The Art of the Turnaround: Outrun the Slowest Camper

0:00 We're only going to get better, and I think that's great for everyone.

0:04 It's just, I don't view it as certainly not a replacement, I review it as an enhancement.

0:10 My guest today is Chris Adamkowski, Chief Revenue Officer at Beanfield Commercial,

0:15 an established fiber network and data center company with some of the densest

0:19 infrastructure in Toronto, Montreal, as well as Vancouver.

0:23 My goodness, that's just a poisonous way to think it's bad for you.

0:29 It's bad for everyone around you.

0:32 You're never done.

0:32 You're always, you should always be learning, always getting better.

0:35 Hey, the CRO seat is demanding more than just being a VP of Sales or just being an ivory tower

0:42 operator. You really need to be able to do both.

0:45 If you're a CRO and you're not willing to get in front of customers, that's going to be a problem.

0:50 And what he found is when that confidence grew, it was highly correlated with increasing conversion

0:58 rate. And she said, you know, when you're working with your team, Chris, remember,

1:01 people respect what you inspect, do nothing to award someone for their great work.

1:07 And it means everything that AI cannot do. It can't be accountable.

1:12 So it can execute things. But hey, if this thing goes south, where's the justice?

1:27 So you walked into a company where everybody had been told for years that they were doing

1:33 great. Everything was going well. And then you had to be the person who put the real numbers

1:38 in front of them. Take me into that room. And what did you show them? And what happened?

1:44 What an interesting context at the time, actually. So as you had articulated, I was brought in to

1:50 lead a turnaround. And the first thing I did was take a hard look at the numbers and really

1:55 try to understand the business once I got into the doors and realized that one of the things that

2:04 was striking, actually, was that the company was in a place where it was turning more than it was

2:10 selling, a dangerous place, actually. So I got into the weeds on that, really understood it,

2:16 tried to understand what was going well with sales, what wasn't, what was going right with

2:21 churn, what was going wrong with churn. But one of the most eye-opening moments,

2:25 actually, was when I stepped into a room, led a bit of an intro to me sales kickoff,

2:34 and said, hey, yeah, this is one of the things that we're going to fix. And stated factually that

2:40 right now, we're turning more than we're selling. And you wouldn't believe the looks on people's

2:45 faces. It was shock. It was surprise. It was a step back for many, actually, probably everyone

2:59 in the room. And it's interesting, Anthony, because I think the cause of it isn't any kind of

3:07 negligence. It's actually an evolving reality within GTM, which is the difference between a CRO

3:14 and a VP of sales. Where a VP of sales is in the weeds on hitting that quarterly number,

3:21 but usually not truly a revenue number, a sales target number, a quota number. Whereas I came in

3:28 as a CRO very much with the responsibility to manage a P&L and manage a net revenue target

3:38 in order to add value to the business month over month, over quarter, over a year, and on a five

3:45 year trajectory. And so it really is just different. So from a sales team talking to their VP of sales,

3:55 I don't think that they actually thought that turn was within their remit. And if it wasn't,

4:04 probably wasn't defined at the time as in their remit. And so when they heard that,

4:08 it was like, oh my gosh, you understand that that's not sustainable. That's something that we can't

4:12 do. And actually, that's what I built my entire strategy on, was figuring out how to not only

4:23 grow the customers that we've got, but retain them. We've got a fantastic customer mix. We've

4:30 got many of the customers that we want to grow with. It's just a matter of are they buying as

4:36 much as they can and should from us? And do we have our fair share? So really, those customers

4:42 leaving was a really big issue that needed to be addressed first and was. That was the first thing

4:50 that we really zeroed in on and corrected. I think it's a really interesting trend where

4:57 the AE role, I mean the sales org of the 2010s was hyper, hyper specialized. You have your BDR, SDR,

5:06 AE sales engineer handed off to the CSM. You have account managers that are just doing, everyone

5:12 got super, super specialized and it feels like it's really converging back to, Hey, we need

5:19 more full cycle reps. And then the way you framed it too is, Hey, the CRO seat is demanding more than

5:27 just being a VP of sales or just being an ivory tower operator. You really need to be able to do

5:33 both. Where do you think that's going? And what's putting the pressure to just be more broad in your

5:41 ability? Yeah. Anthony, I find myself in a position that I'm just so fortunate to have based on

5:50 the skillset that I have and the things that I love doing because as a mid market CRO, I have

5:59 the sales teams, but I also have the sales engineers. I've got the pricing team, the product team,

6:07 the operations, sales operations team. So those aren't siloed groups. They actually all just

6:13 report to me. And so with the culture and cadence that I build, there are no silos. We're actually

6:22 quite integrated and everyone works together with an understanding of what the North star is,

6:26 what good looks like, and what they need to do to contribute. And there are, of course,

6:31 different parts of the business and silos that we, that we break down and work across. But I mean,

6:37 it's also the beauty of the mid market. Where I am is that I meet with every one of my peers.

6:45 There's eight of us on an executive team with a very experienced and very strong CEO. And when we

6:53 connect, there's an open forum and we talk about everything that's getting in the way of us being

6:59 the best version of our company that we can be, which is a very, very, very valuable and important

7:07 part of our culture overall. And I cascade it with my own spin on it. But it comes back to

7:16 being at the right size company in order to have that scope. I think it could work at different

7:23 companies. So don't get me wrong in different size companies, but I'll speak to what I know.

7:28 And it's that call it 100 million to less than 500 million in revenue, I would say is in that

7:38 mid market that probably greater than 100, 500, up to 1,000 employees that I feel is more of that

7:46 mid market. And oftentimes mid market, if it's in tech like we are, it's the expectations growth

7:54 and and not just delivering on steering the ship, but figuring out how to take it to the next level.

