---
title: "COO or CRO? Where the RevOps Career Actually Ends Up"
episode: 125
podcast: "The LeanScale Podcast"
publisher: "LeanScale"
guest: "Thurman Sneed"
guest_title: "Chief Revenue Officer, Marigold"
date_published: 2026-09-24
date_modified: 2026-09-28
duration: 00:46:59
word_count: 7709
topics: ["revenue-operations", "sales-leadership", "gtm-strategy", "forecasting", "sales-compensation", "ai-in-gtm"]
canonical_url: https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/podcast/thurman-sneed-marigold-coo-or-cro/
source: "LeanScale Knowledge Hub — https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge"
license: "Free to quote and cite with attribution to The LeanScale Podcast."
---

# COO or CRO? Where the RevOps Career Actually Ends Up

_Thurman Sneed on going from auditor to Chief Revenue Officer, the rule that RevOps should pay for itself every year, the power of one percent, how to get invited to the board meeting, volunteering for interim CRO and being made COO, and why the answer to "COO or CRO?" flipped in the last ten years_

**Episode 125 · The LeanScale Podcast**  
Thurman Sneed, Chief Revenue Officer, Marigold · Hosted by Anthony Enrico  
Published September 24, 2026 · Updated September 28, 2026 · 00:46:59  
Canonical: https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/podcast/thurman-sneed-marigold-coo-or-cro/

**Topics:** Revenue Operations · Sales Leadership · GTM Strategy · Forecasting · Sales Compensation · AI in GTM


## Executive summary

Thurman Sneed is Chief Revenue Officer at Marigold, and he did not come up through sales. He started as an auditor and CPA, moved into FP&A, and was pulled into operations when a CIO named Jose — who had watched him work with marketing, sales and finance — asked him to lead a CRM implementation from inside the finance org. It was, he admits, scary: "All I know is finance." From there he ran go-to-market operations across a string of software companies, then at Marigold ran RevOps, became COO of the services business, and stepped into the CRO seat. Anthony Enrico asks him where the RevOps career actually ends up.

The accounting background shows in how Thurman frames the function. Numbers connect everything for him; he wants things to balance and he wants a true return. That makes him resist the planning habit of peanut-butter spreading a finite budget across every product and territory instead of aiming it where the return is most defensible. On RevOps investment he offers no magic formula — he builds teams around missing capabilities, not headcount — but he sets a floor: RevOps should pay for itself annually, by cutting redundant platforms, installing territories and a sales process, or giving the CEO and CRO better reporting. Anthony adds the scale argument: on a $20 million go-to-market plan, one point of conversion can be worth a million dollars, and Thurman extends it to retention with what he calls the power of one percent.

The path to the C-suite, in his telling, runs through being indispensable to the numbers. Plant yourself smack in between everything, own the reports, and explain how A connects to Z across marketing, sales and product until it is difficult to hold an executive meeting without you. He was invited to board meetings without asking, but his advice is to ask — and meanwhile debrief each one with the CRO. His own jump came when change was occurring and he raised his hand: he volunteered to be interim CRO for a couple of months, and the CEO made him COO instead. Anthony's version is being handed the bar at 19 when every bartender had quit: seats usually open when the organization goes through turmoil.

The headline answer is a reversal. Ten years ago Thurman would have told a RevOps leader to aim for COO; today he says CRO. Part of the reason is AI: RevOps is the group adopting it fastest in go-to-market, and everything they do with it — more and better at-bats for sellers, more bookings, less churn — is the CRO's job description. He also retires the belief that a CRO must first carry a quota. A good RevOps leader is already at the CRO's hip, running deal desk, coaching reps and crossing the T's on every deal: "I was carrying a quota." Both agree RevOps leaders should have variable compensation tied to the company number, not just a generic bonus.

For anyone who wants the job above theirs, the most concrete advice is to run the cadence: the pipeline and forecast calls, asking the questions the CRO would ask — a dress rehearsal for the role. Pair that with storytelling, practiced first on your own career and then on numbers, and with a seat in the board meeting. He closes on where the function is heading: the new label of go-to-market engineer signals that RevOps is moving from behind-the-scenes systems work to leading the way, including on AI, where someone has to narrow a flood of options to the few that fit the business and be directionally correct.


## Key takeaways

1. **RevOps should pay for itself every year — that is the floor** — Thurman has no magic formula for how much to spend on RevOps, but he does have a rule: whatever you spend, the team should at least pay for itself annually. The return can come from cutting four platforms nobody integrated, from installing territory management and a consistent sales process where reps had round-robin chaos, or from reporting that lets the CEO and CRO make the next decision with information they didn't have before.
   _Why it matters:_ It gives founders and CFOs a defensible bar for the investment and gives RevOps leaders a way to justify headcount in the same terms as any other line item. He is also clear that zero RevOps is not a valid answer, even for small companies — it could be one person.
   _For:_ Founders, RevOps Leaders, Revenue Executives

2. **Build RevOps around missing capabilities, not a headcount number** — When Thurman enters a new situation he evaluates what capability is missing and what it costs to close that gap. Instead of starting from a team of five or ten, he starts from a skill set that can do A, B, C and D, and builds the team from there.
   _Why it matters:_ That calculus is shifting with AI. Some of the spend RevOps now leads used to sit in marketing, so the conversation becomes cross-functional — it is not just a RevOps line item in the P&L anymore, which he calls exciting.
   _For:_ RevOps Leaders, Revenue Executives, Founders

3. **Stop peanut-butter spreading the plan** — Working with many CROs, Thurman sees the urge to spread a finite budget evenly across every product, market and team. His finance lens asks where the return actually is, then aims the money there and defends the choice cross-functionally — asking marketing to float its dollars the same direction and customer success to take exceptional care of the customers whose stories will land the next deal in that pond.
   _Why it matters:_ The hardest version is product P&Ls, where a CRO tries to keep every product leader happy. Sometimes the right call is to stop funding a specialization, because the gold sitting in the ground is being sacrificed for an investment that has passed its life.
   _For:_ Revenue Executives, RevOps Leaders, Sales Leaders

4. **The power of one percent** — Anthony frames the sensitivity of a large go-to-market machine: a mid-sized team may represent $20 million in spend, and lifting conversion by a single point could be worth a million dollars — or cost that much if conversion slips as you scale. Thurman uses the same principle with renewal teams: improve GRR or NRR by 1% and ask what it would take in new customers to replace that.
   _Why it matters:_ Small, operational improvements in conversion and retention are where a dedicated RevOps function earns its keep, and they are easiest to see when someone owns the math.
   _For:_ RevOps Leaders, Customer Success, Revenue Executives

5. **RevOps skill is cross-functional relationship-building, and others often see it first** — The CIO who tapped Thurman on the shoulder had observed him in finance, interacting with marketing, sales and finance, building relationships, listening to the needs of others and trying to close gaps. Thurman thought he was just doing his job. During the CRM project, consultants told him they had never worked with anyone like him — he ran roadshows, asked questions and brought everyone into the room when issues came up.
   _Why it matters:_ Anthony's point: many people in RevOps don't appreciate that this is their superpower. It also made the rollout self-correcting — when reps pushed back on fields he had added, he had the relationship and the authority to take them out.
   _For:_ RevOps Leaders, Revenue Executives

6. **Plant yourself smack in between everything** — Asked what it takes to go from RevOps to a C-level role, Thurman's first answer is to stop sitting in the background of systems work. Own the reports, own the numbers, and explain how A connects to Z — not in system terms, but as a story of what marketing, sales and product are each doing.
   _Why it matters:_ Do that well and you become a required seat: it is difficult to conduct a C-suite meeting without the RevOps person, because the second a data question comes up someone asks where you are. Being the unbiased source with no lean toward marketing, sales or product is part of what earns the invitation.
   _For:_ RevOps Leaders

7. **How to get invited to the board meeting: ask, then debrief** — Thurman was invited rather than asking, but in hindsight he says he could have asked. Once you have the trust of the CRO and likely the CEO, a request to sit in on a meeting or two — even off the agenda — will usually get a yes. If the answer is no, ask when, and what you need to do to get there.
   _Why it matters:_ The alternative route is to debrief every board meeting with the CRO: what were the toughest questions, what could we have done better to prep you, what questions should we anticipate next time. Anthony calls the first invitation massive for a career and worth reverse-engineering.
   _For:_ RevOps Leaders, Revenue Executives

8. **When change is occurring, raise your hand** — The C-level title eluded Thurman for a while. When a transition happened, he volunteered to be interim CRO and did it for a couple of months. He wasn't picked for the permanent role — instead the CEO told him he wanted to make him COO, and Thurman gladly took it.
   _Why it matters:_ Anthony's restaurant story makes the same point: you must do a good job in your role, but seats usually open when the organization goes through turmoil, and the people who get them are the ones willing to be uncomfortable and say yes.
   _For:_ RevOps Leaders, Revenue Executives

