---
title: "The Change Management Playbook You Can't Outsource"
episode: 133
podcast: "The LeanScale Podcast"
publisher: "LeanScale"
guest: "Susan Rothwell"
guest_title: "Chief Revenue Officer, Simpli.fi"
date_published: 2026-10-06
date_modified: 2026-10-21
duration: 00:47:03
word_count: 8600
topics: ["sales-leadership", "revenue-operations", "forecasting", "ai-in-gtm", "gtm-strategy"]
canonical_url: https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/podcast/susan-rothwell-simplifi-change-management-playbook/
source: "LeanScale Knowledge Hub — https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge"
license: "Free to quote and cite with attribution to The LeanScale Podcast."
---

# The Change Management Playbook You Can't Outsource — Full Transcript

> Episode 133 of The LeanScale Podcast, with Susan Rothwell.
> Published October 6, 2026 · 00:47:03 · 8600 words.
> Machine-transcribed and **not diarized** — speaker attribution is inferred, so verify
> attribution against the audio before quoting a specific person.
> Structured breakdown: https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/podcast/susan-rothwell-simplifi-change-management-playbook/

## 00:00 — Cold open + intro

**[0:00]** My guest today is Susan Rothwell, Chief Revenue Officer at Simplify,

**[0:05]** the Blackstone and GTCR-backed advertising platform that serves more than 2,000 agencies and brands.

**[0:12]** I found that I had a lot of questions and not a lot of answers and no place to go find them.

**[0:18]** It sounds like this is a ton of change all at once. Sometimes maybe things could break.

**[0:24]** Because the business is always moving. We'll get it now with AI. It's moving quicker than ever,

**[0:28]** right? Stats say that companies that don't adopt it, they're not going to be here in three years.

**[0:32]** Well, maybe we can get into something that is the most disruptive force on the face of the planet

**[0:38]** right now, AI. I took an AI course like a year ago and everything I learned doesn't matter,

**[0:44]** you know, like it's just kind of crazy. To a lot of people listening, they might

**[0:47]** think it sounds easy to understand what a new logo is or can you close something.

**[0:52]** And the worst thing in any organization is when there's a lack of alignment. That's when

**[0:57]** that's when things slow down. That's when you get stuck. You know, it's hard to grow.

## 01:11 — Week one: a fifteen-year-old company with no forecast of its own

**[1:11]** Susan, you joined a 15 year old business doing a quarter of a billion dollars that had no RevOps,

**[1:18]** no forecasting, barely used at CRM. What was the first week like? And when did you realize

**[1:25]** how deep that actually went? Yeah, so it was very different than what I had come from, right? Some

**[1:31]** large companies with really great foundations of forecasting and modeling and things like that.

**[1:38]** And when I got to Simplify, it was a company that had grown and had a ton of success without having

**[1:44]** a lot of that foundational support needed to really understand what was going on in the business. So

**[1:50]** what I found out was that our finance team was the ones that were doing most of the forecasting.

**[1:57]** None of it was really informed by like a bottoms up roll up of what was going on with clients.

**[2:06]** It wasn't a bad forecast, but what it didn't allow us to do was really understand,

**[2:12]** you know, what was going on for our customers, what was happening with churn and downsell,

**[2:17]** where were the opportunities we were winning and all those things you need to understand

**[2:21]** in a very dynamic environment in order to win in this extremely competitive, you know,

**[2:27]** media and ad tech world marketplace. So I found that I had a lot of questions and not a lot of

**[2:34]** answers and no place to go find them. That's what I found. Well, and I think first of all,

**[2:41]** it's incredible that they're able to kind of get to the point without a lot of the key infrastructure

**[2:46]** that tends to come much earlier. So I think it really speaks volumes to the product and the

**[2:52]** market fit that simplifies in. I'm curious though, some of these things, they're not just

**[2:58]** technical changes. It's not just go into a system, make a couple of tweaks and everything's fixed.

**[3:04]** Where did you have to start? Because I'm sure there were a lot of

**[3:07]** cultural changes that needed to take place as well.

## 03:11 — The first hire: RevOps as the interpreter between sales and finance

**[3:11]** Yeah. Well, I knew when I came into Simplify that, you know, the role was going to be a little

**[3:17]** different than some of my other roles, right? Where I was brought in specifically at Epsilon

**[3:22]** to drive a go to market transformation at Simplify. It was brought in to use some of my

**[3:28]** background and my ability to build different types of teams to operate sales, to lay that

**[3:35]** foundation for Simplify because it really needed to have some of the rigor that it didn't really

**[3:40]** have as it, you know, became a pretty successful organization. So, you know, what I ended up doing

**[3:47]** was, you know, going in with a plan and my initial plan was that I needed a revenue operations

**[3:54]** organization. Like I needed someone to sit alongside finance to make sure that as finance

**[4:02]** is talking about the financial plan that rolls up to the board, that there is an interpreter

**[4:08]** that takes the sales information, the sales data, and it ties it together, meaning RevOps.