8:00 And so that that confluence of expectations allows for a bunch of really interesting things like

8:11 the freedom and expectation that we just do things differently and we trade and we change

8:19 and we evolve and we don't take months to do it. We take weeks to do it and days to do it sometimes

8:25 and same day sometimes if depending on what it is. And so I think all of all of those things

8:33 are possible because of because of where we are and because of how this, frankly, a role for

8:38 companies like this are structured. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. And I think sometimes people are

8:43 sitting in the CRO seat, maybe an earlier company being a little too ivory tower in a larger company

8:49 being a little too VP of salesy. And I think finding that balance is, I think really difficult

8:56 for many CROs because you do get the pressure from all angles. And then I think you may naturally

9:02 just lean in on one of the strengths that you have, but you have to be well rounded to do the role.

9:10 Yeah. Yeah. No, I absolutely think so. I think the for an earlier company, if you're a CRO and

9:16 you're not willing to get in front of customers, that's going to be a problem. If you can't move

9:20 with speed and really lean in with what is most likely a smaller sales team, you're going to be

9:26 in trouble. I also think to your point with bigger organizations, there are some things around

9:33 structure, policy processes that if you're not leaned in on, you're also going to run into

9:41 trouble. But I would say though that the leaders that I learned most from and who influenced me

9:50 to the greatest degree when I was coming up as an individual contributor earlier in my career

9:56 were these Google leaders who had 50 billion in their portfolio of revenue in their portfolio,

10:05 but they'd come into a customer meeting with you. And my goodness, they'd go as much as you did.

10:11 Certainly about what was in our systems about that customer. And they just had this depth that was

10:16 incredible. And of course, it's not on the top of their mind all the time. They do the deep dive

10:21 before the customer meeting get in there, but it's so complimentary. And actually, that's what I try

10:26 to achieve is coming into customer meetings. I won't have all of the context about a particular

10:32 customer, but what I will know is what they're doing with our company. And I'll also take a really

10:41 good look at what companies like them are also doing with us. So I can steer that conversation

10:46 and be additive. Let's not take all the oxygen in the room and customer interactions, but actually

10:52 go in and try to build up the seller and maybe the VP that's in the room as well, but also add

11:01 value from the vantage point that I have and what I'm able to bring that's actually a little bit

11:10 different than what they have call it daily access to. Yeah, it's interesting how the expectations

11:19 change on that call it the graduation of companies or maybe it's not a graduation. So if you're a big

11:25 company, you're a big company, that's great. Some small companies, it's great. If they're a small

11:29 company and that's what they want to be forever, they can do that. So I'll throw out graduation.

11:34 But what I will say is that on the revenue evolution, especially in tech as the company

11:40 becomes bigger and bigger, it's tempting to move away from your customers, shouldn't as a sales

11:46 leader. And if you come from a big company like I did and join a smaller one, you do have to

11:52 remember that getting into the weeds with customers, even as a CRO is something that

11:58 is valuable and will help make you successful ultimately. Yeah, and I think the ones who do

12:03 it well, they get that field experience and that's going to really help them guide the strategy.

12:11 One thing I want to get into a little bit, you've done a really good job with

12:15 a full turnaround. And I know a lot of CROs get recruited into companies where that is really

12:21 necessary. So I know ones that are listening to this would really appreciate what are the

12:27 things that you need to tackle first? What are the big rocks of a turnaround that you really,

12:34 really have to get a handle on early on? And what's going to give you the most leverage to

12:39 start changing things quickly? Great question, Anthony. I see it as a three-part answer. Three

12:46 distinct things that you've got to get right as a CRO coming in from the outside, especially in a

12:52 turnaround, which is largely my experience. So the first one I think is culture. There's different

12:58 motivations for different moments. And so it's not like, well, this is what worked over here,

13:03 so I'm going to bring it to this next opportunity. Actually, I think you're set up for failure if

13:07 you do. You really have to just get in and understand where a company is in their lifecycle,

13:13 what good looks like, and then the north star to get them there. So culture, I think, has a bunch

13:22 of different parts, but maybe you ask what's first. I think that's first. And I'd love to give you

13:28 actually a couple of examples. So there was one team I had earlier in my career, and they were

13:35 a particular vertical. So this was Google and ads, and this was a team that was staffed with

13:44 very senior sellers for our organization, really, really knew their stuff. But they were actually

13:51 stuck. I felt their growth rate wasn't where it needed to be, and they were doing a lot of the

13:59 same things. And it was so revealing getting into some conversations with them, where it's like,

14:03 well, we do everything right. Look at all of our metrics. We're really good.

14:10 And so this is just the new normal for the business. We've done everything we can do,

14:15 and my goodness, that's just a poisonous way to think it's bad for you. It's bad for everyone

14:22 around you. You're never done. You should always be learning, always getting better. And I'm not

14:27 saying that they didn't have that side to them too, but from a business perspective, I got in,

14:31 and they thought that they'd done everything. Done everything right, and there was really no

14:36 room. They were just going to grow again organically from that point forward. And

14:41 that wasn't sufficient. And there are a lot of things that I knew we could do different.

14:47 There's a lot of things that I had no idea what that was going to be like,

14:50 but I knew we could figure them out. So I challenged them with a North Star vision

14:55 that I called 2X, 2Y. We're going to double the size of this business, and we're going to do it

15:02 over two years, 2X, 2Y. And the 2X part shocked them. It made them really uncomfortable. How could

15:10 we double, but we're already doing everything. We've been at this for a whole bunch of years

15:13 already. So that was uncomfortable, but the 2Y was there actually to really give them a little bit of,

15:21 I wouldn't say comfort, but context, that it's not going to happen overnight. We're not going to just

15:29 blow everything up and risk actually dropping off and ruining some of the things that we're doing

15:35 really, really well already. But we're going to take some time. It might even take a few

15:40 different iterations, but we are growth-minded, and we will double this thing. And I'm actually

15:46 pleased to say that with that one, it was two years and a quarter when we hit doubling. So

15:54 we did it. Just missed the deadline. Yeah, just missed it. But that's the thing about a vision,

15:59 actually. Anthony, if you hit it, I feel like if you hit it, you weren't thinking.

16:02 Probably wasn't big enough. Yeah.

16:07 So with that one, and not everyone wanted to be on board for that. And I did lose some people,

16:14 which is fine. I'm sure they were very, very successful in what they chose to do next.

