Speaker 1You are the driver of this, not the customer. So make sure you're in the driver's seat and you're not just being driven by them because they'll take you through all the windy roads and end up at a dead end. And what are you going to get for your time? The most valuable asset salespeople have is their time. If they're not diligent and smart about how they're using it, busy doesn't
Speaker 2mean successful. Sorry. Welcome to the Revenue Builders podcast, a weekly show featuring B2B sales leaders and executives. Hosted by five-time CRO John McMahon and force management co-founder John Kaplan, the show takes guests in the barrel, behind the scenes with the people who've been there, done that, and seen the results. Revenue Builders covers best practices for scaling and growing your business while sharing the pitfalls to avoid.
Speaker 3I'm John Kaplan, and I'm joined today, as always, with my co-host and great friend, John McMahon. Our guest today is Ann Davis, Chief Revenue Officer at Crunchbase. Ann spent five years at Google Cloud running their data and analytics practice, and before that, led sales at a company called Looker, who was acquired by Google. One of my favorite parts of Ann's background is that when she was a startup, she was configuring camera systems on Sidewinder missiles for the F-14 fighter program. She's been in tech now for 32 plus years. Ann joined Crunchbase about a year and a half ago to help lead their shift from a product-led motion to an enterprise motion. And she's got a strong point of view that we're going to dig into, that in the AI era, it's proprietary data, not the software, that's the real long-time value driver. And she's been in tech now for 32 plus years. She's We're going to get into that. We're going to get into what good data actually means for a company trying to get AI ready, where she thinks AI genuinely changes the seller's job versus just speeding up existing tasks, and what it really takes to pull off a PLG to enterprise pivot. Ann is direct, she's sharp, and she does not hold back. We hope you enjoy this one. Let's listen in. So, Ann, I thought... I thought I'd just kick off the conversation. When I first met you, I thought your background was so cool. Tell the audience a little bit about how we get you here today as the CRO of Crunchbase to go from a product-led motion or PLG to an enterprise. But before that, you're designing rockets to go on with Northrop Grumman. So tell us a little bit about how you get here today.
Speaker 1Yeah, I think for me, I was a math science undergrad, and nobody would hire me but technical positions back then. And so I started off at Grumman and found myself working on the mission computer aircraft for the F-14, and then moved on to some secret missions back then, which were legit, just putting, you know, recon cameras in a sidewinder missile. But then when, you know, I realized that really wasn't for me, nobody else would look at me on the business side because of the technical undergrad. So I was sort of forced to go back and get my MBA, and I got it in corporate finance and strategy. And I did that as a full-time basis because everything had been technical up till then. And so I made my move into sales coming out of there and was at Showtime Networks, grew my territory by $3 million, and they tried to give me a $25,000 bonus. And I'm like, wait a minute, this doesn't really... Shut up. And so I decided to jump over to tech sales, and I've spent the last 32 years plus there.
Speaker 3And your background, you know, you've got an incredible background in data and data analytics, and you spent some time at Google doing just that. I was struck with our last conversation you and I had in the prep, where you talked about proprietary data is the primary long-term value driver versus the software. So you're kind of a data first person. Talk to us a little bit about what that means to you.