**[4:13]** So, the first thing I did two months after I came into the organization was I hired a revenue

**[4:21]** operations lead. We did have a sales operations team, an enablement team, but what I did was we

**[4:29]** added a layer where we had a leader and then we also brought an analyst in, right, to really help

**[4:35]** us, you know, drive as we started to uncover some of the information as we started to use the CRM

**[4:42]** and we started to get Salesforce moving in the right direction to interpret what does that mean

**[4:48]** and what are those results have because it's not only delivering the sales numbers or delivering

**[4:54]** the plan, it's also looking at, you know, revenue per rep and how are revenue performing and, you

**[5:00]** know, the different types of metrics that allows our leaders to coach our members of our teams as

**[5:06]** well. So, it's a multifaceted in, you know, the way that, you know, I was bringing revenue

**[5:12]** operations into the organization and kind of turning on the lights of what that could do for

## 05:17 — The CRM she inherited: "more of an order system than a forecasting system"

**[5:17]** the sales organization and ultimately CS as well. Did you have technical resources too? I know the

**[5:24]** GTM tech stack has continually been growing, getting more complex, layering in AI in there as

**[5:30]** well. Did you already have a lot of those in-house? Did you have to bring those from the outside as

**[5:34]** well? Yeah, we brought some things in from outside. So, the finance team had done a really

**[5:42]** good job of building some dashboards, you know, with Looker and different types of products

**[5:49]** and then we did have Salesforce, but we were up for renewal and we were not really using it,

**[5:55]** right? So, first thing that we had to do is kind of build in a cadence for sales forecasting as

**[6:02]** well as teach everyone how to use sales forecast. We had to actually change, you know, the weighting

**[6:08]** of the forecast because it didn't really make a lot of sense. People, like I said, it was more of

**[6:12]** an order system than a forecasting system, like when we knew we had something, the team would put

**[6:17]** it in. So, you know, we used some of that now we're using, you know, a lot of the technology that

**[6:24]** Salesforce has, you know, done and you and I had spoken about, like they've really increased their

**[6:28]** investment in AI and have quickly, you know, become a leader in that. And then from an

**[6:35]** enablement perspective, we used, our enablement team was pretty savvy and used some of our own

**[6:42]** made AI tools and agents as well. And then from a lead generation perspective, we brought in an

**[6:49]** outsourced, an outsourced company to help us, you know, set up AI agents that could go after ICPs

**[6:57]** and really help us drive, you know, go-to-market link to our marketing to get leads, you know,

## 07:04 — Pacing change: the Epsilon verticalization playbook

**[7:04]** for our sales organization. It sounds like this is a ton of change all at once.

**[7:12]** I know sometimes if you bring that level of change to an organization, sometimes maybe

**[7:17]** things could break. How do you think about approaching a big problem like this in terms

**[7:24]** of how you prioritize what you're going to do first and also how do you pace things out?

**[7:29]** Yeah, you know, when I think about change and how you drive change into an organization,

**[7:36]** you know, I could go back, I'll go back to, I'll go back to Epsilon and then I'll kind of

**[7:40]** bring it back to where I'm instituting some of this within Simplify. When I got to Epsilon,

**[7:46]** as you talked about in the introduction, there was three different sales organizations and all of

**[7:52]** them were calling on the same clients, right? So you had no overall client lead, no overall client

**[7:57]** strategy. So one of the playbooks that I use is I take a step back, I take a look at, you know,

**[8:04]** who are our customers? What are they buying from us? How are they buying from us? I look at that

**[8:09]** through a data lens. What is their potential to buy more? You know, all of those things. And at

**[8:15]** Epsilon, it became very clear to me that one of the best ways for us to drive a unified go-to-market

**[8:21]** strategy was to verticalize. You know, verticals just popped up. There were seven key verticals.

**[8:27]** And so, you know, we started to, I had a group of leaders that were working with me, sales leaders

**[8:33]** and some cross-functional leaders. And we start to message out, you know, what that strategy was,

**[8:38]** you know. So I think it's really important to understand the why at the very broadest level,

**[8:45]** right? Like why are we even doing this? Because I do sometimes think like people think, oh,

**[8:49]** they're just sitting around to do change for the sake of change and always say, no, it's very hard,

**[8:53]** we're not. But I also truly believe if you don't change, you know, you can't stay competitive and

**[8:59]** you ultimately risk the business, right? Because the business is always moving. We'll get it now

**[9:03]** with AI. It's moving quicker than ever, right? Stats say that companies that don't adopt it,

**[9:07]** they're not going to be here in three years. So, you know, you need to be flexible in the way you

**[9:13]** design things. So we started by letting people, letting, you know, on a hall hands, letting

**[9:18]** people know we made the decision to go, you know, into a vertical strategy. As we continue to make

**[9:23]** decisions, we will make sure that we are communicating the decisions. Some people think

**[9:29]** that is a very risky strategy, that people can't handle not knowing what the end point is. And they

**[9:35]** do struggle with that a little bit, but I think that risk is worth not having them think that

**[9:40]** leaders are in a, in a back room making decisions, not communicating, not getting input. Because the

**[9:47]** other big thing is I always make sure that I get input, not only at the CRO, you have layers in

**[9:52]** there, but at the individual contributor level, like making sure stuff you're thinking about their

**[9:58]** daily job and what they're doing. Because as you're talking about this big giant strategy,

**[10:04]** all that, that seller or that CS person is thinking about is how does that affect me? Right?

**[10:12]** So the ability to communicate the strategy, to get a lot of input, to give updates with

**[10:18]** transparency along the way, right? To make sure you are constantly talking about the why,

**[10:25]** right? And why verticalization works, why having a client lead driving the overall strategy works,

**[10:30]** what it means for the business, what it would mean for you, you can start to get people to really

**[10:36]** rally around that and they need to hear it multiple times. The other part of it is, you know,

**[10:43]** when I do those touch spaces, I do listened and learns or roundtables. I know that the message is

**[10:50]** being clear and people are starting to understand where we're going when I'm in those roundtables

**[10:54]** and I start to hear them talk about the strategy back to me and then talk about verticalization

**[10:59]** and why a client lead matters and why all these things, you know, will align us to better growth

**[11:06]** and really ultimately serving