16:19 So I added some different people, brought people that I knew from other places and people who I

16:25 had never met before onto a team that could think about that in the right way for that moment to

16:32 get us where we needed to go. I imagine there's a moment in that room where people were saying,

16:42 two years is impossible. Doubling's probably impossible, let alone do it on a timeline of

16:48 two years. After that reaction, how did you start to paint the vision for them? How did you reverse

16:56 engineer that vision into something they could do today to start stepping towards that?

17:02 Yeah. In that role, in that moment, it was a role that was a lot closer to the VP role,

17:10 VP sales role that we talked to before versus the CRO role in terms of approach. And so I really

17:19 got to narrow into what are the customers that we think could grow and why and what could they do

17:26 that's different from today. And what I was really good at at Google actually was getting to know

17:32 people that ran the verticals that were similar to mine and all different places all over the world.

17:38 So I could see something that was working somewhere else through a relationship that

17:41 I had and then take that thing and bring it back as a case study and apply it. So it was a little

17:46 bit of that background work. Also, digging in and talking to customers and really, how do you want

17:52 to grow? And what is it that not necessarily with me, but just in general, how do you want to grow

17:57 your business? And maybe there's something in there that can help. And I'll reference two

18:02 individuals and two things that I learned at that time that I feel like I've made my own sense.

18:08 But I had one leader by the name of Sam Spastian who was the VP at Google. He's a CEO

18:16 somewhere else came back, was VP at Google Cloud. He's a leader at Databricks now and one of the

18:21 best one to many leaders that I've ever come across. I call him a friend and a mentor still today.

18:30 And he had this phrase, lead from the front. And I loved that. And what that meant to me and how

18:35 I applied that was I'd go to customer meetings and I'd, again, work to make sure that the sales rep

18:45 or leader that you go with doesn't feel overshadowed in that moment. Still make sure that they have

18:52 that account ownership because you need them. You need them to act like owners and show up in a big

18:56 way, especially when you're not there. So you certainly do that. But ask some tough questions

19:02 that maybe are uncomfortable for them, especially if they have a long relationship. And I think

19:07 that's part of what leading from the front is, is really getting your hands dirty, understanding

19:13 the customer, getting to know them, understanding the data, where the gaps in this revenue profile

19:19 and why are they there. So lead from the front is one of them. And then the other one is another

19:26 Google leader, longtime Google leaders, Marshall Self. And he had one. He originally introduced

19:33 me to this one. And I think I'd heard it before, but he brought it back and I loved it. And again,

19:38 made it my own sense. And I call it the slowest camper. And the idea is when you're talking to

19:48 a buyer, especially if it's someone who's making a decision who has like a true P&L and has a number

19:57 of different priorities that they are funding through the year, not just in your space,

20:00 but across a whole bunch of different areas. The story goes like this. You're talking to that

20:08 individual. It's like when you're on a campsite and I'm Canadian, we're pretty wilderness focused

20:17 up here, at least wilderness adjacent. And if you're on a campsite and a bear shows up at your

20:24 campsite, what do you do? And the answer is not run because the bear will outrun you

20:33 10 times out of 10. As a human, you are not faster than a bear. But what you do is tie your shoes

20:41 because you don't have to outrun the bear. You just have to outrun the slowest camper.

20:48 And so apply that to business. I don't have to be the number one thing on your list,

20:55 the number one priority that you have. I just have to be above the line on what you're actually

21:02 going to get to funding this year. And in order to do that, sometimes it's asking an uncomfortable

21:08 question. Hey, what are the top 10 things that you're trying to get done this year to your

21:11 customer? What are the top five? What are you doing? Come hell or high water, what are you getting done

21:17 this year? And then when they get to their fifth or the one that they say they're going to do,

21:23 what's the impact? Let me dig into four and five on that top five list. And if your thing can get

21:31 them a bigger ROI than what they're doing, you tell them and you challenge that. And it's happened

21:39 numerous times where we've been able to, I mean, if it's not better, don't buy it. But if it's if

21:45 it actually does get above that line and knock something else out, then you've done not only have

21:53 you done your customer a favor by giving them something that'll get them a better return than

21:56 they otherwise would have got, but it's good for your business as well. And sometimes coming in

22:01 and having that conversation as an outsider is a great way to lead from the front, but also

22:07 displace the slowest camper. I think that's a great way. I don't think I'll ever forget that

22:14 metaphor, but yes, outrunning the slowest camper, I think can apply so many things and especially

22:20 in sales. I know you have a weekly cadence where you're able to rally the team, but also you have

22:29 a segment where you drop some words of wisdom every week. I would love to hear how you got that

22:35 started, how you use that to build culture, and then hopefully frame it in a way where another

22:41 CRO hearing this can implement it where they are too. Yeah, happy to share that, Anthony. Thanks

22:48 for asking because it is one of the things that I do that I think is maybe most impactful and I'm

22:55 most proud of because leading one to many is tough. And when you've got an organization, I'll have

23:02 60 people in my organization, 80 maybe, that joined my Monday morning meeting.

23:09 Part of my culture is radical transparency around the financials. I'll go through those first.

23:16 Information sharing, so what's important for our company overall that I need to cascade to the

23:21 team as well as the things that are happening across the different segments of my business

23:27 or job families that need to be shared, so an update from the product team or the marketing team.

23:32 We do that on a next, and then I do a wins of the week segment where each of my sales leaders,

23:38 each of our VPs, share something from their team, highlights the individual, and allows that

23:44 individual to tell the story to the team, not only for the benefit of helping that individual

23:50 get a little bit of sunshine, which we all love, but also to share best practices and inspire across

23:59 the team and create a little bit of competitiveness to want to be on that list or get that win of the

24:07 week from your team. So we do that. And then the last thing that I do is a words of wisdom segment.