9. **Stepping into an unfamiliar function is RevOps all over again** — As COO, Thurman took responsibility for a services organization he had never managed. He treated it exactly like the CRM project years earlier: meet people, listen hard to their challenges, find the biggest gaps, and close the ones with the greatest impact. The services org had not been integrated, but he had integrated systems and sales teams repeatedly.
   _Why it matters:_ It even improved the sales side, because salespeople sold the services and the handoff between them became a true handoff. The transferable skill is the operating method, not the domain knowledge.
   _For:_ RevOps Leaders, Revenue Executives

10. **The answer flipped: RevOps now leads to the CRO seat, not COO** — Ten years ago Thurman would have said COO. Today he says CRO, partially because of AI. RevOps teams are embracing AI fastest in go-to-market, and what they use it for — making sellers more productive with more, higher-quality at-bats, driving bookings and revenue, reducing churn — is exactly the CRO's set of goals.
   _Why it matters:_ The remaining question is personality: are you comfortable talking to a customer about numbers? The numbers a CRO drives are the same ones the customer is trying to drive, so a RevOps leader who can tell that story has a natural path to the seat.
   _For:_ RevOps Leaders, Revenue Executives, Sales Leaders

11. **You don't have to carry a bag first — good RevOps already does** — Ten or fifteen years ago Thurman was told he would have to carry a bag before becoming a CRO, believed it, and gave up the dream. He no longer thinks it is true. A good RevOps leader is right at the CRO's hip helping hit the number; he ran deal desk, sometimes talked to customers and coached reps on what to say.
   _Why it matters:_ The incentive plan may not have had a quota, but the work did. Anthony and Thurman both argue a head of RevOps should carry variable compensation tied to the company bookings number, not just the same bonus as everyone else, because that alignment is what lets RevOps act as the glue.
   _For:_ RevOps Leaders, Revenue Executives, Founders

12. **Run the pipeline and forecast calls — it is dress rehearsal for CRO** — From his earliest RevOps role Thurman ran the cadence calls himself — pipeline and forecast — asking the questions the CRO would ask, badgering or complimenting reps exactly as the CRO would. He only realized it was unusual when a new CRO told him he ran his own calls; that CRO then embraced it and has since called him four or five times to run RevOps for him again.
   _Why it matters:_ His advice for anyone who wants the CRO job: earn enough trust that you run the calls and the answers come to you as they would to the boss. Anthony's summary of the prep: run the forecast calls, get inside the executive room as the data storyteller, and get the board-meeting invite.
   _For:_ RevOps Leaders, Sales Leaders, Revenue Executives

13. **Storytelling is the skill underneath all of it** — Being in the room is not enough; you have to connect what the information is saying and educate people on it — turning data into information. To build the skill, Thurman practices with his own team and with the CRO, and starts with non-business stories: can you tell your own story, how you got to where you are?
   _Why it matters:_ Once the personal story is fluent, turn that practice into telling a story with numbers. It is the capability that separates a data owner from a revenue executive.
   _For:_ RevOps Leaders, Revenue Executives

14. **Go-to-market engineering means RevOps moves to the front** — Thurman likes the new go-to-market engineer label for what it implies: the function is leaving behind-the-scenes systems work and starting to lead, choosing which of the capabilities now available best fit how the business should be shaped — with impact on product marketing, demand generation and product.
   _Why it matters:_ Anthony notes that many companies lean on RevOps, not engineering or product, for their holistic AI strategy. Thurman's caution is that someone has to scale the options down to the few that fit right now; RevOps is the place to get directionally correct.
   _For:_ RevOps Leaders, Revenue Executives, Founders


## Frameworks

### The RevOps Payback Floor (09:53)

**Definition:** Whatever a company spends on RevOps, the team should at least pay for itself annually — through reduced expense, a more productive sales team, or better decisions from better reporting.

Thurman offers it as the basic math in place of a magic formula. The return can come from consolidating redundant platforms that nobody integrated, installing territory management and a sales process where there was round-robin chaos, building accountability and a management cadence, or giving the CEO and CRO reports that let them make the next best decision. He pairs it with a hard floor on the other side: zero RevOps is never the answer, even for small companies — it could be one person.

### Capability-First Team Design (07:20)

**Definition:** Size a RevOps team by the capabilities the business is missing, not by a target headcount.

Entering a new situation, Thurman identifies the missing capability and what it costs to close the gap, then builds the team around a skill set that can do A, B, C and D rather than starting with a team of five or ten. With AI, some of that spend now overlaps with what used to sit in marketing, so the investment case has to be made cross-functionally rather than as a RevOps line item alone.

### Don't Peanut-Butter Spread the Plan (04:04)

**Definition:** Aim a finite go-to-market budget at the specific places with the most defensible return instead of spreading it thinly across every product, segment and team.

Thurman sees the urge constantly in CRO planning. His alternative is to decide where the return really is, then defend that choice to every function — marketing aims its dollars the same way, customer success takes exceptional care of the customers whose stories will land the next deal in that pond. The hardest application is product P&Ls, where keeping every product leader happy can starve the opportunity that is actually in the ground.

### The Power of One Percent (11:53)

**Definition:** Small percentage improvements in conversion or retention, applied to a large go-to-market base, are worth more than they look — and small slips cost as much.

Anthony's version: on a $20 million go-to-market plan, one point of conversion could be a million dollars, which is both the opportunity and the risk as you scale. Thurman uses the same idea with renewal teams — improve GRR or NRR by 1%, then ask what the equivalent would be in new customers — and calls it a simple principle RevOps typically implements.

### Plant Yourself Smack in Between Everything (19:00)

**Definition:** The route from RevOps to the C-suite: own the reports and the numbers, and be able to explain how A connects to Z across every function, until you are a required seat in executive meetings.

Thurman contrasts it with staying in the background on systems. The goal is storytelling across marketing, sales and product, delivered as the non-biased party with no lean toward any one organization. Done well, it becomes difficult to run a C-suite meeting without you — which is how he came to attend executive offsites and board meetings as the only non-executive in the room.

### Ask In, Then Debrief the Board Meeting (22:13)

**Definition:** Two ways a RevOps leader earns a board-meeting invitation: ask to sit in once trust is established, and debrief every board meeting with the CRO to prepare for the next one.

Once you have the CRO's and likely the CEO's trust, asking to attend a meeting or two — even off the agenda — usually gets a yes; if not, ask when and what it would take, framed as wanting to hear action items directly so you can help next time. In parallel, debrief with the CRO: the toughest questions, what better prep would have looked like, and what to anticipate next time.

### Raise Your Hand When Change Is Occurring (24:08)

**Definition:** C-level seats tend to open during transitions and turmoil; the people who get them keep doing good work, build relationships, and volunteer when the moment comes.

Thurman volunteered to be interim CRO during a transition and was made COO instead. Anthony adds his own version from a restaurant job at 19, when every bartender left and the manager asked the server who had never had a drink to take the bar. The cycle Thurman describes is confidence to be uncomfortable, becoming comfortable, then being ready to be uncomfortable and raise your hand again.

### Carrying the Bag Without a Quota (34:21)

**Definition:** A strong RevOps leader already carries the number in practice — at the CRO's hip, crossing the T's on every deal — even if the comp plan never had a quota.

Thurman was told for years he would need to carry a bag before becoming a CRO and gave up the idea, then concluded it was not true. Running deal desk, talking to customers and coaching reps on what to say is carrying the number. Both he and Anthony argue the comp plan should reflect it, with the head of RevOps' variable tied to the company bookings number.

### RevOps Runs the Cadence (Dress Rehearsal for CRO) (37:27)

**Definition:** The head of RevOps runs the pipeline and forecast calls in the CRO's stead, asking the questions the CRO would ask and taking the answers as the boss would.

Thurman ran the cadence from his first RevOps role and only discovered it was unusual when a new CRO told him he ran his own calls — then embraced it and later called him four or five times to run RevOps again. Anthony names it a dress rehearsal for the role and pairs it with getting into the executive room as the data storyteller and getting invited to the board.

### From Your Own Story to Stories With Numbers (40:32)

**Definition:** Build storytelling by first practicing non-business stories — your own career — with your team and your CRO, then turning that practice into telling stories with numbers.

Thurman's premise is that being in the room is not enough; you have to connect what the information says and educate people on it, turning data into information. Practice starts with telling how you got to where you are, looking back and celebrating it, and only then moves to the numbers.