our customers better, which is the most important thing to

## 11:11 — The consultant-led reorg that created the angst

**[11:11]** be that customer-centric company. When it came to Simplify, there had been a whole motion of changes

**[11:18]** that had happened prior to me coming. There was a consulting company that came in, they switched the

**[11:23]** CS team from being aligned to regions to be in segment, it's aligned to segments, they switched

**[11:31]** sellers from doing both hunting and farming to hunters and farmers and it created a lot of

**[11:36]** angst within the organization and they also did it without a lot of input. So there was a lot

**[11:43]** of trust factors, there was a lot of people not being happy with what roles they were given,

**[11:48]** people need to have support if their roles change in their new roles. So if somebody becomes purely

**[11:54]** a hunter, you have to teach them how to multi-thread, how do you sell across different portions of an

**[12:00]** account, right? How do you grow the existing business and it's very different than just

**[12:05]** hunting for new business. So we had to lay the groundwork for all that training, which we have

**[12:10]** done and we're in the middle right now of looking at our CS organization and believe it or not,

## 12:18 — Going back: "that decision was not the right decision"

**[12:18]** saying you know that decision to go to segments was not the right decision caused a lot of disruption

**[12:24]** with our clients, it caused a lot of disruption internally and now getting that team back on board

**[12:30]** right to say hey we're going to go back to a regional type of you know alignment and I always

**[12:38]** say to people what is old is new again with a twist because there's only a certain amount of

**[12:42]** ways you can do things and you learn and you iterate on those and that's the twist. The twist

**[12:48]** is iterating knowing that some things we did didn't work, some things we did did work, but we're

**[12:53]** listening to our our client success team and they're saying some of this stuff isn't working

**[12:59]** and that's why we need to make some of the changes that we're making. So we're going to do it,

**[13:03]** we're doing it in a much more open environment, we have a focus group of people that from our

**[13:08]** bestsellers and our best CS team giving us feedback on what is working because sometimes we don't look

**[13:14]** enough at what is working, we always look at what's not working and making sure as we talk and decide

**[13:21]** on things that we're getting input at every level of the organization and people clearly understand

**[13:27]** where we're at at any given time. So to sum it up I think that you know leading companies through

**[13:34]** change and leading teams through change is a very personal thing, people take it very personally so

**[13:39]** you have to think about that individual but you need to start with the strategy, you need to

**[13:44]** understand why are you strategically doing this, what outcomes are we looking when we do it,

**[13:49]** what is the communication plan, what is the input plan, who am I getting inputs, making sure that

**[13:56]** you constantly give updates, you communicate along the way as I said and then really again iterating

**[14:03]** as you go along because you're not going to always get it right, I don't know anybody that does but

**[14:08]** being open to the fact that learning and listening and saying yeah that wasn't the right call

**[14:13]** and we need to fix something I think that leadership needs to be able to do that.

## 14:18 — Focus on what's working, not only what's broken

**[14:18]** I want to go back to something you said, I have a lot of questions to dig a little bit deeper

**[14:26]** into some specifics but I do want to go back to something that you said that I think was

**[14:29]** interesting, you said people tend to not focus enough on what's working and they're only talking

**[14:35]** about the things that are not working, can you go a little deeper on that maybe give some context

**[14:40]** or examples or why you feel like that can be significant when you're moving an organization

**[14:46]** through change? Well because I think when people think about change they think about

**[14:53]** the negativity of change right versus the positivity right and so the way I think about

**[15:00]** it sometimes is in my role when numbers when we don't hit forecast or when you know or when

**[15:06]** I'm working with product and a product doesn't come out exactly in time when we should right

**[15:11]** everybody's focused always on all the things that went wrong and there's times I say but

**[15:17]** what are some of the things that are going right? So for example right now we're doing a top 70

**[15:23]** account review and you know with all of our top 70 accounts we're getting in front of them we're

**[15:29]** talking about 2027 planning and you know you're hearing a lot from our clients about what is

**[15:37]** working right they love our service they love our new products we're introducing right they love

**[15:44]** the fact that you know we are infusing AI and into our solutions and yet a lot of times when

**[15:51]** we're on calls we're talking about why did we lose that deal not why did we always win the deals so

**[15:57]** that goes back to my initial conversation on RevOps right and understanding you know really the

**[16:02]** analytics behind the numbers and what's what's causing churn and what's causing wins because

**[16:08]** we tend to just slide to what's not working and focus on that instead of double downing you know

**[16:14]** on what is working and saying this is what we need to fuel and I think it just comes from the fact

**[16:19]** that we're always worried about you know what's not working and and I just kind of remind everyone

**[16:24]** like yes but we need just as much attention on what is working just best practices success

**[16:30]** stories you know why are clients saying great things and that's part of the strategy when you

**[16:36]** move forward yeah and I think it brings me back to what you said early on too we're not doing

**[16:43]** change just for the sake of change so if something is working we're not here to try to fix something

**[16:47]** that's not broken but keeping our focus on okay here's the few things that we can do where we

**[16:53]** think we're going to have an effect having a strong lie behind that and then hey if it's working well