24:15 I do have to come up with a better name than that because it can come across a little more,

24:20 to use that phrase, ivory tower, a little more ivory tower than I want. But yeah, what I do is

24:26 take something that I've learned over the years. I've mentioned the slowest camper. That was one of

24:33 them, which is how to frame up your solution for a C-level audience. And so I'll take a theme like

24:41 that. I'll talk about what it is, and then talk specifically about how you can apply it in your

24:47 role. And some weeks, it's a little bit more philosophical. Some weeks, it's a little bit

24:55 more actionable. And we might talk about how to-- it's the middle of February, and I do a segment

25:00 on how to stay motivated and get out of bed when it's dark outside and come to work with hustle

25:07 and show up. I mean, it could be around that. And they do come back to my cultural principles,

25:12 my cultural principles for the organization, which is hustle, rigor, accountability. I want to make

25:17 sure that everyone has those values front of mind. It's the culture that I've set. It's the culture

25:23 that's right for the moment. That's what I want people to think about. And I even build my awards,

25:30 my quarterly awards around those values. But for the words of wisdom, I'll give you one as an

25:40 example. One of the ones that I did not too long ago was this idea that all you can get is yes,

25:52 there is no such thing as yes plus. And here's the little bit of wisdom, especially at Google.

26:00 This was endemic, where you get really, really smart people that were in sales roles and would

26:08 figure out this great solution for their customer. Legitimately, very well thought out, 10-page deck,

26:15 seemingly bulletproof. And they'd rehearse that. They'd run it past me, run it past others.

26:24 I'm sure they rehearsed it in the morning. And they'd get into that meeting, right meeting,

26:27 right audience. And they'd go. And on slide two, their audience, their key buyer would say,

26:36 you know what? Yes. Let's do it. I love that. Great idea. And what do you think the seller would do?

26:45 And I'll tell you, nine times out of 10, it's great. I'm glad you've made that decision. And let me

26:53 tell you why else you should have said yes to that, or you should say yes to that. And they'll go to

26:58 slide three, four, five. And by slide six, there's... And it's funny because it's almost inevitable

27:07 that that buyer will say, oh, wait a minute. Isn't Johnny over in that other department doing

27:13 something quite similar to that? Maybe we should check with them first. Or hey, Sally mentioned

27:19 something like that that was right around the same time. Now that I see that, huh, I don't know.

27:25 It's not no. It's just like, let's think about it a little bit more. And Anthony, it's like time

27:32 after time, you see it talking themselves out of sales. And it's because they really, really wanted

27:38 that gold star. But what's the gold star? There's no such thing as yes plus. You can't get a gold

27:44 star. All you can get is the yes. So on that original yes, it's great. I'm glad you are

27:52 agreed with that. We're going to move forward and we'll send through the details.

27:59 Is there anything else that's on your agenda? Or if you're smart, here are the other three things

28:03 that I think we could talk about for the next 55 minutes out of this one hour meeting and be

28:09 productive with it actually, since you've gone to the trouble of getting the time. But once you've

28:14 got yes, stop. There's no such thing. I love that. I love that. And I think the best, that's a really,

28:21 really clean way to remember that. No such thing as yes plus. I've seen plenty of people talk

28:27 themselves out of deals. I've done it myself. And I think the emotional reaction someone's having is

28:34 you're so invested in the work that you've done, the effort that you've done. You want somebody to

28:41 validate how fantastic it is and how amazing it is. And you've done it with that person in mind.

28:46 So I think it's very natural to want to do that. But holding yourself back from that, from that

28:54 temptation to keep going and just, hey, once you get a yes, just close it and keep going.

28:59 That's it. You've got it.

29:03 Well, I have a question for your weekly meeting. Do you ever repeat some of the words of wisdom?

29:08 Or are you coming up with new freshmen every single week?

29:13 I don't repeat them, although it's interesting. I think there's some truth to the phraseology.

29:22 Repetition doesn't spoil a prayer. If there's something that you want someone to remember,

29:26 it is OK to actually repeat it even to a sales team at scale. You heard me recite, hustle,

29:34 regular accountability earlier. I don't know that a meeting goes by where I don't mention those

29:41 because I want everyone to remember it. So there are things that I'll be repetitive with. But

29:46 specifically on the words of wisdom segment, it's actually it's a unique one every week.

29:53 I sat on the beach one day a while back because I thought that I'd done a few of these and I did

30:00 them off the cuff to start with. It wasn't like some grand plan where I thought I could

30:06 give this sage wisdom every week and have it go over well. It was organic.

30:12 And so I did a couple. I got really good feedback. And so I sat down and made a list. And then

30:19 that list grew. And eventually I'm going to run out of them. But I think my list of 84, 85 that

30:27 I have yet to deliver. So I've got a pretty good backlog for the next year and a half or so.

30:35 That's awesome. Well, I'm sure the team looks forward to those. And then you can write them

30:39 down and share the ones that have been shared with new reps and new people. One of I think

30:46 it's so important. And you mentioned this in the weekly meeting and other rhythms.

30:50 Here at Lean Scale, I'd say one of our most important rhythms, we have a monthly all hands

30:55 and we go all out for it. I mean, everything, it's planned. We do dress rehearsal for it.

31:01 There's all kinds of stuff that we prepare for this monthly all hands consistently.

31:06 The team has given feedback in our employee surveys and everything that that is the thing

31:11 they look forward to the most at Lean Scale. And I think it's been a really strong cornerstone of

31:16 our culture. And I don't think we would be where we are today without that. Are there other rhythms

31:25 that you have that are in place? You have the weekly meeting. That's a good one. I think tying

31:30 things to the long-term vision, but are there other rhythms that you have in place that you feel like

31:36 keep the culture moving, keep them engaged that other CROs could steal?

31:41 Yeah, I think actually our CEO does a really good job of doing an all hands quarterly,

31:49 and then a manager's all hands on a monthly basis. And then all of the leaders, there's

31:58 approximately 10 of us in the executive suite, as it were. And we'll each give our segment.

32:08 And that does a pretty good job of actually engaging across all of the different groups.

32:14 I do a weekly. So quarterly, monthly, I do weekly with my team. And then I'll also do

32:23 a leadership meeting and a revenue call. Actually, I do two revenue calls a week.

32:31 Overkill, sure. It's actually really defensible in my instance. But those are a couple of the

32:39 other cadences. And then the teams, each individual team has their own weekly cadence.