Speaker 1Yeah. And I think that, you know, having spent, you know, several years at Google and prior up and leading into the acquisition, I mean, at Looker and then the acquisition by Google, it's really became very apparent that AI is only going to be as good as the data that it's built upon. And everyone, you know, the big seven... The big seven or eight that are out there, they're gobbling up as much proprietary data as they possibly can so that they have a competitive differentiation in the market. But if you look at most public available LLMs, they're really going to go into what's in the public domain, right? They're going to be a better, you know, Google search engine for you, and it's going to be aligned to the prompt that you put in, right? But what I'm seeing in terms of our AI partners, as well as customers... Is they're trying to find a way to co-mingle that with the appropriate proprietary data sets that are important for their particular industry. Financial services is a big one. There's a bunch of AI players in that space. We partner with all of them because obviously our private market data intelligence is extremely valuable to that segment. So from that aspect of, it's like, okay, I'm, you know, JP Morgan. How do I put my data in the right place? How do I put my data in the right place? How do I put my data in the right place? How do I put my data in the right place? How do I put my data in the right place? How do I put my data in the right place? How do I put my data in the right place? How do I put my data in the right place? put together what I want my corporate AI engine to look like and what are the data estates that I want to be able to access within that. So when you look at companies, a lot of companies, their main piece of proprietary data is all the information they have internally. It's emails and it's slacks and it's documents and it's things that they've done that support the research or the product or whatever it is that they're building. But you need to take all of that and mix it with the appropriate third party data sets to really bring forth the most robust and successful AI experience. Because when you look at AI, it's really there as a tool to save time predominantly. Whatever it is you're trying to do, I'm trying to write this program, I'm trying to build this, I'm trying to ascertain or analyze this. And if you don't have the proper data sources plugged in, you're not going to be able to make business decisions off of what comes out.
Speaker 3I like that. I'm wondering in the world that we live in today, that there's this security and there's this need to hang on to your data. So if you have valuable data, to hang on to that data. But yet in order to coexist in a world today, effectively, you've got to be able and to get productivity gains, you've got to be able to apply certain models and certain other data sets into your rhythm. I mean, think about like Crunchbase. If you would tell us just for our listeners, I'm sure they got it in the intro, but just tell us a little bit about what Crunchbase is and how you do it. And how you see that as like, yours is very, very specific, the data. And a lot of people are probably thinking that they can go out and get that data in other ways. So talk to us a little
Speaker 1bit about that. Correct. Correct. So the main reason I left Google after five years and joined Crunchbase in the first place was because of their data set. Like I knew data is the new gold. And I knew that this is what is going to feed successful AI ventures for many, many years to come. So Crunchbase has done a very good job over the last 10, 15 years at building and focusing on private markets. We have more private market data from inception through series K than anybody on the planet. And that being said, it's not just what the company is and who they do, who their competitors are, who their investors are, what is the rounds of funding that they have received, et cetera, et cetera. really piece together and understand what is the trajectory of this company? Are they gaining momentum and are they on the upswing or are they not? And they're on the downswing. So I think that from an intelligence perspective, having all this data and our 80 million plus users of the software and being able to watch their digital body language that nobody else has access to has really enabled us to come out with a very unique position in the market, along with the fact that private markets are becoming increasingly more and more important because I think they're up to like 75 or 80 percent of the Nasdaq market cap now. I mean, didn't Databricks just close a series K billion dollars? Like when in our history has a company ever done a private market round in a billion dollar level? Like it's I've never seen it in my history. Yeah. You know, so I think from that aspect is, again, it's being consultative about what your data can do and what are the business outcomes that can drive. So when I'm talking to a head of sales or SDRO and I'm saying, look, I can tell your sales team definitively which companies you guys should be going after for what you're selling versus the ones you should be staying away with. And that fact alone is what drives pipeline growth 2x in six months and drives top line revenue growth 25% in that same six months. Because if you just know who to focus on and it's not all left to the rep or the SDR to figure out and read the tea leaves or whatever the AI is spitting out without any proprietary edge to it, it makes it very difficult. And I think that this is just the right sort of combination of AI technology as well as productivity play for sales organizations all along. Like I've been a student of sales for many, many years, as I've already mentioned, and I just don't think I've ever seen these things sort of come together. In such a way before, let's talk about the Johnny and I talk a lot about expectation
Speaker 3of the customer that they expect us to be educated, regardless of whether they're public or private, they expect us to be educated. And the, the, the need to do that. And the information that's out there is probably unlike ever that it's been in your 30 years of, of in sales. It's the same for Johnny and I. So there's a high, high expectation, just in general talking about and to sellers, what are some of the tips that you would give that says minimally you would show up with this type of information about a customer? What are some of the minimum things that you would say are just table stakes?