## Quotes

_Speakers inferred from an undiarized transcript — verify before attributing._

> "Numbers connect everything for me. And if you were an accountant, you'd understand what I'm talking about. You want things to balance. You also want a true return."
>
> — Thurman Sneed, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 125 (02:33)

> "If we have a finite amount of money to spend, let's not necessarily peanut butter spray that money, but let's aim it at something very specific."
>
> — Thurman Sneed, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 125 (04:11)

> "As opposed to saying I need a team of 10 or I need a team of five, I first start with I need a skill set that can help us do A, B, C, and D. And then I build a team from that perspective."
>
> — Thurman Sneed, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 125 (07:42)

> "It's not just a RevOps line item in the P&L anymore, which is exciting, actually."
>
> — Thurman Sneed, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 125 (08:26)

> "If you haven't invested in RevOps, RevOps should be able to pay for themselves annually."
>
> — Thurman Sneed, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 125 (09:53)

> "A mid-sized team is probably costing $20 million in spend. And if you don't have a team dedicated to making sure that it's running efficiently on a $20 million plan, if you can increase the conversion rate by just one point, that could be a million dollars."
>
> — Anthony Enrico, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 125 (11:20)

> "It was kind of scary to be honest with you. I had to call some people. It's like this guy's asking me to effectively change my career. All I know is finance."
>
> — Thurman Sneed, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 125 (12:48)

> "It was more fun helping people hit a quota than being on the dark side, so to speak."
>
> — Thurman Sneed, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 125 (15:56)

> "When a door opens, five more open for you typically."
>
> — Thurman Sneed, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 125 (16:27)

> "It's difficult to conduct a C-suite meeting without inviting the RevOps person."
>
> — Thurman Sneed, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 125 (19:46)

> "My advice would be, don't be shy to ask. And if the answer is initially no, ask, well, when, what do I need to do in order to be able to sit in."
>
> — Thurman Sneed, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 125 (22:08)

> "So the advice there is to look for when change is occurring and to raise your hand."
>
> — Thurman Sneed, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 125 (24:08)

> "A lot of times it takes the organization going through some turmoil to open up those opportunities where people are willing to take a chance."
>
> — Anthony Enrico, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 125 (27:31)

> "I'm going to answer this in a way that I would not have answered this 10 years ago. I'm going to say the CRO seat."
>
> — Thurman Sneed, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 125 (31:36)

> "10 years ago, I would have said COO. What changed? Partially AI."
>
> — Thurman Sneed, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 125 (31:48)

> "If you are a good RevOps person, you're carrying a bag in reality because you're right there at the hip with a CRO."
>
> — Thurman Sneed, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 125 (34:21)

> "Every single time that I am making sure that the T's were crossed and the I's were dotted for that sales leader, I was carrying a quota."
>
> — Thurman Sneed, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 125 (34:48)

> "One of the first and easiest things you could do is to get to the trust of your CRO to where you're running the calls."
>
> — Thurman Sneed, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 125 (39:07)

> "You don't just want to be in a room. You want to be a storyteller."
>
> — Thurman Sneed, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 125 (40:05)

> "Everybody wants to adopt something. But if you adopt, I like to say directionally correct. RevOps is the place to get directionally correct."
>
> — Thurman Sneed, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 125 (44:54)


## Practical advice by role

### RevOps Leaders

- Hold your team to a simple bar: RevOps should pay for itself every year, through consolidated tools, a real sales process, or better decisions.
- Scope the team from the capabilities that are missing, then hire to the skill set — not to a headcount number.
- Own the reports and the numbers, and learn to explain how A connects to Z across marketing, sales and product.
- Ask to sit in on a board meeting once you have the CRO's trust; if the answer is no, ask what it would take.
- Debrief every board meeting with the CRO: toughest questions, prep gaps, and what to anticipate next time.
- Earn the right to run the pipeline and forecast calls, asking the questions the CRO would ask.
- Practice storytelling with your team and your CRO — start with your own career story, then move to stories with numbers.
- When a transition opens a seat above you, volunteer — even for an interim role.

### Revenue Executives

- Resist peanut-butter spreading the plan; aim the budget where the return is defensible and get every function to aim the same way.
- Be willing to defund a product specialization that has passed its life so the real opportunity isn't starved.
- Put your head of RevOps' variable compensation on the company bookings number, not a generic company bonus.
- Let RevOps run the cadence calls in your stead — it strengthens the operating rhythm and develops your successor.
- When you consider CRO candidates, don't disqualify a RevOps leader for never having carried a formal quota.

### Founders

- Don't run at zero RevOps, even when small — one person thinking cross-functionally can make a couple of sellers far more effective.
- Expect the RevOps investment to pay for itself annually, and ask for that math explicitly.
- Look at conversion and retention sensitivity: one point on a large go-to-market plan, or 1% of GRR or NRR, is worth a lot of new logos.
- Consider RevOps, not only engineering or product, as the owner of a holistic go-to-market AI strategy.

### Sales Leaders

- Treat RevOps running pipeline and forecast calls as an asset, not a threat — the questions and follow-up get more consistent.
- Give reps a direct line to RevOps when a new field or process costs them too much time, and expect it to be fixed.
- Integrate the teams that sell and deliver services so the handoff is a true handoff, not a pass-over.


## AI takeaways

**Thesis:** AI is one reason Thurman now says RevOps leads to the CRO seat rather than COO: RevOps teams are adopting AI fastest in go-to-market, and what they use it for is exactly the CRO's job — more productive sellers, more bookings, less churn.

- **** — 
- **** — 
- **** — 
- **** — 
- **** — 

**Agent & automation ideas**

- Use AI to prepare the questions the CRO would ask on each pipeline and forecast call, so RevOps can run the cadence consistently.
- Build an assistant that turns weekly pipeline and retention data into a narrative for the executive team, practicing the data-to-information storytelling Thurman describes.
- Model the power of one percent automatically: show what a one-point change in conversion or a 1% change in GRR or NRR is worth against the current plan.


## Operations takeaways

### Revenue operations

- **.** 
- **.** 
- **.** 
- **.** 
- **.** 

### Pipeline & marketing ops

- **.** 
- **.** 
- **.** 

### Customer operations

- **.** 
- **.** 


## Metrics mentioned

| Value | Metric | Context |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Pays for itself annually | Minimum RevOps return | Thurman's floor for any RevOps investment, in place of a formula for how much to spend. |
| $20M | Mid-sized go-to-market spend | Anthony's illustration of what a mid-sized sales and marketing team is probably costing. |
| About $1M | Value of one conversion point | Anthony's estimate for lifting conversion by one point on a $20 million go-to-market plan — the opportunity, or the risk if conversion slips as you scale. |
| 1% of GRR or NRR | Retention improvement to model | Thurman's power-of-one-percent exercise for renewal teams: what it would take in new customers to replace a 1% retention gain. |
| A couple of months | Time as interim CRO | How long Thurman served as interim CRO after volunteering, before the CEO made him COO. |
| Within the last 10 years | When the COO-or-CRO answer changed | Ten years ago Thurman would have said RevOps leads to COO; today he says CRO, partially because of AI. |
| 4–5 times | Callbacks from a former CRO | The CRO who initially insisted on running his own calls later called Thurman four or five times to run RevOps for him again. |


## Entities mentioned

- **Marigold** (company) — Thurman's employer, where he ran revenue operations, became COO of the services business, and now serves as Chief Revenue Officer after Marigold sold its enterprise software business to Zeta Global. In the episode he describes integrating a services organization that had not been integrated and bridging the salespeople who sold those services to the teams delivering them. · https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/company/marigold/
- **LeanScale** (company) — Anthony's company. He mentions that LeanScale has adopted go-to-market engineer as an internal title, the terminology Thurman says signals where RevOps is heading. · https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/company/leanscale/
- **Thurman Sneed** (person, guest) —  · https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/guest/thurman-sneed/
- **Anthony Enrico** (person, host) — Co-founder of LeanScale and host of The LeanScale Podcast. · https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/guest/anthony-enrico/


## FAQ

**Q: Should a RevOps career lead to COO or CRO?**

A: Thurman Sneed, Chief Revenue Officer at Marigold and a former COO, says the CRO seat — and notes he would have said COO ten years ago. Part of what changed is AI: RevOps teams are adopting it fastest in go-to-market, and what they use it for is making sellers more productive with more, higher-quality at-bats, driving bookings and revenue, and reducing churn. Those are the CRO's goals. The remaining question is personality — whether you are comfortable talking to customers about numbers, since the numbers a CRO drives are the same ones the customer is trying to drive. A RevOps leader who can tell that story, especially paired with a strong head of RevOps, has a natural path to the CRO role.

**Q: How much should a company invest in RevOps?**

A: There is no magic formula, according to Thurman Sneed, but there is a floor: RevOps should pay for itself annually. The return can come from cutting redundant platforms nobody integrated, from installing territory management and a consistent sales process where there was none, or from giving the CEO and CRO reporting they can make decisions on. He sizes teams by the capabilities the business is missing rather than a target headcount, and he says zero RevOps is never the answer — even at a small company, one person thinking cross-functionally can make a couple of salespeople much more effective. On a large plan the sensitivity is significant: Anthony Enrico estimates one point of conversion on a $20 million go-to-market plan is worth about a million dollars.