32:45 I'll give you a second on that. I'll jump back in on that revenue call idea, though. Two a week,

32:51 because when I arrived, they didn't have a revenue call. There was some reporting,

33:00 and I'm sure conversations were had, but it wasn't a formal thing. And so I put together a weekly

33:08 revenue call. And what was a little bit different versus how some of them that I've been involved

33:16 in in the past have worked, and the ones that I ran in the past have worked, is it's very,

33:21 very action-oriented. And so I actually have some, not only the sales leaders who will say,

33:28 here are the things that confirming, here's everything that's done so far this month.

33:34 Here's everything that's scheduled and not yet installed this month. Here are the things that

33:41 aren't scheduled yet, but we're working to bring across the finish line. And here are the big

33:45 things that we're looking for next month. That's twice a week where we're having that conversation,

33:50 and you'd think it would be redundant, but it's not, because the sales leaders are there, but also

33:58 our engineering team, also our installations team, our product team. And the value of having

34:06 those different voices in the room is that I can say, if we're looking back on this deal at the

34:14 end of the month and it doesn't close, what would be the reason? And so, well, okay, well, it might

34:22 not, we might slip on the install. Okay, what else? We might not be able to get a signature. Okay,

34:28 what else? Oh, there's a holiday over here. There might not be enough time for them to review on

34:34 their end. Okay, what else? Our MSA is actually not approved right now when we're working on a

34:43 service order. So they might say they need an MSA. Okay, what else? And we go through all of those

34:48 and uncover them. And then some of those things, you can just say, okay, take that away and do it,

34:53 but others can be a little bit more systemic and aren't solvable in a week or a month and just need

35:02 to be part of that regular cadence. And it's funny how asking the question that way can really

35:13 open up, call it the creative juices and have people understand some of the roadblocks

35:22 ahead of time that they might be facing and preemptively get in front of those. And

35:28 we found that to be a lot more successful. Our slips are very, very rare now. And it

35:37 really that comes down to that over communication. Yeah. And I think that repetition drilling in

35:44 over and over and over again, uncovering root causes, core sources, I think it's pretty easy

35:50 to gloss over during a pipeline review and, but not really double clicking in the detail

35:56 and having the right people in the room present to actually action on that. I think it's really

36:01 powerful. Right. Oh, it's so easy to just say, Oh yeah, I know this one's going to get done. Why?

36:06 Well, because our best rep is on it. Okay. Wonderful, but glad to hear it. But, but what

36:14 could go wrong? And it really, it really is helpful. And, you know, it's, it's actually

36:21 like, it's, it's fine to make mistakes. Just don't make the same ones. And it's like, it's,

36:29 and it's fine to, to miss, but just make sure that before you miss, you have a good understanding of

36:36 why that happened. If you, if you know what I mean, it's, if you, if you're surprised,

36:43 it's because you haven't thought hard enough, or it's just something that's brand new that

36:46 we need to learn from for the future. Yeah. Well, and I think all of these sacred rhythms kind of

36:55 allow the company to get the information to each other, bring up things that are important

36:59 and then action on them. Before I started Lean scale, I ran rev ops for three companies. I was

37:04 always always partnered up with the CRO and I was responsible for managing a lot of these. I operated

37:11 in many ways as a chief of staff to the CRO. So all the other rev ops responsibilities, of course,

37:16 I had a solid team, but also making sure the weekly call, the monthly call, whatever cadence

37:23 we had going, I was there to make sure it was shepherd. Well, do you partner with rev ops in

37:29 a similar way in your role today? Very much so. Yeah. And also Anthony, being a mid-market private,

37:39 private equity owned customer, there's actually a fair lift for board materials. Yes. And so not

37:47 only is it creating these reporting mechanisms to report back, report to the team, report to

37:58 leaders, everyone's got a boss, but it's also these formal pieces that we've got to create.

38:05 And you know what? It's a fantastic forcing mechanism because I can't tell you how many times

38:11 we've through with my rev ops leader, we'll be going through decks and I'm just looking at some

38:18 and say, why is that that way? Is that seasonality? Is that lumpy revenue or is it something else?

38:25 And we'll find opportunities sometimes and find mistakes just because it's a forcing mechanism.

38:33 Are our targets, are our targets right? Is this number right? Why are these, you know,

38:39 maybe these numbers inconsistent and you'll find these little gaps just because you're forced to

38:46 do the work. Yeah. I think it's a huge forcing function of process and uncovering things as well.

38:55 And afterwards I always think of rev ops kind of in three main categories. One, I call it GTM

39:03 telemetry. Can you measure the things that you need to report to your board on? Do you even have the

39:07 mechanisms to do that? A lot of companies don't. And then after that, I've always been focused on,

39:14 okay, anything I do after that should be impacting conversion rate or velocity. So can I help the

39:21 team convert at a higher clip? Can I reduce the time and stage? Can I help get leads over to an

39:28 opportunity as quickly as possible, highest conversion rate as possible? So any projects

39:33 that I do, and I think that's helped also when trying to articulate the value of rev ops upward

39:42 or to investors or your board or whoever you need to report to. And Anthony, the way that you phrase

39:49 that telemetry piece, I think that's a great first category because a lot of times you might think

39:58 that you're done finding all of the information that you want to report on. And these are our

40:03 metrics and we're running with it. But if you're not introducing a new metric every few months,

40:10 you're probably not looking hard enough at your data and finding something that matters because

40:15 it takes finding one successful thing. I don't know if you looked at the same way, telemetry kind of

40:19 implies that you probably did, but you find this one successful thing and then you say, "So why did

40:24 that happen? And can I show it in a KPI?" And then turn that into a KPI that you can scale across the

40:30 business that you measure and then you guide your team towards. So it might be like, "Hey, it looks

40:35 like a very simple one. It looks like more meetings with customers correlates to more sales." So

40:42 what's that optimal number? What's that minimum number? And get that in front of everybody and

40:48 measure them on it and watch to see if it happens. Another funny thing, Anthony, that I arrived at

40:54 with my marketing team the other day, we called it the light factory as of. There was this old case