Speaker 1Oh, well, absolutely. Having done, you know, a quick little couple prompts or two to figure out, you know, where they're, they're at in terms of priorities and what's in listed in their K1. That's still like the greatest resource for salespeople on publicly traded companies that's out there, but they're not going to read it all anymore. Come on, we're talking about salespeople. So the fact that at the, at the tip of my finger, I can get, you know, sort of the print out of, of, of what it is, right. You know, research on the person and what they've done and what's. Important to them. So, so I think that from the, just a basic couple prompts can give you a much better confidence level, you know, walking in I, you know, we have the, you know, the SDR motion in our firm, so it's like mandatory that they listen to that. And of course, a lot of them are trying to shortcut it, which is give me an AI excerpt of that, but either way showing up with, this is what I understand, you know, what is missing? Is this accurate? And what is missing? Right. Cause I think the one thing that customers really demand more of is don't waste my time. I'm not going to repeat myself, you know? So, so you have to show that you have the consultative sales approach from the get go to understand the problem, how your solution fits into and solves that problem. And what are the specific business outcomes and ORO and O and, or ROI that we're going to deliver on this for you. And I think when, when. sellers can be as succinct as that. That is what makes sales cycles go faster than anything. I talk a lot about to my team and all the teams I've managed is you are the driver of this, not the customer. So make sure you're in the driver's seat and you're not just being driven by them because they'll take you through all the windy roads and end up at a dead end. And what are you going to get for your time? The most valuable assets salespeople have is their time. If they're not diligent and smart about how they're using it, busy doesn't mean successful. Sorry. I like this.
Speaker 3I'm just wondering, as I'm listening to you talk, I'm thinking about the value proposition that Crunchbase has. I have access to data and you have a PLG motion that's going to an enterprise. Like, do you... Here's the feedback that I get from sellers. I don't want to have to go into 17 different sources to get access to information. I'd love a thought partner that can take some of the things that you're just saying to me about, you know, attaching the biggest business issue. What are my competitors, what are their competitors doing? What are some of their top initiatives? What are their top people talking about? Like, how do you think, from a seller point of view, it's clear that we need the information and we have to be, you know, we have to demonstrate that we have that information to a customer. But man, there's so many different ways to get it. So what...
Speaker 1No, I hear you. I mean, I believe wholeheartedly that the foundation is going to be one of the big LLMs. Whether you're using OpenAI and ChatGPT, you're using, you know, GROK and, or you're using... You're using Claude or Gemini, right? And if you're outside the country, Manus AI or whatever. Those are sort of the table stakes. So those companies are doing a great job at selling enterprise versions of it, right? So that is going to enable you, whatever size company you are, to mix your internal data with this without feeding their LLM or training their LLM. But you connect other sources, like what we did here. We just launched a month ago our MCP server. It is absolutely... Insane what you can do. My people spent five minutes and built a daily rundown sheet that's going to connect to Gong. It's going to connect to Salesforce. It connects to our MCP. And it lets every sales rep know exactly what they have to do in that particular day because of what happened since they were last working.
Speaker 3I love that. So a classic example of the data is the gold being the interface of giving, to the end user at the workflow level. That was not the big, you just wanted to make, you wanted to make it open or open is probably not the right word.
Speaker 1Headless. It's called headless.
Speaker 3Headless. So you want to make it headless so we can get into the workflow of the seller.
Speaker 1Correct. Because...
Speaker 3Your sales motion has changed.
Speaker 1Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And it's only with the release of our MCP and we use ChatGPT as our, you know, corporate provider that we were able to say, okay, let's connect Salesforce. Let's connect this. Because it just brings the entire picture to your point of all the tools that an AE has to use in their stack. It doesn't matter if it's Gemini, Grok, ChatGPT, or some homegrown one on the front end. It doesn't matter. It's about how you seamlessly bring together the data sources through the AI interface to deliver real value.