**Q: Do you need to carry a quota before becoming a CRO?**

A: Thurman Sneed no longer thinks so. Early in his career he was told he would have to carry a bag before becoming a CRO, believed it, and gave up the idea. Ten to fifteen years later he sees it differently: a good RevOps leader is at the CRO's hip helping hit the number, crossing the T's on every deal, running deal desk, sometimes talking to customers and coaching reps on what to say. The incentive plan may not have included a quota, but the work did. He and Anthony Enrico both recommend tying a head of RevOps' variable compensation to the company bookings number rather than a generic bonus, so the alignment is explicit.

**Q: How does a head of RevOps get invited to the board meeting?**

A: Thurman Sneed was invited rather than asking, but his advice is not to be shy. Once you have the trust of the CRO and likely the CEO, asking to attend a meeting or two — even if you are not on the agenda — usually gets a yes. If the answer is no, ask when and what you need to do to be able to sit in, framing it as wanting to hear the action items directly so you can help next time. A second route is to debrief each board meeting with the CRO: what were the toughest questions, what could have been done better to prep, and what questions to anticipate next time. Underneath both is being the non-biased owner of the numbers who can explain how everything connects.

**Q: What is the best way for a RevOps leader to prepare for a CRO role?**

A: Thurman Sneed's most concrete advice is to run the cadence: the pipeline and forecast calls, in the CRO's stead, asking the questions the CRO would ask and taking the answers as the boss would. He did this from his first RevOps role; one CRO who initially insisted on running his own calls embraced it and later called Thurman four or five times to run RevOps for him again. Anthony Enrico calls it a dress rehearsal for the role and adds two more steps: get inside the executive room as the person who can tell the story around the data, and get invited to the board meeting. Thurman's thread through all of it is storytelling — turning data into information people can act on.

**Q: How can someone in RevOps get better at storytelling?**

A: Thurman Sneed recommends practicing deliberately — with your own team and with your CRO — and starting with stories that aren't about the business. Begin with your own story: how you got to where you are, looking back and celebrating where you were. Once that is fluent, turn the practice into telling a story with numbers. His reason is that being in the room is not enough; a RevOps leader has to connect what the information is saying and educate people on it, turning data into information. He treats that ability as the core of moving from RevOps into a revenue executive role.

**Q: What does the go-to-market engineer title mean for the future of RevOps?**

A: For Thurman Sneed, the label signals that RevOps is leaving behind-the-scenes systems work and moving to the front — choosing which of the many capabilities now available best fit how the business should be shaped, with effects on product marketing, demand generation and product. He expects go-to-market operations to start leading the way more, informing product about what the market really wants. Anthony Enrico adds that many companies are already leaning on RevOps, rather than engineering or product, to lead their holistic AI strategy. Thurman's caution is that with so much available, someone has to narrow it to the few options that fit right now; he calls RevOps the place to get directionally correct.


## Timeline

- **00:00** — Cold open + intro
- **01:16** — The CIO who tapped him on the shoulder
- **06:31** — How much should you actually invest in RevOps?
- **08:36** — The floor: RevOps should pay for itself annually
- **11:07** — The power of one percent
- **12:25** — Finance to operations: the CRM implementation that changed everything
- **17:48** — From RevOps to the C-suite: plant yourself in between everything
- **21:05** — How to get invited to the board meeting
- **23:26** — Volunteering for interim CRO — and being made COO
- **27:18** — Why the seat opens when the org goes through turmoil
- **29:44** — What changes in the C-suite
- **31:12** — COO or CRO? The answer that changed
- **33:35** — Do you have to carry a bag first?
- **36:48** — Run the pipeline and forecast calls
- **41:21** — Where RevOps is going: go-to-market engineers
- **45:11** — Wrap


## Related episodes

- **Ep. 82: How an Ops Guy Became CRO of a $3B Company** (Joshua Trott (Patch)) — The closest parallel career: another operator who took RevOps all the way to the CRO seat, answering the question Thurman is asked here. · https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/podcast/joshua-trott-ops-guy-cro/
- **Ep. 86: Why the Best CROs Don't Come From Sales** (Jerry Brooner (Levelpath)) — Makes the same case Thurman reaches after fifteen years — that a CRO does not have to have carried a bag first. · https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/podcast/jerry-brooner-best-cros-dont-come-from-sales/
- **Ep. 77: RevOps Is Your Secret Weapon: From Order-Taker to Strategic Advisor** (Pete Shelton (Fullcast)) — Another CRO on how RevOps becomes the operator the CRO can't run the business without — Thurman's 'required seat' in the executive meeting. · https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/podcast/pete-shelton-revops-secret-weapon/
- **Ep. 14: RevOps 2.0: Earning a Seat in Corporate Planning** (Alex Brower (QFlow)) — How RevOps earns its way into planning and the executive room, the step before Thurman's board-meeting invitation. · https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/podcast/alex-brower-revops-2-0-qflow/
- **Ep. 36: Kingmaker: The TRUE Power Role in RevOps** (Vish) — The influence RevOps holds by sitting between every function — the same position Thurman tells listeners to plant themselves in. · https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/podcast/vish-kingmaker-revops/
- **Ep. 85: Why AI + GTM Engineers Can't Replace RevOps** (Tessa Whittaker (ZoomInfo)) — A counterpoint on the go-to-market engineer label Thurman sees as the future of RevOps, and on where strategic judgment still sits. · https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/podcast/tessa-whittaker-ai-gtm-engineers-revops/
- **Ep. 117: You Can't Get Promoted Until You Replace Yourself** (Cole Gillespie (Branch)) — Another CRO on what it takes to earn the next seat — the career-ladder question at the center of this conversation.


## Full transcript

_Machine-transcribed and not diarized; speaker attribution is inferred._  
_Transcript only, as a separate file: https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/podcast/thurman-sneed-marigold-coo-or-cro/transcript.md_