41:04 study that I read, a business school case study years ago. It's probably more an anecdote actually

41:08 than a case study now that I think of it. But it was one of those turn of the century factories

41:16 and a consultant came in and said, "Well, I wonder if I make the lights brighter." I'm not going to

41:22 remember the story exactly, but if I make the lights brighter, will that have an impact on

41:26 productivity? So changed all the lights, made them brighter, and it did. Productivity went out and

41:30 said, "Well, that's great." And so went back and said, "Well, I wonder if we make them even a little

41:35 bit brighter if productivity will go up." So everyone saw it, went in, made the big change,

41:41 turned them up again. This consultant's still here. Okay. Productivity went up again. "Wow,

41:45 that's great." A third time, "Wow." And then it was like, "Let's turn the power down and see what

41:52 happens." You know what happened? Productivity went up again. And the takeaway was that it was

41:56 actually the attention given to the team and talking to them and trying something different

42:01 that spurred that improvement in output. And I'm probably not remembering that story exactly right

42:10 and who knows if it was made up or not, but it makes a good point. It's a great lesson. And what

42:17 I was talking about with my marketing team was we tried this campaign last year and it wasn't one

42:23 that I was necessarily. It wasn't my idea. I saw it and I thought, "Okay, well, that's not what I

42:30 would do necessarily, but I love it when people try things." And someone was passionate about it. So

42:35 I said, "You know what? Let's just do it." It's a small, not insignificant, but small investment.

42:43 And I think it's worth a try. And you know what? It was interesting. It didn't really work,

42:53 but we learned a bunch of things from it. And the people that actually were involved in that

43:02 campaign ended up being a little bit more inspired. And even though that campaign didn't work for them,

43:08 it seemed like it created some really good behaviors around, specifically it was around

43:14 cadence of reaching out to customers that they were then able to bring to the rest of their

43:19 business. So I'm so happy we did it. It's the light factory. It's just because you're trying

43:26 something new, your team ends up being a little bit better than they were otherwise.

43:32 So big advocate for trying stuff. Big advocate for telemetry, as you mentioned, because

43:41 you measure. Another leader, I'll reference Marie-José Lamont, who was a CMO at L'Oreal,

43:51 came over to Google, was my VP-level manager at the time. And she said, "When you're working with

44:00 your team, Chris, remember, people respect what you inspect." And I said, "Oh, that's really good."

44:07 And it's true. And she said it in a really cool French accent. So I was like, "Oh, yeah,

44:12 it sounds like it's a thing. It is a thing." But it was interesting because the metrics that I

44:20 really inspected, people really respected and moved on. So it's to your point, the telemetry,

44:27 getting the right metrics, bringing the right management rigor to it, the right attention to

44:31 it, and then getting everyone to actually lean in on those and move them.

44:39 Yeah. And I think in this, I love that, by the way, and I think that's frankly true for myself

44:45 and other teams as well, where it's very important what you measure because that's what gets done.

44:51 And then also sharing. It's important to measure it and then also let people know that you're

44:56 measuring it and looking at it and having the right forms to display it. And I have an example

45:02 that came to mind that takes that telemetry idea kind of a level deeper to where you will want to

45:10 tailor it for yourself. And sometimes it's not super obvious. A lot of them are like, "Yes,

45:14 we're going to measure bookings. We're going to measure creative pipeline. We're going to measure

45:16 time and stage and conversion." Of course, one enablement leader I was working with,

45:24 he started measuring, he would survey the sales team once a month and would measure their

45:30 confidence level on certain areas. So how confident are you in your ability to pitch your product?

45:36 How confident are you in the new features that we rolled out? How confident are you

45:41 pitching against this specific competitor? How confident are you in getting your job done

45:46 internally? All of these categories, just how confident are you feeling? And what he found,

45:52 he had been kind of running this. Initially it was just to see like,

45:56 where can I help as enablement? Where can I help impact and effect? And what he found is when that

46:01 confidence grew, it was highly correlated with increasing conversion rate. So knowing,

46:11 oh, the enablement department, the most important thing that they would measure is

46:16 confidence level on the team. Yeah, I love that. A qualitative to support the quantitative.

46:23 And as a leader, it's interesting because the leader in any business, I mean, it's common to do

46:32 the annual survey on employee engagement. And I think that's actually really a really good thing

46:37 to do and a smart thing to do. And you can get a lot out of that, but on a weekly basis or regular

46:43 basis or whatever it is, taking that qualitative look at how are we feeling? Wow, to do that,

46:52 and then correlate it with results and then understand that seven out of 10 or nine out of

46:57 10 or whatever it is will move the needle. So let's get everyone to seven out of 10 and create

47:03 that activity. I love that. That's really smart. Yeah, I think it's just, it's how you were double

47:10 clicking on the reps, like double clicking into what you're measuring and why you're measuring it.

47:13 And what, if you knew the answer to, do you think you could then affect? I think it's so important

47:20 to just dig so much deeper than you think you probably have to go. Yeah, great point.

47:29 Chris, during the turnaround, I know culture is a big cornerstone of this and you mentioned some

47:35 of the rhythms and things that you implemented. Is there anything else that you did that is an

47:40 important takeaway to help build culture? Yeah, yeah. Well, so culture I'd view as one of the three

47:48 categories that you've got to get right in the turnaround. And the other two pillars, I would

47:54 say are structure and operations. So there's a whole bunch to culture. I mentioned a few of

48:00 those things like the weekly cadence. Another is creating traditions. So a tradition I have is a

48:07 quarterly award based on the cultural principles. So it's most sales, it's the best performance by

48:15 a new person we call our rookie of the year. It's most new logos because that's another thing that

48:21 we're trying to drive within the three cultural principles. So hustle, regular accountability,

48:26 we've got clean definitions for each of those. And then it's manager nominated,

48:31 decided by me, I suppose, but in a management team setting. And then we award those and there's,

48:40 it's all that comes with that is a whole lot of pride and frankly, a lot of smiles and a lot of

48:46 a lot of determination to get on that, to get on that list, that winners list, great tradition,

