems,
understand the data, understandthe structure, understand the
appetite for the changes thatyou are going to embark on and
(26:40):
then plan accordingly.
What are the biggest mistakes oragain, landmines in trying, once
you, you launch this, you, yougetting people on board and
changing the way.
People are working with what allof the things you've, or you've
done, right?
There's a tremendous amount ofwork there and investment.
And now you have to see thefinal, you don't have to see the
(27:01):
return.
Yeah.
This is like the fourth timethat I've done one of these
transformation kinds of thingsof introducing, I'm really using
the technology and running thebusiness based off of it.
And I would say, instead ofsaying, what are the landmines,
I'm going to say, what, what hasworked and what's been
successful for me and being ableto transform these teams.
(27:22):
And I would, number one, youhave to have a tremendous amount
of patience and empathy.
You're coming into anorganization from the outside.
People have been there for awhole lot longer than you have.
you're coming in with somethingthat is very intuitive to you
and very natural to you.
And, and not everybody is goingto be on board.
So you've got to understand youraudience.
(27:43):
Know your audience.
Who in that audience is going tobe receptive to this?
So Who's going to be fighting ittooth and nail?
How do you make it easy andunderstand who's going to be an
early adopter versus who's goingto be take a little bit more
time?
And it does not happenovernight.
So I would say those are thethings, if you come in like a
(28:05):
bull in a china shop, you arenot going to be successful at
all.
It's going to take a lot longerthan you think you need to set
out small, bite sized,Milestones of accomplishments.
You need to bring the team alongwith you.
You need to provide a lot oftraining, a lot of resources
being there for them.
It's not a one hour trainingsession.
(28:26):
Say we're done on to the nextfamily.
It is months and months andweeks and give the resources,
provide resources to that teamas a go to people to help them
and coach them and get themalong.
And most importantly, help themunderstand how it's going to
help them make more money.
Yeah, no, for sure.
That, that last point is reallyimportant.
(28:46):
Yeah, how is this going to helpme be sick?
Yeah, it's going to help me.
And, and explain to them,explaining why the organization
has chosen to do what it isdoing, putting it in context.
Makes it a whole lot easierinstead of coming and saying,
this is what we're going to do.
And it's because this is what Iwas told to do is not helpful
for anybody.
Yes, this is a, this is thejourney that we're going to
(29:08):
take.
Here's why it's important.
Here's how it's going to impactyou.
Here's how it's going to impactyour team.
And here's how it's going toimpact the overall business.
Here's the roadmap that I thinkwe're going to be able to take
to get there.
We may discover some thingsalong the way that.
Is a speed bump or is it, uh, aturn in the road that we didn't
anticipate?
(29:29):
And we'll cross that bridge whenwe come to it, because we're
going to be flexible.
Mm hmm.
That's really great advice.
We're coming to the conclusionof the, of our podcast, but I
wanted to talk about a fewthings.
We're delighted that you'rejoining our executive advisory
board for Revenue Room Connect,which is a professional network
for CEOs and their revenuecritical C suite teams.
(29:51):
What excites you about the,about Revenue Connect and what,
and what inspired you to join?
I think what excites me is thatfinally businesses on the sales
side are taking data.
Taking data seriously is thewrong phrase.
They are putting data at theforefront and they understand
the importance of data andhelping them drive and run their
(30:12):
business.
I have always been a data geek.
I've been a technology geekforever.
And how can you use technologyto make things work more
efficiently?
So I am so excited that this isfinally coming to the forefront
of CEOs.
And, uh, you know, the CEO ofInforma is, this is all, this is
(30:34):
what they are wanting.
And.
And I just happened to be theperson it was, it was a
coincidence that Patrick Martelgot promoted or not promoted.
He had already been withInformant and he moved over from
another division that was soldand took over as, as president
of all of Informa Markets.
It was just serendipitous thathe took over at the same time
(30:58):
Nan was recruiting me, and he isso data driven, so it was just
serendipity, and I am sothrilled that we have somebody
who is as driven by data as I amin that leadership position.
That makes it easy for me to domy job.
That's awesome.
That's awesome.
What, one of the things we'regoing to be doing with the
(31:18):
network as we're hosting ourfirst event in November 12th
through 14th in Sarasota, it'scalled Rev'd Up and we, our
theme is a formula one themebecause when you use data,
digital and AI effectively toaccelerate revenue, drive
profitability and fuelenterprise value creation.