**[16:58]** then leave alone or double down even yeah I can't emphasize enough you know how important it is to

## 17:05 — "I don't have all the answers" — and the question she always asks

**[17:05]** get feedback especially from a leadership perspective you know one of my other sayings

**[17:10]** is I don't have all the answers I just don't I actually don't want the pressure to think you

**[17:15]** think I do you know that that you know I need I need guidance I need feedback people aren't always

**[17:22]** comfortable giving that a lot of times when I do roundtables or listen and learns all my last

**[17:29]** question to the the people on the call will be if you were sitting in this role not if you were

**[17:34]** susan but if you were sitting in the role running sales and cs what would be the one thing one piece

**[17:43]** of advice you would give yourself in that role if you were me and or you were in that role and it's

**[17:50]** it's pretty people are a little blown away by that that question but you often get really

**[17:56]** good advice sometimes it's like um you know we need we need more we need more success stories

**[18:01]** we need you know we need you focused more on getting out in front of some of our clients

**[18:06]** or whatever it would be but um I always find that like one of my favorite questions to ask

**[18:12]** I love that I love that and and I want to get into some of the specifics two things in particular

## 18:20 — What a real feedback loop looks like — and why she stayed out of it

**[18:20]** if we can give some barometer I know every business is a little different every

**[18:24]** initiative will be a little different but when it comes to getting feedback from the field

**[18:30]** and a constant communication what does that actually look like somebody may hear that and say

**[18:35]** I'm constantly updating them every annual all hands we let them know what our strategy is so

**[18:40]** I don't know why people don't know it and then they may say well I did talk to one person

**[18:45]** on the in the field so I got my feedback in terms of like volume and magnitude what does it look

**[18:50]** like when you're doing it really well you need to be thoughtful in how you pick the team that's

**[18:56]** going to give you the feedback right so making sure that it is a good cross-functional team of

**[19:03]** if it would be sellers and cs that they're that they have various experience right they're not

**[19:08]** they're not all veterans they're not they have different backgrounds right because you do want

**[19:13]** a mix of of feedback coming in so I think that you've got to curate that team to make sure it's

**[19:21]** got a lot of diversity of thinking in it right so that that would be my one piece of advice when

**[19:28]** when I did this this just currently at simplify with the cs and sales organization is I picked

**[19:34]** a leader that was a more neutral leader to actually lead the focus groups and then I was not in them

**[19:41]** the cs leader was not in them but we but we curated kind of what kind of conversations and feedback

**[19:48]** that we wanted them to have to get so that we would get you know that's the meat of what we

**[19:53]** wanted to and it was funny because I asked them to lean on what was working and initially we were

**[19:58]** getting everything that wasn't working and I'm like no no no but we want to know it's working

**[20:02]** so as I that tendency tends to go back so I think you have to be very thoughtful about that feedback

**[20:07]** loop when you're on a specific initiative or strategy change I think is I think as a leader

**[20:13]** you should always be taking just that time to just check in without an agenda and that's my listen

**[20:19]** and learns right where I just invite people to get on a call it's not me talking it's me listening

**[20:25]** so give them an update on what's on my mind so I get some feedback but specifically for an initiative

**[20:30]** or specifically for a strategy I think you have to have that curated team the other thing is that

**[20:37]** then you know after you kind of get the feedback then you know we did come in we did have an open

**[20:41]** discussion with that team on their feedback I had an opportunity to address some of their concerns

**[20:47]** and as we continue to go down this road that group is really an important part of the change

**[20:54]** initiative because as we go to them for feedback I don't I ask them to go to their teams for feedback

**[21:01]** right so then you start to have a spreading of what the conversation is what are the questions

**[21:06]** they're asking you get more broad input and there's a transparency about it that I'm hoping

**[21:13]** right I'm not guaranteed built will build trust and then belief in the fact that what we're trying

**[21:20]** to do is actually a direction we should be going and that my my my opinion matters my experience

**[21:28]** matters and that I can have an impact on the way that we are driving things forward so I do think

**[21:35]** you have to be very very principled about the way you address it and you have to curate it in the

**[21:42]** sense of you know who's the team why are they the team diversity of thought as well as you know what

**[21:49]** specifically am I trying to get out of this and then once you get out of that how are you going

**[21:55]** to continue to dispense you know the information and get the feedback loop going from there so

**[22:02]** where we're at right now is we as we talked about these things we had in all hands with CS the CS

**[22:09]** leader leaded and talked about you know some of the thoughts that we have initially where we're

**[22:14]** going and now we're doing a survey and getting some additional feedback and information as well

**[22:19]** so I know sometimes you have to go faster so this is this is when we're not forced to go fast we're

**[22:26]** taking this upon ourselves because we feel like this is the right thing to do from what we've

**[22:30]** heard from the team but there is as I said I really do feel like you have to be thoughtful even in how

**[22:36]** you're communicating it out you need to have a timeline of specifically you know how you're

**[22:41]** communicating out what are we going to say what is the purpose of that call am I answering the

**[22:47]** questions of an individual contributor sitting in their seat as I'm talking about things because

**[22:54]** they're the ones doing the work the sellers and the