### 00:00 — Cold open + intro

**[0:00]** Many times when you're in the RevOps role, you're thinking about, yes, you're a people, right?

**[0:05]** But when you get into the C-suite, you're thinking about the whole, at least I do,

**[0:08]** I think about the whole company. My guest today is Thurman Sneed, Chief Revenue Officer

**[0:13]** at Marygold. Thurman's path to the revenue seat did not run through sales, it ran through accounting.

**[0:21]** Numbers connect everything for me. If you were an accountant, if someone's listening to this

**[0:26]** stuff in the account that you'd understand what I'm talking about, you want things to balance.

**[0:31]** How do you think about the investment itself in RevOps specifically? RevOps headcount, tools,

**[0:39]** the time away from selling to do enablement. If you haven't invested in RevOps,

**[0:44]** RevOps should be able to pay for themselves. Like a spider bite moment when you went from

**[0:51]** finance to RevOps. It was kind of the, it was kind of scary to be honest with you. I had to call some

**[0:57]** people. It's like this guy's asking me to like effectively change my career. All I know is

**[1:03]** finance. You're going to have to carry a bag before you can be a CRO. Yeah, that's a, that's a great

### 01:16 — The CIO who tapped him on the shoulder

**[1:16]** question. It's a couple of things probably, but for sure he saw some potential in me that I didn't

**[1:23]** see outside of finance. And I think he saw that potential because of how I interacted with him

**[1:29]** when he was actually in a sales role himself prior to getting into a CIO kind of tech position

**[1:37]** and the way that I interacted with cross-functional teams. So being in that finance role,

**[1:43]** I interacted with marketing, with sales, with finance. And he was an observer of that,

**[1:49]** but I, from my perspective, I was just doing my job. And from his perspective, he saw someone who

**[1:56]** had built some relationships and the ability to communicate and understand and listen to the needs

**[2:03]** of others and try to close gaps. So I appreciated him seeing that. Yeah. And I think that's something

**[2:11]** a lot of people in RevOps. Maybe they don't appreciate that that's their superpower, that

**[2:15]** that's really what it takes to do the job well. And I also think it's really interesting. You

**[2:20]** started off in accounting. I feel like having that type of background makes you an absolute weapon

**[2:27]** in the RevOps world too. Yeah, certainly I, I leveraged that accounting background, whether I

**[2:33]** realize it or not every single day, um, numbers connect everything for me. And if you were an

**[2:40]** accountant, if someone's listening to this stuff in the county, you'd understand what I'm talking

**[2:44]** about. You want things to balance. Um, you also want a true return. And so, so many times when I'm

**[2:52]** teaching, you know, my sales team or I'm teaching my RevOps team, I'm always bringing it back to

**[2:59]** the numbers. And I think finance people probably love me because I'm always bringing it back to

**[3:04]** the numbers, whether it's, you know, us needing to drive more revenue or reduce expense. It sometimes

**[3:10]** might be the case. Um, we're always looking at where are we going to hurt the business the least

**[3:14]** or improve the business the most. And it's always coming back to those numbers.

**[3:21]** And to take that a little bit deeper, there's a lot of people end up in RevOps, maybe from a

**[3:26]** systems background, maybe more like engineering type of role. Some come in through sales too,

**[3:33]** so that they've spent some time maybe carrying a bag or doing that. Where do you think in go to

**[3:40]** market and in RevOps that numbers and data driven mindset has really, really helped. What are some

**[3:47]** things that you think you see and some projects that you approach that might be a little different

**[3:52]** than someone else? Uh, I would say designing go to market models or coverage models, right? So,

**[4:00]** so many times, and I've worked with a lot of CROs, I'm not going to mention any names here,

**[4:04]** but a lot of times you have the urge to peanut butter spray it. And, you know, when you really

**[4:11]** can focus on the numbers, you can say, where are we really going to get the return? If we have a

**[4:15]** finite amount of money to spend, let's not necessarily peanut butter spray that money,

**[4:20]** but let's aim it at something very specific that we, that we have the greatest comfort is going to

**[4:26]** get the returns that we need. And, and to be able to defend that investment, because it's always an

**[4:32]** investment from my perspective, to be able to defend that investment to our cross-functional

**[4:38]** teams, not just the finance team, but literally the cross-functional team. So marketing, I need

**[4:44]** you to aim in this direction. Would you mind floating your dollars in that same direction?

**[4:50]** Customer success. I need you to take care of a certain set of customers very, very well,

**[4:56]** because we need success stories from the M and K studies so that we can land the next fish in

**[5:01]** this pond, not the one in the small one in this big ocean that sometimes we try to peanut butter

**[5:06]** spread into. So whenever we are leading a significant change and we're trying to narrow

**[5:13]** down a focus, it's that the numbers being able to resist spreading them too thin.

**[5:22]** Yeah. I've definitely seen some really awful planning processes and in my career, that's one

**[5:27]** of them peanut butter spreading or not having enough coverage and keeping the goal really high,

**[5:32]** not taking account for some of the other numbers like attrition or things that you know are going

**[5:36]** to happen that can really wreck your plan. And I think if you haven't spent a lot of time

**[5:42]** looking at things like that, it can be pretty easy to miss. Yeah. And one of the ones that

**[5:50]** as you asked that question, I'm starting to think about back in the day has to do with product P and

**[5:54]** L's. So you have a sales CRO that may be responsible for trying to make every product leader

**[6:00]** happy. And sometimes that's not the right answer, right? Sometimes we need to say, you know what,

**[6:06]** that specialization to sell that specific product is not the best place to place the money. And so

**[6:12]** those typically have been some very hard decisions, but those are some of the best decisions to be

**[6:17]** made because the diamond in the rough or the gold that's sitting in the ground sometimes is getting

**[6:22]** sacrificed with the investment in something that has passed his life. How do you think about,

### 06:31 — How much should you actually invest in RevOps?

**[6:31]** this is something I've struggled with and I know a lot of other people in RevOps have struggled

**[6:36]** with, but I'm interested based on your finance background, how you might approach this. How do

**[6:42]** you think about the investment itself in RevOps specifically RevOps, headcount tools, the time

**[6:51]** away from selling to do enablement, all of those investments that are made there. What's kind of

**[6:57]** the equation you run in your head to let you know how much you should be investing or what you expect

**[7:02]** the return to be on that investment? That's a great question, Anthony. And my experience,

**[7:08]** I've always had the situation of trying to be as lean as possible. So in terms of giving you

**[7:15]** something that's a magical formula, I haven't necessarily approached it from that way. What

**[7:20]** I've approached it from is from a capability perspective. So many times I've brought revenue

**[7:28]** operations teams with me and I evaluate the situation that I am entering and I decide what

**[7:35]** capability is missing. And if that capability is going to cost whatever that capability costs to an

**[7:42]** extent, but we have to be able to close the gaps is the biggest thing. And so as opposed to saying

**[7:49]** I need a team of 10 or I need a team of five, I first start with I need a skill set that can

**[7:55]** help us do A, B, C, and D. And then I build a team from that perspective. That's changing now

**[8:03]** from the perspective of AI and all the other things that you need to be able to turn on

**[8:10]** and implement and explain again cross-functionally because some of that spin may relate to things

**[8:17]** that used to be spent in marketing before. But now you have RevOps people kind of leading the

**[8:22]** way to connect and close some of those gaps. And so you need to have different types of

**[8:26]** conversations. And again, it's not just a RevOps line item in the P and L anymore, which is exciting,

### 08:36 — The floor: RevOps should pay for itself annually

**[8:36]** actually. I think so too. And I know there's not a magic formula. It probably depends. Are there

**[8:43]** any guardrails you would say like on the spectrum of not having RevOps at all versus like a bloated

**[8:53]** RevOps team, any ROI calculation you think would help you make a decision? Some companies are

**[9:01]** running around with zero RevOps investment. Oh, wow. Yes, I certainly wouldn't recommend that. So

**[9:08]** in my experience, the best way to, I guess, from a numbers perspective is you definitely should not

**[9:14]** be with zero RevOps. And that kind of goes for even small companies. I think the return on having

**[9:23]** someone think about things from a cross-functional manner and recognize the gaps and how you can make

**[9:29]** a sales person. It could be one person. How you can make a sales person or two more efficient,

**[9:35]** more effective. How did it generate more leads? The new terminology of go-to-market engineering.

**[9:40]** It's just a tremendous return. And so I look at it as if I'm spending X amount of dollars,

**[9:48]** I want that team to think about at least paying for themselves. So that's the rule that I would

**[9:53]** give you, right? If you haven't invested in RevOps, RevOps should be able to pay for themselves

**[10:00]** annually, right? Whether that is reducing expenses and unneeded systems and costs, because you might

**[10:07]** have four different platforms that you're paying for because you don't have someone to integrate

**[10:12]** them and then cut that cost out. Or if you have a large sales team that doesn't have any beginning

**[10:18]** of a sales process or consistency, and you know that once you get that consistency, once you have

**[10:24]** territory management, for example, I've gone into some situations where there's no concept of

**[10:31]** this person has a responsibility to drive a number in X space. And it's just a round robin type of

**[10:37]** thing. Go-to-market operations RevOps fixes that. And that ultimately comes back to accountability,

**[10:45]** a management system, being able to run a cadence, being able for a CEO, CRO, etc., to run reports

**[10:53]** that make sense and be able to make the next best decision, having new information that they didn't

**[11:00]** necessarily have before. So it should pay for itself. That's the basic math that I would put on it.

### 11:07 — The power of one percent

**[11:07]** No, I think that makes a ton of sense. And a lot of people get caught up in like, oh, well,

**[11:11]** maybe I can have one more AE or I take that investment and throw it into marketing and

**[11:15]** I think one thing people don't realize is how sensitive, especially if you're making a

**[11:20]** sizable investment in your go-to-market machine salespeople marketing. I mean, a mid-sized team

**[11:26]** is probably costing $20 million in spend. And if you don't have a team dedicated to making sure

**[11:32]** that it's running efficiently on a $20 million plan, if you can increase the conversion rate by

**[11:40]** just one point, that could be a million dollars. Yeah. I'll frame that as the opportunity or also

**[11:48]** as the risk if you don't keep your conversion rates where they are as you scale. That is correct.

**[11:53]** And it's funny you use 1% because in certain situations, I literally talked about the power

**[12:00]** of 1%. And then from a RevOps perspective and being able to focus the renewal team on the power

**[12:07]** of improving GRR or NRR by 1%. What is the equivalent of replacing that in new customers?

**[12:16]** It's large in a lot of cases. So power of 1% is a very simple but principle that RevOps

### 12:25 — Finance to operations: the CRM implementation that changed everything

**[12:25]** implements typically. Walk me back to, I want to go back to this like a spider bite moment

**[12:35]** when you went from finance to RevOps. You're doing that CRM implementation. Walk me through

**[12:41]** how that moment led to all the other opportunities in your career and what you learned along the

**[12:48]** way through that path. Yeah. So first thing, it was kind of scary to be honest with you. I had

**[12:56]** to call some people. It's like this guy's asking me to effectively change my career. All I know

**[13:02]** is finance. At least that's how I was evaluating myself at that particular point in time. And once

**[13:10]** I got over the discomfort and I took the leap, started getting engaged in the project in and of

**[13:16]** itself, some of the feedback came from the consultants that I was working with. They

**[13:22]** actually loved working with me. And they're like, man, we've never worked with someone like you.

**[13:27]** And what they meant by that was clearly I was thinking and operating and more than in a sales

**[13:34]** capacity, right? So not just let's finish this to connect the dots, but no, we're going to go on a

**[13:41]** road show and we're going to talk to people. We're going to ask questions. We're going to make sure

**[13:46]** that we are implementing something that the sales people are going to use and that we're going to

**[13:51]** get the reports downstream that we want to get out of this. And we're not going to talk about reports

**[13:56]** after the fact, things along those lines. And so as this project is going on in every interaction

**[14:02]** that I would have like that, but also when you were running to issues and the process for solving

**[14:09]** the issue. Well, we have an issue. Let's bring everybody into the room, right? As opposed to,

**[14:15]** you know, this group over here yelling and screaming and not knowing what to bring everybody

**[14:20]** into the room. Let's go around the table and let's figure out how we're going to address

**[14:24]** this issue. Again, now I'm seeing what Jose saw in me. It's like, I didn't know that all the things

**[14:32]** that I was doing in other places in finance or whatnot, it actually had a direct impact on this

**[14:38]** project. And so by the time we finished this project mistakes and all finding situations where

**[14:44]** I implemented things that I've wanted to get data back from the sales people, I'm like,

**[14:49]** and as soon as we go live, they're like, we're not doing this type of stuff. 500 man field.

**[14:58]** Even those learnings were fantastic because I had the capability and authority to say,

**[15:03]** take it out. Let's roll it out. We hear them. And you know what? It's, it's cool to be able to put

**[15:08]** yourself, your feet literally in their shoes. And it's easier to do that when you have had a

**[15:15]** relationship with them. So they could come to you to me and say, Thurman, come on, you know,

**[15:19]** this, this is, this is not going to work. Look at how much time this takes and you pay attention.

**[15:25]** And so once that happened, then you realize, Oh, I'm doing, I'm truly doing operations.

**[15:34]** This is not finance. This truly is operations. We did this from a system implementation standpoint.

**[15:40]** We're trying to connect this to the product. We're connecting this to the reporting that

**[15:44]** the CEO is going to see, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I am squarely in operations. And