Oh, love it.
you really need things like arelentless pursuit of
(31:40):
excellence, precision, skill, onconsistent skills development.
And I learned a lot as westarted developing this program
about the pit crew, which is,great drivers have fantastic pit
crews.
They can't do without oneanother.
We're going to be talking a lotabout that at the event.
And, I'm assuming you will bethere.
(32:01):
I've got it on my calendar.
Excellent.
So we can ask more.
Now let's run into just a realfun part and then we'll, we'll
end.
But I'd like to do this littlequick rapid fire where I ask you
a little question and you answerand I go on to the next one.
So what are.
You've read lately, I'm sorry,the best book I've read lately.
Yeah.
What's the best book you've readon a personal level lately?
(32:23):
Okay.
Does it have to be lately?
Cause I'm going to go back toone that I read probably, I
don't know, 30 some odd yearsago that had that just like
stays with me.
Yeah, go ahead.
Okay.
So I was at this point in mylife, I think I was in my late
twenties and my life wasn'tturning out the way I thought it
was supposed to be turning out.
All my friends were married,they were having kids and what
have you, and I'm still here andI think I had just started at
(32:45):
national trade productions orwhatever.
And everybody else was marriedand they had kids and they
weren't working and I was likeWell, why isn't my life turning
out like this?
And so I happen to be at thegrocery store one day and you
know how they have those littlecarousels like these tiny little
books?
There was a book there and itwas called You're Late Again,
Lord, the Impatient Woman'sGuide to God's Timing.
(33:07):
Okay.
And I'm bringing this up becauseI have referred it to many
people to this book as they'regoing through a crossroads in
their life or they're in whatthe book describes as a waiting
room.
You think your life should be.
Here, it's not, and if you wantto make God laugh, tell him your
plans, and because it hasnothing to do with your plans.
(33:28):
And so I read this book and Iwas like, I'm in a waiting room.
There are great things out therefor me.
And it changed my wholeperspective on just life in
general.
And if anybody had ever told meX number of years ago that I
would be the cheap commercialofficer for Informa, I never
would have believed it.
After I read that book, I knewthe only thing that I really
(33:49):
ever wanted to do was have theexperience of owning my own
company, and I had accomplishedthat.
And then anything beyond thatwas just a bonus.
So my point in saying that thiswas just a really impactful book
for me is because I remember it30 some odd years later.
I have referred it to multiplepeople.
We can't always be impatient.
There's a plan.
(34:09):
We can't always be impatient andyou never can tell where your
career is going to take you.
Amen.
And I don't mean that as a pun.
That's so true.
It's True, and I think forwomen, unless you read the book
30 years ago, like you did.
I think you only startunderstanding that as you get
into your late forties andfifties.
(34:30):
That's a, I actually have to,I'm going to read that.
Yeah.
I've seen it's like for anyyounger people listening to this
podcast, like male, female, itdoesn't matter.
Don't be impatient.
Have your plan of, and, and ifyou're in a situation, make the
best of it.
What can I learn out of thisparticular job?
I didn't get the promotion,doggone it, I should have
deserved this, that, and theother, whatever.
Use all of these as learninglessons and saying, what
(34:50):
positives can I take out of it?
What can I do to better myself?
And things are going to takecare of themselves.
Yeah, no.
Great advice.
All right, where's the weirdestplace you've ever been?
You know what?
I saw you, you had sent thatquestion.
I think any weird places I havebeen.
I've been to some very excitingplaces and I can tell you like
the most exciting thing that Ihave ever witnessed with my own
(35:12):
eyes is the, the terracottasoldiers in Xi'an, China.
And this was like a couple ofdays after I had been to the
Great Wall, which wasmagnificent.
So we got to the TerracottaSoldiers in Xi'an, and I was
mesmerized.
So that's the most likeincredible thing I've ever
witnessed with my own two eyes.
(35:33):
Okay.
It's not weird, but it was justfascinating.
I can't think of a weird place.
No, that's fair.
Very fair.
I would say my most fascinatingin that.
Same area ish.
It was going to Anger Watt inCambodia.
Very mystical and Thank you somuch for joining work today.
It's been a pleasure of thedivorce.
Thank you, Heather.
It was great.
(35:54):
Yeah, I appreciate you invitingme.
Absolutely.
You can find us at h2klabs.
com.
Thank you.
Thank you for listening to TheRevenue Room by H2K Labs.
Subscribe to our channel today.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com