CS teams they're doing the work every single

**[22:58]** every day every day I'm not I'm not doing that role and making sure that you're thinking about

**[23:05]** that the effect and then most importantly how's it going to affect our business and our customers

**[23:10]** and are we going to do a better job and have them love us even more I think there's nothing better

**[23:18]** than when you have that buy-in and I think you could even get to the point where they have

**[23:24]** a strong passion for the change yes right at the bottom floor because it's one thing to say it but

**[23:31]** if it doesn't really trickle down and they're not really bought in it's very very difficult to make

**[23:35]** effective so I know you mentioned sometimes you need to go quicker sometimes you know you don't

**[23:40]** have a choice but I think if you can spend that time really getting the buy-in I think it's brilliant

**[23:46]** yeah I mean and and I would say that I've done it a few times and it it works every time it's when

**[23:52]** you skip the the involvement and the and the feedback that sometimes it doesn't work as well

**[23:58]** but you know again I don't have all the answers so I need help absolutely and then on the

**[24:06]** communication I know it's kind of woven in to okay let's get that cross-functional group in

**[24:12]** how often is often enough is this a weekly thing are there daily updates you need to send is it at

**[24:16]** the monthly all hands what does that look like I would say right now I would say most of the time

**[24:23]** I did it on a monthly basis depending on how long you know how big of a transformation was you know

**[24:28]** definitely at epsilon it took us a year and a half to get to where we got to you know it took a while

**[24:34]** so there was constant updates and it was a mixture of you know keep doing your day job keep doing it

**[24:40]** but you know we're this is where we're going to get to so it is a very fine line to to to follow but

**[24:46]** I think what happens is particularly if it's a longer overhaul or strategy people start to get

**[24:53]** used to the fact that that this this is we're talking about this but they can kind of switch

**[24:59]** and focus to their day jobs because they're not panicked that a decision is going to be made in

**[25:03]** the back room without them or that their job is going to change tomorrow so I think people can

**[25:08]** kind of settle in a little bit and focus on their day jobs while you know we know that this

## 25:13 — AI: strategy, training and governance before tools

**[25:13]** transformation has to take place well maybe we can get into something that is the most disruptive

**[25:20]** force on the face of the planet right now ai yes and understanding okay when you need to

**[25:31]** shift a large organization into adopting implementing doing these things in a meaningful

**[25:36]** way too not just running experiments how are you even approaching this with your team and how are

**[25:42]** you even thinking about what the end state of mission accomplished might even look like

**[25:48]** how are you thinking about this yeah you know um my thinking continues to evolve as I learn right

**[25:55]** I I joke that I took a AI course like a year ago and everything I learned doesn't matter you know

**[26:00]** like it's just kind of crazy I was at a Blackstone commercial event last leader event last week and

**[26:06]** it was all about AI and so we had some roundtables with leaders like myself and talking about you

**[26:13]** know everybody's at various stages you know in their organizations of how they're using AI

**[26:19]** um and I think that I do think one of the things that organizations really need to have is they

**[26:26]** need to have kind of an overarching strategy because a lot of people will experiment with it

**[26:32]** and that can actually is good right because you learn but I do think there needs to be guidance

**[26:39]** from the organization you know on you know how are we how are we using AI um what is the purpose of

**[26:46]** it you know what one are we using you know is it Claude is a chat gbt is it Gemini there might be a

**[26:51]** couple of them you know what people need some I think there needs there also needs to be some

**[26:58]** general understanding of um what you know what you should use it for and what we're using it

**[27:04]** for as an organization um so you know I do think you need to have that overall strategy and then I

**[27:10]** do think you need to do some training you know what what are what are effective prompts how do

**[27:15]** you make sure you're not pulling in too much information like so you can be really specific

**[27:20]** about what you're asking because sometimes I think when people are new to AI they think more

**[27:24]** is better and it often isn't right when there's too much too much data you're pulling from or

**[27:29]** too much information you don't always get the right the best answer I should say so I do think

**[27:35]** there should be training and governance for everyone in the organization just some basic

**[27:39]** things on on the best ways to use to use AI um we're you know engaging in it uh in a big way um

## 27:48 — "How would AI do this?" vs "How would AI fix this?"

**[27:48]** the other thing that um I'm learning as I go along is sometimes you think that

**[27:54]** AI can fix things but you need to take a step back and say is the process right

**[28:01]** or or am I just band dating an AI over a process that may not be actually the right process

**[28:08]** and when you start to look at transformation with AI I think you need to look at it from the AI lens

**[28:15]** versus the current process lens how can how can how would AI do this versus how would AI fix this

**[28:22]** right and I think that's really it's a it's an important thing to think about because otherwise

**[28:27]** you're just putting AI on maybe a process it doesn't really work well it's just you know

**[28:33]** churning numbers or churning something a little bit quicker so that's one thing um the other the

**[28:38]** other thing is we we um you know just we we just launched slackbot we connected to everything in

**[28:43]** our organization we're trying to it's not just for sales through seats through it's for the

**[28:49]** whole company but had an all hands a couple weeks ago with sales and cs and one of the things that

**[28:54]** we did was we had sellers and cs teams get on and talk about how are they using