**[15:51]** at that point I had every bit of confidence to stay in operations and desire actually,

**[15:56]** not just confidence, but desire to stay in operations because it was, it was more fun

**[16:01]** helping people hit a quota, um, then, then being on the dark side, so to speak.

**[16:09]** I was going to ask what kept you from maybe going back to finance and then what teed up,

**[16:15]** okay. You land that project, then what teed up like the next roles and going deeper into

**[16:21]** the rev ops role. Yeah. So, and you know, some of these things you just can't make up. Sometimes

**[16:27]** it's about, and you've probably seen me post about this when a door opens five more open for you

**[16:34]** typically. And so, um, that door that Jose opened, it led to another door because we ended

**[16:40]** up getting acquired and I met, you know, general manager and other executives from the acquiring

**[16:45]** company. We had conversations and they only knew me as ops. And so I stepped through that door and

**[16:54]** I became, you know, a, a go to market operations leader for, for net IQ. And that's, I was able

**[17:02]** to stay there because that was the value at that point that I was adding. Um, I'd never even thought

**[17:07]** about going back to finance. Cause I had stepped through a couple of doors already.

**[17:13]** It's tough. There's a few people I, I got kind of pushed into it too, or it just kind of fell in my

**[17:19]** lap. And then I fell in love with the, with the work and what it meant. And I was like, Oh my gosh,

**[17:24]** there's no going back after this. This is way too much fun. Yeah. Yeah. It's a different level of

**[17:30]** fun when closing quarters and you know, trying to try to help the sales team, you know, across T's

**[17:36]** dot eyes and being a person to go back and convince finance that this is a good deal. And the rep

**[17:42]** wreck is good. It just, it's just a different perspective than, than just kind of waiting.

### 17:48 — From RevOps to the C-suite: plant yourself in between everything

**[17:48]** Right. Well, one thing that I think, I think is just fascinating about your career arc

**[17:54]** is that you took rev ops all the way to the C suite in two different roles. Once as a COO,

**[18:05]** now as a CRO. And there are, there are a lot more people coming into rev ops now. I think,

**[18:12]** you know, when, when we got into it, it was maybe like, okay, happenstance and figured out, but now

**[18:18]** there's a lot of people who are intentionally getting into it and it's attracting really,

**[18:22]** really top talent to come into the role. And with that, the top talent has ambitions for,

**[18:28]** okay, ultimately where is this leading? And I think that's always, those two roles have always

**[18:34]** kind of been, been it, but a couple of things. One, what does it take to go from rev ops to a C level

**[18:43]** position? Because I think that's a big jump. And then you have to walk me through both roles and

**[18:50]** where you think heads of rev ops are likely to be heading. Okay. So the first question

**[19:00]** is really plant yourself smack in between everything. Sometimes you can be in a rev ops

**[19:07]** and you can kind of try to be in the background, so to speak, and the systems and things along

**[19:14]** those lines, but when you really move yourself forward and you get to the point where you can

**[19:20]** own the reports and you own the numbers and you can explain how a connects to Z and not only system

**[19:30]** terms, but understanding that marketing is doing this, sales is doing this product is doing this

**[19:37]** type of storytelling. That's how you do it. Right? So when you are a required seat in the meetings,

**[19:46]** right? I, it's difficult to conduct a C suite meeting without inviting the rev ops person.

**[19:53]** If, if you're following what I'm saying. And yeah, especially if you're close with the CRO,

**[20:00]** because as the second, some data questions come up, it's like, wait, where's my, where's my rev ops

**[20:06]** person? That's exactly right. And, and that's, that's how it happened for me. I was able to

**[20:13]** participate not only in executive meetings and off sites where I'm the only person that's not

**[20:19]** part of the executive team that's in the meeting all the way up to the point of being in board

**[20:24]** meetings, doing the same thing. And, and so as you asked me that question, I'm thinking about how

**[20:30]** that happened. I was invited and, and, but I was invited because of the information and the

**[20:37]** understanding of the information and how it all connected to functions and being able to be that

**[20:44]** trusted source that didn't have, you know, a lean towards the marketing or the sales or the product

**[20:51]** organization that I was literally trying to be, um, the fly on the wall or the, the, you know,

**[20:59]** the non-biased party providing information. I want to go back to something cause I think

### 21:05 — How to get invited to the board meeting

**[21:05]** that's actually a critical moment. I felt like it was for me first time getting invited to

**[21:11]** a board meeting. That is when it felt like, okay, I'm, I'm playing in the big leagues now. Um,

**[21:21]** I might be, you know, the, the sixth man or something on the team, but I'm still there.

**[21:26]** I'm on the team and I come in quite a bit for people who are sitting in heads of RevOps roles.

**[21:31]** What does it take to get the invitation? I didn't ask. I can tell you that, but

**[21:38]** look in hindsight, I could have asked in the, you, you, you will recognize that there's a

**[21:45]** point in time where you have trust of the CRO. You have trust likely of the CEO.

**[21:54]** And as, if that is your desire to continue to move up, usually they will grant you

**[22:02]** the ability to attend a meeting or two, even if you're not on the agenda, if you're in a

**[22:08]** background, usually that answer would be a yes. So don't be, I would, my advice would be,

**[22:13]** don't be shy to ask. And if the answer is initially no, ask, well, when, what do I need to do,

**[22:22]** in order to be able to sit in, because you want to, you know, evaluate and listen and see how they

**[22:28]** ask questions and, and present it as, I want to be able to hear that so that when there's action

**[22:34]** items, I could hear it directly and I can help you the next time type of thing. So, so another way

**[22:40]** of doing that is debriefing the board meeting with the CRO. What were the toughest questions

**[22:47]** that were asked? Was there anything that you feel like we could have done better to prep you?

**[22:52]** Right? What are the things that we can anticipate being the questions the next

**[22:57]** time that we go to the board meeting, all types of things like that is the way you get invited.

**[23:03]** I think it's really good advice. And I, I know it might sound trivial, but getting that invitation

**[23:13]** is massive for your career. So like, if you can reverse engineer that somehow,

**[23:19]** I think it's really important to try to do that. Absolutely. I completely agree with you, Anthony.

### 23:26 — Volunteering for interim CRO — and being made COO

**[23:26]** So from there, walk me through what it takes to graduate to the next level

**[23:32]** and get the C in front of your title and really be at the table. Full transparency. It felt like

**[23:40]** that was eluding me and I could not figure out how, how am I going to make this a reality if it is to

**[23:49]** be my reality. And so as, as individuals, if we're transparent, sometimes we might think it's not

**[23:55]** going to happen. And then if you pause long enough and you build relationships with the right people,

**[24:01]** you keep doing what you know you're doing is right. Another person will tap you on the shoulder. And

**[24:08]** so in this particular case, change was occurring and I raised my hand. So the advice there is to

**[24:18]** look for when change is occurring and to raise your hand. I think I can do that. I have provided

**[24:28]** this value to tremendous number of CROs to CEOs. At some point you have to get past it and say,

**[24:37]** I'm going to cross the threshold and raise my hand and volunteer. And that's what happened.

**[24:40]** So I actually volunteered to be interim CRO at first. And I did that for a couple of months.

**[24:48]** And so as the transition was occurring, I'm like, well, I think I could do that. I know I didn't

**[24:55]** get picked for this yet, but what can I do? And the CEO then said, you know what, Thurman,

**[25:02]** I want to make you COO. And I'm like, I'll gladly take it. And that became an experience in and of

**[25:09]** itself because I stepped into something that I did not. I never had direct responsibility for

**[25:16]** managing, but it was identical to when Jose years ago tapped me on the shoulder to go from finance

**[25:21]** and lead a CRM implementation. It was the same thing. So I had experienced stepping into something

**[25:28]** that I did not know before. And learning it and picking it up was effectively identical.

**[25:36]** You meet people, you understand, you listen really, really hard to the challenges that they have.

**[25:42]** And then you observe what are the gaps and which ones of these gaps are the biggest and will have

**[25:49]** the greatest impact if we can help close them. And it was RevOps partially all over again,

**[25:55]** but RevOps with a specific business focus. Our job is to improve XYZ numbers. How are we going to

**[26:03]** improve XYZ numbers and who do we need to get on the same page in order to do that?