Speaker 4And in these headless cases, and you talked originally about how data is gold. If I'm a data supplier or an older, let's say, SaaS product that has a bunch of data in it, how do I, in that environment, how do I prevent myself from being relegated to just a system of record?
Speaker 1Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I think you have to flip the mindset and this is what we had to do here over the last couple of years. And I think it's a good question. The last 15 months is we recognized early on, or I'd say Jagger and the executive team recognized early on before I joined that AI is probably going to come in and take a big piece of Crunchbase's business. So we have to anticipate that. And the best way to do that is to develop proprietary data sets that they can't replicate. But secondarily is around being able to support all the new solutions that are out there. And I think that's a good question. And that's really where you're growing your data distribution partnership strategy, right?
Speaker 4But you could still be relegated as a system of record in a headless environment.
Speaker 1Yeah, you still save that role. All you're doing is opening up the data so that your internal AI systems can access it for the people within the organization that need to slice and dice that data. You know, Looker was probably a revolutionary BI tool, hence why Thomas Kurian came a knock-in and paid $2.6 billion on a $100 million run rate company. Not going to argue without those numbers. They bought my second house in Florida. But that being said is that that was light years ahead because it was about the data model and the semantic layer of how the data is managed and maintained. And so when you look at Squared, it's not just about the data model. It's about the data and the semantic layer of how the data is managed and maintained. And so when you look at Squared, it's not just about the data model. It's about the data model. It's about the data model. And so when you look at Squared, it's not just about the data model. It's about the data model. And so when you look at sort of AI, it's just it's it's the analytical cherry on top where we were constantly struggling. You're constantly building dashboards. Your team's building dashboards upon dashboards. But it was never fast enough to say, OK, show me X, Y and Z over this period, blah, blah, blah, blah, where you could just natural language a question in and get like a board level ready image out. Like that, that is is like what is saving people millions upon millions of trillions of hours right to quickly play what if yeah exactly you can play what if right and you can understand all that versus i mean i'm a big spreadsheet person i love my excel as do most people in financial services but at the end of the day you know when i've got people working for me that i'm starting on my old process and they're already giving me the answer you're
Speaker 3like i got i got to acquiesce here yes so it's fascinating to me the just tell us a little bit about like when you show up and you're going to go from a plg to an enterprise motion like what are some of the things that you have to contemplate on running a sales organization just tell us kind of like what you faced and and and what you did about it yeah i mean i am a very decisive person
Speaker 1um i have done this i've seen this movie i know how it ends i've done it seven prior times um not to the level of having a company that had been established down another path and was making the turn it was more of startup sort of situation but a couple times i had to shift where they were going and i think look at the end of the day you're only as good as the people that you have and just being honest about the resources that are in the organization and who can make this change and who can't and it's okay if you can't because we're going to help you find a place that's right for you right and and i think that i don't want to lose track of that that you know you're coming in and you know decimating a department but at the reality of the day we have numbers that we have to hit and i have to get there as fast as i can so really giving everyone a period of time to either demonstrate they have the skill sets to make this type of move or they don't and to be honest with you 90 of the people tagged themselves out and said i don't have enterprise selling in my dna i don't want to do that i think i just want to go over here and find something else and that's okay too um so so i think it was a lot of restructuring very early on and very quickly and um you know putting people in place i have worked with in the past i know exactly what they're going to deliver um and how they're going to do it was important i brought over five people from google um with me so so i think that was an important thing but now i'm at the stage where okay sales and we've got the flywheel starting to move in the new motion for the sales team i got to get the rest of the executives aligned and in the same boat with us because a lot of people down to you know everyone in engineering or everyone in product or product marketing they may not really understand fully the strategic direction in our north star so now i need to spend the time of of bringing everybody up and making sure everybody knows where we're headed and and what's important and and what doesn't have as much value anymore yeah and who's the persona you're trying to get to and is that the cro we have many personas we have three icps and it's pretty much um the financial services that runs the gamut of probably 20 different types of subcategories in financial services and the associated personas we've got product builders so we have a big amount of partnerships with ai companies and others that need our product embedded into their solution not our proprietary data that's only offered as on a byol basis to keep that um sacred for us and um and then go to market teams so yeah there that is a big segment i would say probably the financial services angle and the go to market are two biggest but we talk a lot to rev ops leaders um people in um sales enablement because their