it to help their

**[29:01]** everyday job you know and so we had sellers talking about how they're pulling pipelines in

**[29:06]** how they're using it for call reminders you know of different ways because you know it can seem so

**[29:12]** oh my gosh AI up here and I use it for very different things and a seller might use it for

**[29:17]** how do we make it real at that individual contributor level how do we make it real with cs

**[29:22]** how can they use it to see if there's signals for downturn or there's signals for upsell

**[29:28]** opportunities right um so really having sellers on there and cs people and they're talking about

**[29:34]** their own usage and their ways of doing it I think can be really powerful um you know from a data

**[29:41]** perspective you have to have your data in order right that's an important piece of it as well as

**[29:45]** you use it to pull things in um but I but I do think like organizations just making sure that

**[29:52]** they have just some key learnings for everyone because everyone's not an AI expert and just

**[29:57]** hacking your way through sometimes isn't really the best way to to really optimize the powerful

**[30:02]** uses it can be for the company I really like the test that you have of saying can AI do this or

**[30:10]** should AI fix this and I think aiming hey how do we get AI to automate things or take things to the

**[30:17]** next level rather than just a something's broken I'm not going to use my brain power to try to

**[30:21]** fix it let's just hope AI knows exactly what to do I think you're right I think that's a losing

**[30:26]** strategy almost every time like going back to the basics fixing the process also fixing your data

**[30:35]** model I I think that's a big thing people don't realize that in order for your agents to be

**[30:42]** effective they have to have access to the right data and understanding of the data and a lot of

**[30:49]** people are starting with the agents first they're like oh I'm going to go build this forecasting

**[30:54]** agent yeah it's gonna say okay well I need this I need this I need this and then they build all

**[30:57]** these little data model silos for each agent they're doing rather than kind of taking a holistic

**[31:03]** approach have you been running into these roadblocks as well yeah well well well I definitely in all

**[31:11]** my companies we've always had a data problem right like just getting data together right it's just

**[31:17]** it's always a challenge and I think that AI has just made it more prudent to make sure you have

**[31:22]** some type of a data strategy they tend to sit in siloed areas of the organization right you don't

**[31:28]** always have the same data so it's simplified you know with the RevOps team as we're trying to build

**[31:34]** we're building this sales executive dashboard right using some of our tools we realized that

**[31:43]** we had different groups of data and that we needed to bring not only the data together but but and

**[31:49]** this is a little past my pay grade is in technological understanding but we also needed to

**[31:54]** have it like set up the right way right within within the data lake and so there had there had

**[32:01]** we had to bring teams together to get agreement on you know bringing the data together and how

**[32:05]** would that data be set up and accessed you know in into a data lake as well so we we just really

**[32:14]** accomplished that and it was really driven by engineering working with finance to to bring

**[32:19]** that all together and that's just hugely important because you know if your data is not aligned right

**[32:26]** and we still have work to do right the way our data is set up in and our sales force is you know

**[32:32]** needs to be realigned better we need to have you know parent companies and things like that like

**[32:37]** some of that wasn't set up correctly so we're fixing some of that but the actual financial data

**[32:42]** and customer data of like what they buy and sales data and ios and all that stuff you know we're

**[32:48]** starting is is starting to really you know galvanize together and we're able to set up

**[32:54]** you know dashboards very easily where i said you know when i came in it was kind of like what is

**[33:00]** going on here because i couldn't pull a story together to really understand where are the

**[33:05]** opportunities in the marketplace you know where are we seeing maybe different verticals start to

**[33:10]** pop up as areas we should be focused on you know where are some of our new products really you know

**[33:14]** gaining strength where do we have some risk with competitors you know all that stuff is now

**[33:21]** be able to glean a lot of that you know using um ai and and sales force and slackbot and some of

**[33:28]** the other tools that were standing up from a dashboard perspective i think there's absolutely

## 33:35 — Getting alignment on what a new logo actually is

**[33:35]** a lot of technical work to be done one of the parts i found most challenging in this and i'm

**[33:41]** curious if you ran into this too is just getting alignment on terms and data definitions and what

**[33:47]** kpis mean like how are we calculating win rate here what is an mql at this company

**[33:54]** what are bookings and how do we articulate what our arr is how how have you codified what terms

**[34:02]** and kpis mean do you have any any tips on getting that done well yeah i think across the board right

**[34:10]** one thing is on like the revenue perspective but actually the organization has undergone like a

**[34:16]** whole definition exercise you know to make sure that we're defining and call like we what we

**[34:22]** call things is the same thing across the organization right that's across the board that's product wise

**[34:29]** that's you know process wise and so much bigger than just uh running revenue but from a kpi

**[34:35]** perspective we have um each of each of the sales teams and the leaders have their own kpis so our

**[34:42]** new business versus um our growth and strategy versus our local team right what are the things

**[34:47]** that matter you know on a monthly basis that they're measuring because it it can be unique

**[34:54]** to the segment of the business right that they're measuring and then that rolls up into the overall

**[35:00]** kpi so you know some of it is um you know our our our win rate for new logos how long you know

**[35:07]** is it take us to get a new logo on board