**[26:12]** In my case, we had not integrated our services organization, but I've integrated systems and

**[26:19]** sales teams repeatedly. This was really no different, just a different context, just a

**[26:25]** little bit of different context, different set of people. And it even helped with the sales piece

**[26:30]** because salespeople sold the services. Well, how much do we talk to the salespeople that sell the

**[26:36]** services? So I even was able to bridge that because it was a pass over type of thing as opposed to

**[26:44]** passing two or a handoff, a true handoff. And so we improved the entire go-to-market process

**[26:51]** with me being COOO because once again, you're bridging and closing the gaps that maybe others

**[26:57]** didn't necessarily see. I think that's a really practical way of thinking about this too. One,

**[27:07]** get uncomfortable being put into positions where you don't know everything and you have to start

**[27:12]** from scratch, but also lean on some transferable skills that you have and see how you can make it

### 27:18 — Why the seat opens when the org goes through turmoil

**[27:18]** work. The other thing, I think a lot of people think of it as like, oh, if I check these boxes,

**[27:24]** then I will get into this role. But a lot of times it requires the organization going through change.

**[27:31]** Yes. A lot of times it takes the organization going through some turmoil to open up those

**[27:36]** opportunities where people are willing to take a chance. My favorite time this happened in my

**[27:42]** career goes all the way back. I worked in restaurants in high school and in college.

**[27:48]** I was 19. I had been working at the same restaurant for three years at this point. I had a busboy

**[27:54]** host. I was a server at this point, loved it, doing a great job. One of the bartenders got fired,

**[28:02]** then the next bartender quit, and then the restaurant had no bartenders.

**[28:08]** And all the money's made where all the money's made. It is where all the money is made.

**[28:14]** And the general manager came over and was like, hey, by chance, would you be interested in being

**[28:21]** a bartender having never had a drink before? I'm 19 years old. Yeah. I was like, yeah, why not?

**[28:28]** Let's do it. And I get in the role and I'm like, okay, learning the recipes. We had a

**[28:36]** little flip book of all the drinks that we made and everything that goes into it.

**[28:40]** And that ended up being one of the funnest jobs I've ever had, and I loved it.

**[28:43]** Yes, you have to do your part. You have to do a good job. You have to show up and you have to

**[28:47]** perform in your role. But you also have to wait for some bad stuff to happen for those things

**[28:54]** to open up. Yeah. I love your analogy because it simplifies it, right? And that's one of the

**[29:02]** things that I try to do a lot too is have probably had some tag lines along the way,

**[29:09]** making the complex simple. But that example, it really is the same. Some people might not

**[29:14]** realize that the example that you just gave is the same as the example that I gave, but it really is.

**[29:21]** It's sometimes just the confidence, right? The confidence to raise your hand and say,

**[29:26]** I'm going to take a stab at being uncomfortable, as you said, for a period of time. And then the

**[29:31]** next thing you know, you're comfortable. And then you're comfortable enough to where you're ready to

**[29:37]** be uncomfortable again and raise your hand again. That's right. That's right. Yeah. In the C-suite

### 29:44 — What changes in the C-suite

**[29:44]** positions, what do you think is a little different or not obvious compared to someone sitting in a

**[29:53]** head of RevOps role right now? You feel a greater obligation to the whole, or at least I do.

**[30:04]** You start to understand that businesses are operating for the benefit of not only the

**[30:09]** customers, but for an employee base, right? So many times when you're in the RevOps role,

**[30:15]** you're thinking about, yes, you're a people, right? But when you get into the C-suite,

**[30:20]** you're thinking about the whole, at least I do, I think about the whole company, right? And how are

**[30:24]** we going to provide career opportunities, not just for folks in sales and in RevOps, but career

**[30:33]** opportunities for across the board, right? I like for people maybe because of my own background and

**[30:39]** the fact that I moved from finance to ops and now in sales, I like to give other people that

**[30:44]** opportunity to float, to move around and to, to understand a little bit that happens to their left,

**[30:51]** a little bit that happens to their right, because the more an organization is able to develop that,

**[30:56]** the stronger you're going to be. So for me, that's, that's the big thing. And you're in a seat and you

**[31:02]** can influence that to an even, even greater degree. Yeah, there's definitely a gravity to it that you

### 31:12 — COO or CRO? The answer that changed

**[31:12]** can feel. Now between the two roles, bringing it back, lots of heads of RevOps have their eyes on

**[31:20]** either one. Should I try to wait for that COO position to open up? Should I try to wait for

**[31:26]** that CRO position to open up? What do you think the RevOps path is ultimately leading to?

**[31:36]** I would not have, I'm going to answer this in a way that I would not have answered this 10 years ago.

**[31:44]** I'm going to say the CRO seat.

**[31:48]** 10 years ago, I would have said COO. What changed? Partially AI. And the reason I bring up the AI

**[32:00]** is who is really embracing it or who can embrace it in a go to market space the fastest, the RevOps

**[32:09]** folks. But as they're embracing it, and what they're trying to achieve with it, they know all

**[32:16]** they're trying to do is make the sales team more productive by giving them more at bats at the end

**[32:21]** of the day. More and more at bats, more quality at bats. And ultimately, that's going to just lead to

**[32:31]** more revenue, more bookings for the organization. It also can lead to, depending upon how things

**[32:37]** are being leveraged, less churn. So when you're thinking about all these things and you're putting

**[32:42]** them together, well, isn't that what the CRO's goals are? Ultimately, to drive more bookings that

**[32:50]** lead to more revenue, to protect churn. The only piece that you then need to get to is do you have

**[32:57]** the personality that you're okay talking to a customer about numbers? Because it's all numbers,

**[33:01]** right? So the same numbers that you're trying to drive as a CRO for your business are the same

**[33:06]** numbers that someone in the company that you're serving is trying to drive for their company at

**[33:14]** the end of the day. So the more you can tell those stories, and if you're a storyteller,

**[33:19]** I would say CRO is a path. I think it feels like a natural path. A lot of the CRO job is the

**[33:30]** operations of revenue. And I think you're really teed up well to do that, especially if you can

### 33:35 — Do you have to carry a bag first?

**[33:35]** pair yourself again with a good head of RevOps. How do you feel if you haven't had a stint in sales

**[33:44]** or carrying a quota yourself or closing deals? I think there's still this idea that a CRO should

**[33:52]** have some type of rainmaking ability as well. Is that a gap to fill or is that not as relevant

**[34:00]** when you get to that level? So that's why my answer changed. So 10, 15 years ago, I felt like

**[34:06]** and people were telling me, Thurman, you're going to have to carry a bag before you can be a CRO.

**[34:12]** And so I believe that. And I, in my mind, gave that dream up. But actually, 10 years later,

**[34:21]** 15 years later, I just don't see that as being true. It's about realistically, if you are a good

**[34:29]** RevOps person, you're carrying a bag in reality because you're right there at the hip with a CRO.

**[34:35]** And you're right there trying to help that CRO hit his or her number. You're carrying a bag.

**[34:41]** It just might not have been that your incentive plan had a quota, right? And that your payment

**[34:48]** came from every cell that took place. But every single time I realized that every single time that

**[34:54]** I am making sure that the T's were crossed and the I's were dotted for that sales leader,

**[35:01]** I was carrying a quota. Anyway, right. And then I became to the point where I did because I managed

**[35:08]** deal desk and things along those lines. Sometimes I had to talk to the customer. Sometimes I was the

**[35:14]** one coaching the rep on this is what you need to say. So depending upon how how wide your revenue

**[35:22]** operations experience goes, in reality, you kind of carried ahead a quote.

**[35:28]** I've never heard it framed that way. I love that though. When I was an operator running RevOps,

**[35:35]** I always had an OTE and my variable was on the global number. So did we hit our bookings number

**[35:43]** and I had, you know, commission tied to everybody. Do you think that's an important component to

**[35:53]** have? Do you think it's important to tie some compensation and make your head of RevOps feel

**[35:58]** like, hey, I have some real skin in the game if we perform well. I do. I do. I think that's a

**[36:03]** perfect alignment and that alignment, especially if it's done effectively alignment is what allows

**[36:10]** the RevOps to be that glue because you're continuously trying to work out the kinks,

**[36:17]** close the gaps, help the other functions understand what's working, what's not working.