48:53 costs, costs us, it costs you nothing to award someone for their great work. And it means

48:59 everything. Think about some of the awards that you might have won over the years. It really is

49:04 all about winning the award. It's not even that there's a reward attached to that. So just a cool

49:10 tradition that we do such culture. And then give an example for structure. So again, being in a,

49:19 in a size company where I can make a whole lot of changes to support the strategy that I have,

49:27 and I'm, I'm very free to do that. One of the things that I did when I, I came into my company

49:33 is change our structure to match our strategy. And the strategy was that we, we need to keep the

49:42 customers that we've got. We need to grow the customers we've got, and we need to add some new

49:46 customers. Very simple. But what that meant organizationally is that I felt as though I

49:51 needed a team that I called defend and grow that would take our, our biggest and mid-sized customers

49:59 and defend them. So that means sign them to term contracts. That means really work close with them

50:05 to understand what they were doing and how we can support it and why they should stay with us and

50:12 have that relationship more of an account management piece. But then to the second part of the strategy,

50:17 grow them. So find those levers for growth and use that relationship to be, you know,

50:23 what I call their first and last call. I want to be their first call. You know, Hey, Chris,

50:26 we got this thing going on. Can you help? Yes. Here's how we'd help. And then, you know,

50:31 maybe they talked to some other people. That's fine. But then I want to be the last call. And

50:36 they say, Hey, you know, we've got, you know, this solution, that solution, that solution.

50:39 We'd really like to go with you. How can you, how can you make this work for us? And whether the

50:45 lever is a little bit of a more leaned in solution or, you know, maybe, maybe something to do with,

50:51 with pricing or whatever it is, figure out how to get it done by being that last call. So the,

50:56 the first and last call. So defending grow was one of the things that I needed to do.

51:00 The other was greenfield. We need new customers. So build an organization that is specifically

51:06 hunter mindset, bringing in new customers into our, our organization. The data told me to do that.

51:12 It was that we rarely bring in a very, very large customer. Our very, very large customers start

51:19 with us as very, very small customers, and we evolve them over time. And so by building a

51:25 structure to match the opportunity, we were able to be very, very successful and turn around from,

51:31 you know, like I mentioned off the top, you were shrinking when I got there and now growing pretty

51:35 significantly in terms of year over a year, new revenue brought in. And so net revenue,

51:43 not just sales, of course. So, so structure is really important. There's a few elements to that,

51:48 but that was one good example. And then operations. So another one, and I'll call this an operational

51:53 piece. So part of this is making sure that the product set is right, making sure that you

51:59 understand the margin of each products. But, you know, one of the, one of the things that I needed

52:02 to do was adjust our compensation plan. And it was wildly unpopular because I was new. They didn't

52:10 know if they can trust me and they probably had it pretty good before. But I am, I introduced some

52:18 things that were a challenge because they were new and, you know, changes, change is hard for

52:23 most people, especially I might be someone you like, but I'm not yet someone you know. So you

52:30 don't know if you can trust me. I earn their trust over time, but what I did was make a bold change

52:38 and then really have to stick around to understand where that went right and where that went wrong.

52:44 And you know what? I have evolved it a couple of times since, but I changed the comp plan

52:48 dramatically. I made, it was important to me to have not only, not only sales, but also churn as

52:56 a part of the compensation plan. So I added that in and, you know, it was pushed back like, hey,

53:02 that's not something that I can necessarily control. And that's control. No, but influence. Yes. And

53:08 that's what I need you to do. So your comp plan is your source of truth on the strategy. If you're

53:13 not clear on the strategy on insofar as what you should do or not do, look at the comp plan. If it

53:18 pays you, do it. If it doesn't pay you, then maybe you shouldn't, but I really go to great lengths to

53:25 make sure that that's done in a way where it's where every behavior is economically incentivized.

53:30 And so having that churn piece as part of the compensation plan was huge for me and also product

53:39 mix. Some products are more revenue than others. And the high margin products I pay at full rate.

53:49 And the ones that are low margin products where it's maybe, you know, not necessarily for us,

53:53 we have some stuff that's very, some products that are very owned, operated and very high margin.

54:01 I incentivize the heck out of those, but the ones where it's a little bit more significant cogs

54:06 plus I'll pay on the margin. And so as a rep, you look at it and say, well, you know, what's the

54:10 source of truth say? Well, the source of truth, the comp plan says, should I do this? Yes, because

54:15 I'm getting paid, but should this be my number one focus? Well, actually no, it shouldn't. It is an

54:22 ancillary product that goes along with our core product, our core product that pays full. Do that,

54:28 our ancillary product that pays fractional. Do that, but maybe do that to help get more of the

54:34 core product. And so from an operational perspective, getting a comp plan that really

54:41 reflects the strategy is a critical part, I think, of being a new CRO. Popular? No.

54:49 Will it make friends fast? Probably not. And you probably should be very, very,

54:55 very thoughtful about it because you can't get it too wrong. But once you get the culture right,

55:00 established, get the structure right, feels like we're, we're pointed towards the right things,

55:05 get those operational things, right? The comp plan is one of them.

55:10 I have shipped out my fair share of botched comp plans. So I know the absolute pain

55:16 of not putting enough thought into it or modeling out. I was like, I wish there was a tool. Now I

55:21 can use AI a little bit to do it, but to just model out, like, okay, if I put this comp plan

55:26 out in the wild, what behavior is actually going to happen? Cause sometimes I'm thinking I'm putting

55:30 the incentives on the right things. And then these wild other things end up happening that I had no

55:35 expectation of, but the team will follow their comp plan. So be careful what you put in there.

55:41 Careful what you, careful what you put in there. That's right.

55:45 Well, Chris, this has been incredible. Thank you for everything that you've been walking through.

55:52 I think so many CROs end up in a very, very similar position. They're putting to a situation

55:57 where they have to do a turnaround of an organization. And I think everything you

56:01 shared about building culture, building the sacred rhythms and implementing the operations needed,

56:07 needed to scale are going to really help those CROs. And then everything else that you shared

56:12 along the way. I really appreciate what you brought to the conversation today. Before I let you go,

56:20 anything that you're focused on in the future, what's next on your roadmap for you and the team

56:28 and what you're trying to accomplish? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I could leave you with one

56:32 thing that I'm thinking about that I think would be very valuable to other CROs and folks that are

56:37 in shoes like mine, hopefully not my direct competitors. We'll block them from the podcast.