right making sure we have a definition of what an

**[35:12]** actual new logo is because some companies have different definitions of that it's not surprising

**[35:16]** it's like the easiest thing you think that would be the easiest thing to figure out and it's like

**[35:20]** no no no but there's yeah exactly so the definition of a new logo and then um you know it's it goes

**[35:29]** to you know you know retention like retention is huge you know are we are we not only retaining

**[35:35]** our logos but are we retaining the revenue are we we have a measurement we look at how much you know

**[35:42]** solutions are we able to cross sell right we have a dashboard saying we think this client could be by

**[35:47]** you know our platform media and they're not buying platform media they're only buying programmatic

**[35:52]** from us and so there's let's make sure we're focusing on you know growing that account so

**[35:57]** i think the kpis um you know are you know across the board for many different things but you know

**[36:05]** they're important also because as your sales leader and you're doing one-on-ones understanding

**[36:10]** what the average close rate is for your rep and how much they have to close to get to their their

**[36:16]** quota or their goal you know you need to have all those things really spelled out and that's why

**[36:21]** having dashboards and having clear data and understanding what those measurements are an

**[36:27]** agreement not just with within the revenue stream but also with finance right because

**[36:32]** i said they're looking at the financial plans versus the sales plan um i think really is

**[36:38]** important work to do so that number one we understand how we're really doing number two

**[36:45]** the sales plan should convert into hitting the financial plan right but there there are

**[36:49]** differences in the way they look at it and number three you know when you have the tough questions

**[36:56]** from the board or you know or the chairman or whatever that you have alignment on what the

**[37:02]** answers are because that's when confusion starts that's when doubt starts right you just need to

**[37:09]** make sure that everybody is looking at agreeing on certain measurements and looking at them the same

**[37:15]** way and and it doesn't always happen sometimes you know you don't have alignment and um that can

**[37:21]** cause a lot of swirl and a lot of time trying to understand what's going on the business when you

**[37:27]** really should be out there driving the business yeah i've found that part just unbelievably

**[37:34]** difficult to do and to a lot of people listening they might think it sounds easy to understand

**[37:41]** what a new logo is or when you close something finance should know how much revenue that should

**[37:47]** be but it's not always so easy and sometimes you have to make media you know like because you're

**[37:53]** avoiding things right so yeah i know or if there's usage and you have to like calculate how much is

**[38:01]** variable within the deal um yeah it's very different margins for different products and

**[38:07]** you know like right so that can complicate things as well on what that actual deal level was worth

**[38:14]** and so there's a lot of complexity to it yeah especially if you don't know exactly which

**[38:19]** products they might be using in that particular scenario so like okay we're not going to have a

**[38:24]** perfect definition but as long as we all agree on what the definition is and are okay with some of

**[38:30]** these things kind of being a compromise of absolutes then okay we can move forward and we

**[38:35]** can have productive executive meetings productive board meetings and and do what we need to do but

**[38:41]** until you've sat down and written it codified it written an owner to it looked around the table

**[38:48]** everybody said yes i agree with that it's very difficult to do yeah and even when i said just

**[38:54]** the definitions across the organization right like just in general terms is is going to be

**[39:00]** interesting so but it's important work and i think i think when you lay that groundwork down right

**[39:05]** again some of the fundamentals it's worth the work because in the long term it'll save a lot of work

**[39:11]** because you have agreement you don't have swirl you don't have stories being told that are different

**[39:15]** stories and then um don't have alignment right and then the worst thing in any organization is when

**[39:22]** there's a lack of alignment that's when that's when things slow down that's when you get stuck

**[39:26]** that's when um you know it's hard to grow very hard to grow one one of the things we talked about

## 39:34 — Where consultants fit — and where they can't

**[39:34]** during the prep session i think there's a lot of people who want to rush to get outside help for

**[39:42]** some of these things bring in the management consultants um bringing the agencies and being

**[39:50]** an agency owner i kind of know where we fit into the equation of these things but where are some

**[39:55]** areas where hey if you're going outside you're getting help from consultants you're getting help

**[39:59]** from agencies this is where they can fit but this is where they cannot fit what are some of the things

**[40:04]** that you cannot lean on the consultants to do you i you cannot lean on the consultants to do your

**[40:10]** change management plan right like what you can't just outsource it make them do it no you can i

**[40:16]** think i think so consultants are great right they sit across a broad amount a broad amount of

**[40:22]** companies and so they get a lot of experience seeing you know what's out there what's going

**[40:26]** on what's work that doesn't hasn't worked um so it's great to get their input and and their ideas

**[40:33]** and their thoughts because it's outside thinking i the areas that i think that you always have to

**[40:38]** be a little bit um cautious of is the fact that they will push you right and they will push you

**[40:44]** because a lot of times they have a playbook and that playbook is what has worked at these

**[40:49]** other companies they've been at and um sometimes the nuances of the playbook don't fit into your

**[40:55]** business so you have to push them to make sure that you are solving for the the what's going

**[41:01]** on in your current business not just what the playbook fulfills um also i always think about

**[41:06]** the fact