job is to make it super easy for an ae like we laugh about when i was at google i was managing a team of 10 sellers in the data and analytics space and they literally would take five weeks january into february before sko to put together their territory plan five weeks five weeks i could feed in my book of business of 350 000 accounts and get a territory plan back in five minutes with crunch base i go i i as a seller would pay out of pocket five grand for that because that just meant i got five weeks back of selling to the companies that it was directing me to right and i stayed away from the ones who wasn't because my company wasn't with it enough to provide this data for me yeah it's a simple math equation yeah right yeah it's so it's so crazy how and i'm just so fortunate that i get to like watch this like i laugh that this is my swan song and i'm done after this but it's just to see this culminate at this stage is really exciting can we talk a little bit
Speaker 4about some of the things that you're seeing like with crunch base data like yeah for instance i saw crunch base said that um global venture funding was in the first half of 2026 was 510 billion but open ai and anthropic alone took close to 50 of that so the question i have for you is do you think that that makes the software market healthier or do you think it disguises a weakness like underneath the surface
Speaker 1yeah i i think that um whoever is in the software space needs to be figuring out what their data strategy is for their data because your point john you pointed out earlier on that like you're this system of record you have all this important data right doesn't mean it only has to be accessed through your software you can have a way to license the data within that software application and have another revenue stream so as your software may be declining on numbers of users your data revenue associated could be on the rise because you're just going to be licensing it to enterprises for their um ai front end tonight but do you think that's what i see all that money
Speaker 4moving towards open ai and anthropic do you think the software market overall is healthier or is it
Speaker 1something brewing underneath the surface anyone in the sas software business that's not seeing a hit to their revenue from ai i would be surprised it's just a matter of how quickly they come up with what is their their go-forward strategy so we keep hearing that we hear two stories really
Speaker 4we say sas is dead and then ai is creating like the biggest software opportunity in history so which one is closest to the truth because now you're hearing sales apocalypse and now you're saying well maybe sas is coming back so what do you yeah i don't yeah i i think the interface when
Speaker 1i'm talking about a sas provider their interface because we took a hit on ours and we continue to and which is which was anticipated right is i think that if they think that they are so important to the enterprise that they're never going to lose revenue on their user model or what have you i think that is not accurate of them because i think ai will find a way to to get into their business and steal from it irregardless i'm just saying i would go in and recognize if that was me and say okay this data is really valuable to the enterprise let's find a way to license it to and get it provided to a lot more people companies will never buy enterprise licenses to anything normally because i've got 500 000 employees or i've got 200 000 employees but if we bundle it up for x amount and it made sense and there's some usage component on top and it's like an mcp you pay 40 cents a query or what have you then there's another revenue stream that could save these companies i think the ones that are burying them their head in the sand and saying that no no we're fine we're fine they're gonna have issues because if you're not attached to an ai ai companies in some way especially as a data provider like our we don't expect our ai to i mean excuse me our sas software to live on we've already got our mcp on the front end and that's the new sas right that's the new interface which is again it's headless you can use ours or you can use any one and just pointed at it. I don't know if you guys have looked into at all what MCP is and what it does, but when it's done right, it's a game changer. And when I say done right, it's got to be incorporated with natural language and it's got to be expert queries because those are just game changing things. We take a financial analyst that his job is to research new markets and new companies for them to invest in. They can do their whole job of a full week as research in probably 30 minutes. And so then you start to see, okay, what is all that going to lead to on the productivity side? If we can really get through this analysis this fast. But again, goes back to what's your data? What are all the data sources that are going into that? And that's where I think those internal company files and memos, and emails and research and stuff, mixing it in with whatever other data sources is what makes this stuff is going to be the mission critical. That's going to be very differentiating for customers. customers and companies, quite frankly, like, like we have our, you know, we call it, you know, predictions and insights, which I want to move away from that word because every financial services company or person you talk to says, well, that's our job. We're, you know, we're in the job of predictions. So don't take that away from us. And so it's like, we don't measure it based on accuracy. It's on precision and recall, like how much of everything did we find and, and how much did we not, right? So if we're calling 85% or 90% of the funding rounds, two to six months in advance, and we're right, 92%, that's a value add to someone whose job is to figure out what new markets and segments should we be investing in? Yeah, good point. And when you look at the crunch
Speaker 4based data, what separates company enterprise software companies that are getting funding versus companies that investors are saying no to? Can you see, arrive any insights from that?