**[36:24]** Can we, if we went here, can we get more bookings and if we stay where we are,

**[36:30]** type of thing. So yeah, so I do. I do think that if you can add that into the incentive program and

**[36:36]** it not just be a bonus like every other person in the company, I do think that that is much

**[36:41]** stronger aligned. And since we're on it, I just want to see anything else that you think would

### 36:48 — Run the pipeline and forecast calls

**[36:48]** be important. If, if a head of RevOps is listening to this and they're like, Hey, I want to be a CRO

**[36:52]** one day. What you mentioned the breadth of what you're involved in, what are some things you think

**[36:59]** they should maybe actively go seek to do in their role that would help prepare them for the CRO

**[37:06]** position? So something I did, and again, this another one of those things you, you don't appreciate

**[37:14]** until you, you leave that particular environment and you, you find somewhere that doesn't do it

**[37:20]** quite that way. So one of the things that we grew up doing, or I grew up doing and RevOps right

**[37:27]** immediately after that transition with Jose is we used to run the cadence calls. That was just the

**[37:33]** way that I did it. I don't know why I picked that way. Maybe that was because I was coming from

**[37:38]** finance and finance relationships with sales was good to where we could run the calls. I was the

**[37:43]** one building the reports and things along those lines, but then I ran into a group. I left there

**[37:49]** and I went to a group and the CRO was like, what are you doing, Dharma? He's like, I run my calls.

**[37:56]** And I'm like, wow. I didn't know that that's the way it worked at other places,

**[38:01]** but that's not how it works here. I'm going to run the calls. So, so, but then we developed,

**[38:08]** then he, he embraced it and he realized, oh, this is much better with ops running the calls.

**[38:14]** And what I'm talking about the calls, I mean, the pipeline calls, the forecast calls,

**[38:20]** ops ran the cadence literally, right? And so the CRO, I was there in his stead, right? So

**[38:30]** they looked at me in this particular situation. Like I was him. I was, he realized, oh, you're

**[38:37]** asking the questions that I would ask. You're badgering them or you're complimenting them or

**[38:42]** whatever the case exactly as I would, again, didn't know that that's what I was doing until I ran into

**[38:48]** a place that didn't do it the way that I started off doing, right? But then the value of that was,

**[38:56]** was very clear because that person has probably called me four or five times to go

**[39:00]** ref ops for him again after that, after that, that meeting. And so if you're not running those calls,

**[39:07]** that's the advice of one of the first and easiest things you could do

**[39:11]** is to get to the trust of your CRO to where you're running the calls.

**[39:17]** And everything that that individual would be asking, you're asking, and you're expecting

**[39:24]** the responses to come to you just like they would to the boss.

**[39:30]** Yeah, it's like dress rehearsal for the role. Yeah, it's a dress rehearsal for the role.

**[39:34]** I like that a lot. Do some forecasting calls, get put in those sacred rhythms of the company,

**[39:41]** practice leading, get inside the exact room and be the data person and the person who can

**[39:48]** start to tell a story around it, get that invite to the board meeting.

**[39:52]** Yes. Probably the three things to help get you prepped for CRO mode.

**[39:58]** That's right. And all of that comes with storytelling ability. If you're not able to tell

**[40:05]** a story, the story is going to be difficult. You don't just want to be in a room. You want to be

**[40:11]** a storyteller. You want to be able to connect what the information is saying and be able to

**[40:16]** educate people on that information, turn the data into information.

**[40:22]** If somebody feels like they're not a great storyteller,

**[40:25]** any direction you'd point them to or how to work on that or think about what storytelling is?

**[40:32]** I would practice and this goes with a lot of things, but I would literally

**[40:40]** practice with your own team. I would practice with the CRO. And sometimes storytelling starts

**[40:48]** off with telling a story that is non-business related. It's telling your story. So kind of

**[40:54]** like we've been doing here today, Anthony, can you tell your own story? How did you get to where

**[40:59]** you are already? Reflect on where the Lord has blessed you, right? And be able to recognize where

**[41:05]** you were, look back, celebrate where you were, but do that in the form of saying a story.

**[41:12]** Then take those practice stories and turn them into telling a story with numbers.

**[41:17]** That's great. And I think, like you mentioned, if you can tie all those things together,

### 41:21 — Where RevOps is going: go-to-market engineers

**[41:21]** then you start to get really, really prepared for the role. Where do you think RevOps is going?

**[41:28]** So you've seen the arc of this really well. And I think you have a really solid foundation

**[41:34]** of first principles. What's the foundation of RevOps? But how do you think this is evolving?

**[41:42]** I know a lot's already changed, especially in maybe the last two years. But where do you think

**[41:48]** it's going? I like the new terminology, go to market engineers. Have you heard that? Have you

**[41:54]** seen that? Yeah, we've adopted it. We've adopted it as a title internally too. I really like that.

**[42:00]** I haven't changed any title in or anything like that. But what that terminology insinuates

**[42:08]** is where I think it's headed. It is definitely leaving where just the people behind the scenes

**[42:14]** working the systems, right? It is more the forward. Where grow to market operations or engineers or

**[42:23]** RevOps is actually, I think, going to start leading the way more so. Hey, all of these

**[42:32]** capabilities are out there. Which one of these capabilities help our business shape and take

**[42:39]** advantage of who we are the best? And that could have an impact on product marketing. That could

**[42:44]** have an impact on demand gen marketing. That could have an impact on product. We just don't see it

**[42:49]** yet. But you're starting to see little bit by little bit more and more of that. So stay educated,

**[42:57]** reach out there. But just again, back to that storytelling, understand what we're actually

**[43:02]** trying to tell the story we're trying to tell. You're always wanting to inform your product team

**[43:08]** of what they could build in the future. That's the engineer engineering, right? What is the market

**[43:13]** really telling us that they really want? Do they really need x, y, and z type of thing. And so I

**[43:18]** think that RevOps is more so than any other function, best position to be able to take advantage of that.

**[43:26]** I completely agree. And I think a lot of teams I'm seeing lean on their RevOps team to take them

**[43:31]** through the AI transition. Even what I find just interesting. Like if you would have a couple years

**[43:39]** ago said, okay, take a company and let's look at just the structure and hierarchy of a company.

**[43:44]** We're going to just come up with this new thing, AI, and everybody's going to start just like pouring

**[43:49]** into it and say, who do you think in the company is going to lead the overall company strategy of

**[43:54]** how you're going to use AI? I think a lot of people would have started to look at engineering

**[43:59]** or product or somewhere more technical. And I just find it so interesting that yes, they're using AI

**[44:07]** within their own department, but for the more holistic strategy, a lot of RevOps teams are

**[44:14]** owning that and leading that. And it's feeling like the moment you probably felt when you're

**[44:20]** tapped on the shoulder to do a CRM implementation. And it's like, we're the ones who are kind of used

**[44:25]** to not knowing things. Everything's changing all the time. Jack of all trades type of people. So

**[44:30]** like, yeah, we'll go do that. We'll go do that. Right. No fear.

**[44:36]** Yeah. Your head of RevOps has been me. So I don't know. I find it surprising, but I also think it's

**[44:44]** an exciting moment for anyone who's sitting in the role right now too. It is. It absolutely is.

**[44:48]** Because there's so much out there. Someone has to also scale it down and say, these are the ones to

**[44:54]** pick for us right now. Because there's a lot out there too. But yes, everybody wants to adopt

**[45:02]** something. But if you adopt, I like to say directionally correct. RevOps is the place

### 45:11 — Wrap

**[45:11]** to get directionally correct. Thurman, this has been awesome. Thank you so much for walking

**[45:16]** through everything. I am really impressed by your story, but it feels so RevOps to me. Nobody went

**[45:23]** to school for it. Nobody thought about it as their career. And then you kind of find your way into it

**[45:29]** and then develop through it. But the people who get it that are in it and love it really understand

**[45:34]** what's special about it. And I think you've just exhibited that through your career this whole time.

**[45:39]** And I also really like the lesson on raise your hand when there's opportunities. Do a good job

**[45:46]** in your role, but you may need to exhibit some patience and wait for those opportunities to open

**[45:52]** up. It's not all going to be on your time. You're going to have to wait for those. And when they do,

**[45:57]** seize the moment and raise your hand and get in there. And I think the conversation we had around

**[46:03]** the ultimate role that RevOps is leading to, is it leading to COO? Is it leading to CRO?

**[46:09]** I really like your framing of this and your opinion and also how that has evolved.

**[46:15]** Say a decade ago, you would have thought, hey, maybe yes, this ultimately will lead to a COO

**[46:18]** position. But now the demands of what the business needs and what you're learning in the RevOps role

**[46:24]** and the time you have to practice the real role of what a chief revenue officer does.

**[46:30]** Letting that be the ultimate end game is really important. So I'm really excited for people to

**[46:35]** listen to this. I'm excited for anyone who's in a RevOps role in particular. And I appreciate you

**[46:41]** sharing everything today and can't wait to see what you do next at Mary Golden and next.

**[46:47]** Thank you, Anthony. I appreciate the invite and hopefully this is useful to a few people.

**[46:54]** I'm sure it will be.


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