that they are brilliant people super smart you look at their linkedins i mean they're

**[41:11]** all you know harvard mba you know graduates or ivy school mba um they they've been consultants

**[41:20]** for a long time but they haven't sat in the operating seat most of them have not sat as

**[41:26]** an operator and i think sitting in that operator seat and knowing that whatever decision is made

**[41:32]** you're going to live with right that the consultants will hand you the the playbook

**[41:38]** work through the playbook help you implement the playbook but then they leave and you have you were

**[41:44]** sitting there you know dealing with whatever decisions you have made you have to be really

**[41:48]** strong about that you have to make sure that you have candid conversations because sometimes they

**[41:53]** will push very very hard and you have to really be strong about what you think is right for the

**[41:59]** organization and not and realize that the decisions you're making along the way you're going to live

**[42:04]** with they will not live with so i think they're i think they're very helpful um but your lot your

**[42:10]** job as a leader is to make sure that you are advocating for what's best for the company

**[42:16]** as you engage with the consultants along the way are there certain areas of the business you've

**[42:21]** really appreciated bringing in that outside help anything specific that you say hey if you're a

**[42:26]** cro and this type of company like bring in some consultants for this type of stuff bring in some

**[42:31]** agencies for these type of things um that you have found been really effective yeah i think that um

**[42:38]** you know really you know helping someone pull together and understand the data from an outward

**[42:46]** out per outside perspective is helpful because um you know taking a look and and mining the

**[42:53]** the data that you're going to be using to make decisions and i say that because when you do all

**[42:58]** the data mining all by yourself in inside your company you can be not have that outside thinking

**[43:05]** right because you could be biased in the way you approach things so i think it's good to have that

**[43:09]** lens and making sure that the way you're pulling the data and using it is is really thoughtful

**[43:15]** from an outside perspective um the other place would be um you know in you know sometimes too

**[43:23]** like pushing you you know in your alignment right you when you have your organizational design done

**[43:31]** a lot of times we just fall in love with our organizational design and how everybody fits into

**[43:35]** it and i think sometimes they can be really helpful in challenging you on decisions and

**[43:40]** why you might have people here or people there i think about um some of the work we did with a

**[43:47]** consultant uh where you know they were pushing me on definitions of like um some account management

**[43:53]** and are they really sales support and you know so some of those conversations can be really helpful

**[43:59]** but i think that um again you know once you get that playbook of how they're in there helping you

**[44:06]** change things you know you have to then put the company lens on it and really understand how

**[44:11]** you're going to you know be rolling that out and what the implications are and what it means you

**[44:17]** know to the people to the company to the bottom line all those things yeah i've always framed it

**[44:24]** in a similar way whenever we're working with companies it's a hey we can come in we can give

**[44:28]** you ideas we can execute and implement things um we can't make decisions for you though right and

**[44:36]** we can't be accountable for those decisions we can give you the options but at the end of the day

**[44:41]** somebody has to pick it and be accountable for it and that's where i think having that real operator

**[44:47]** experience i wish the consultants should he put them on a voyage like hey you gotta go spend five

**[44:52]** years doing something like you gotta go own something yeah they're not all that way i mean

**[44:55]** but the majority of them have not operated it's from what i could what i've experienced anyway

**[45:00]** other people might have different experiences no it's similar i'd say it's really similar in like

**[45:04]** vcpe world too like yes you they see maybe go to market things happening in a lot of their

**[45:11]** portcos and they bring those things to the board meeting or they like value creation teams which

**[45:16]** is helpful but then there's a certain point where it's like yeah but you haven't done this job before

**[45:22]** so maybe you don't have an appreciation for how difficult some of these things might be to do here

**[45:27]** um so but anyway i think everybody kind of has their role in the ecosystem i think really good

**[45:33]** leaders know when to pull someone in and then when they just have to own it and run it internally

**[45:40]** and sometimes you just have to have that conversation when they're pushing really hard

**[45:44]** you know and kind of say hey this is not happening i know you i know you need that to happen but not

**[45:49]** happening so um that that's your role as a leader right 100 that also helps when you have experience

## 45:57 — Wrap

**[45:57]** and you've racked up a few wins too um and have that confidence well susan this has been awesome

**[46:03]** thank you so much for everything you shared i think some of the things a lot of companies i

**[46:08]** know we work with them they struggle with that change management aspect and i think some of the

**[46:13]** things you shared of hey you got to be communicating often you have to be getting people from the front

**[46:18]** lines and from different departments and be selective and careful of who you curate to be

**[46:23]** into that group but you have to get that feedback before making the decisions and i think we have a

**[46:29]** lot of things that are coming up that are going to require a lot of businesses to have some immense

**[46:35]** change management initiatives going on so i really appreciate you walking through the playbook you've

**[46:39]** had a fantastic career done it at some amazing companies um so everything you say i listened

**[46:47]** a little extra hard and take it to heart so i really appreciate it um thank you for being on

**[46:52]** the podcast thanks for sharing everything do it to follow appreciate it thanks so much thank you