56:44 Well, thank you. Thank you. One thing that I really believe in is that I think that over the last

56:54 five years and over the last 10 years, sales has changed dramatically. 10 years ago,

57:02 sellers built relationships in ways that were different. There was a lot of in-person meetings,

57:08 coffees were regular. We were telling people, "Hey, get out of the office. Get in front of

57:13 your customers. Get on a plane. Go see them." And very deep and meaningful relationships were built.

57:20 And sometimes it was, "Hey, remember that conversation that we had that wasn't really

57:24 about work but was great? Yeah, I really want to do business with you because I just like you."

57:28 That's the truth. A lot of times, people do business with people that they like and they

57:34 feel that they can trust. And you only get that through relationships that you built.

57:40 I think that until it's AIs selling to AIs, which I don't think is going to happen in our lifetime,

57:49 I hope I'm right about that. But until that's true, there are going to be human decision

57:56 makers and human influencers that are really important to get to know and other humans who

58:03 can only put together a great solution for a buyer by getting to know them. 10 years ago,

58:11 I felt like we were pretty good at that. Five years ago, I think we sucked. Five years ago,

58:18 as a planet, I think we were pretty poor at that, where I think that it was okay that our in-person

58:25 turned into video. But then it was a slippery slope because it was okay that our video maybe

58:31 turned to a phone call, but our phone calls quickly turned into texts, and our texts turned

58:39 into automated emails almost. And I think that's a really slippery slope towards a non-differentiated

58:49 sales process. And so one of the things that I'll hypothesize that I'm sure a lot of people

58:55 just agree with me, I think the future is person to person. The future is salespeople and customers

59:05 remembering that it's really, really important that they get to know one another. Because from a

59:11 salesperson's perspective, how do I know how to position something to someone? Never mind package

59:18 something up that's actually useful. Really, really getting to know them. I don't think you do.

59:22 I don't think you can. You're guessing. And for the buyers, it's like, well, if I don't really

59:27 get to know that salesperson, then how do I know that first of all, they've heard everything that

59:34 I've said, but second of all, how do I know that there's not something that they know that could

59:41 help me that they're not saying because I just don't know them well enough and they haven't thought

59:46 to suggest it to me? As a buyer also, for things like CRMs and different tools, I want a salesperson

59:55 to understand my needs and me well enough to sell me something that's maybe a little bit different

1:00:03 than what it looks like you should on paper. And so I think that so much of what we're going back

1:00:11 towards needs to be in person meetings, building relationships, human to human. I think that's the

1:00:21 next big trend. And the folks that have let their relationships slide will get displaced pretty

1:00:28 quickly when there's someone who's figured out to go that extra mile and deliver that little thing

1:00:34 that's better for their customer because they thought to ask. Well, if you strip away these

1:00:42 artificial barriers between companies, I think when people hear, "Oh, AI can do selling," immediately

1:00:49 they're probably thinking very transactional things that they want to buy. But in most mid-market to

1:00:55 enterprise B2B settings, strip away that artificial barrier between the companies. It's two people that

1:01:02 have mutual goals. And this would happen the same thing internally. If you have your marketing team

1:01:06 and your product team, they have their own individual goals and then they have mutual goals

1:01:11 and they have to be able to trust each other. And the thing that AI cannot do, it can't be

1:01:16 accountable. So it can execute things, but, "Hey, if this thing goes south, where's the justice?"

1:01:23 And I haven't heard anybody saying like, "Oh, I guess why do you even need your marketing team

1:01:31 and your product team? Just have your marketing agents and product agents talk to each other and

1:01:36 solve the problems." I'd never heard anybody say that. And that's all sales really is. You just

1:01:43 happen to have this, "Oh, we're in different companies, but hey, we're two people that have

1:01:48 goals. We want to build the best product over here and sell and get into front of people."

1:01:53 And you have a real problem that needs to be solved. So let's work together. And the same

1:02:00 stereotypes of like, "Well, there's certain biases in sales. They just want to like hit a

1:02:04 quote and stuff." The same things apply internally too. Some people, sure, you have crummy people

1:02:09 internally that are just doing things to make them look good or take a step in the right direction

1:02:14 for their career. So people being unethical can happen in any context. But I think you're right.

1:02:22 I think the teams that really do that well will, in a lot of ways, the competition is going to be

1:02:29 very, very low. So if you pull it off, you're not competing against too many people doing it.

1:02:35 And by no stretch of the imagination, a Luddite, I feel as though an AI-powered sales rep who's

1:02:43 meeting a customer in person can actually really shorten sales cycles, which is good for the buyer

1:02:51 and the seller actually, and come up with better solutions. It's incredible tooling that we're

1:02:57 going to be able to have, that we do have actually already some of the risky, really strong LLMs that

1:03:02 exist. We're only going to get better. And I think that's great for everyone. It's just,

1:03:08 I don't view it as certainly not a replacement. I review it as an enhancement. So every rep

1:03:17 that I have, I want to be an absolute super rep that knows every product detail, every nuance,

1:03:26 and the way to do that is by tooling them correctly and I think with AI. It's just

1:03:32 so important to realize not a replacement and enhancement.

1:03:36 Yeah, it can be the Iron Man suit, but the suit itself is an Iron Man.

1:03:42 I'm embarrassed that I was thinking RoboCop. You're right. Iron Man's probably more

1:03:46 generally appropriate for us, Anthony. I've seen RoboCop too. That's a good one too.

1:03:52 Well, Chris, thank you again. I'm really, really excited to share this episode with the audience

1:03:58 and also I can't wait to see what you and your team do next and what happens in the next couple

1:04:05 quarters and years. Thank you very much, Anthony. I really appreciate the invitation to be a part of

1:04:11 this today and I really, really enjoyed the conversation.