Speaker 1Sadly, there's not very many hours left in my day to, to dive in and do all the research I want. So I don't really have a good perspective on that. But I think, you know, from the funding aspect, it's just, it's lion's share to AIs. But, you know, like I said, 9700, maybe over 10k now, AI companies have like, popped up, we'll go into companies that say we know about 2000 of them, who are the other eight? And what are, they in? And what segments are they in? And what sub segments of industries are they in? And how much, how much are they getting? Right? But it's also a lot too, like, following investors. You know, I want to see everything that they invested in, and, and when. So it's, it's pretty, there, it's so broad, and we're finding use case risk management around, like, providing credit. Like, think about it. Remember, back in the day, we always used to go, you have to have your DNS, number and, you know, Dun & Bradstreet was like, the one that would say if you were credit worthy, they don't know these startups from Adam. How are they going to be able to give you any, any accurate information about whether this company is credit worthy, or we've had customers of ours that say, we're going to give different percentages, or different packages of lending numbers to different people. Same thing as they would do with people with our credit score. But, but, you know, doing it on the company level, like, it's just, there's, so many ways. Super exciting. Yeah.
Speaker 3What about the, the PLG to enterprise journey? And we have CROs that, or even companies just, like, listening to us here. And some of the big things that, when you looked at this opportunity, what are some things that you would look at to see whether or not a company's, actually going to make, I mean, obviously we talked about data. If there's a good data source there, and the data is gold, you got a great shot of it. What are some other things that you look at when, when you were analyzing whether or not this was going to be something that it was a fit for
Speaker 1you or not? Yeah. I think first and foremost, it's always starts with the product or services that they have. And is this something, like, we talk in sales a lot about going and catching the wave, right? Your career is made up of a series of waves. And when do you start to paddle out? And are you going to be there to catch the set and ride it all the way in? So I knew from my time at Google that this was the right time for me to make this type of move. Secondarily is what has the company done already to sort of anticipate how AI is going to, you know, enhance, hinder, steal from, add to, et cetera, in their business over the next five years? Like if they've done some sort of, you know, analysis or, or something to stand off. And then, you know, I think it's really important, like, don't underestimate good old fashioned, you know, target addressable market, like understanding who you're selling to, why, what's the value proposition and what are the business outcomes? Like I came into a PLG is a lot of like feature function, like, oh, it can do this. It can do this. And I kept saying, okay, where's the value? What's, what's the business outcome? This is going to deliver for me. And they kept looking at me, like I had three heads, but I must've said it a thousand times since I've been here, because if everything in your messaging is not orientated around that, you're just wasting time. Like I not, I'm not a time waster, very efficient efficiency expert. So let's just get to it. Right. So, so I think that those are all things to think of. And then you've got to look at the people like the management team, you know, how, how leaning in, are these people to do something new? How, how energized are they? Because it all falls downhill. So if you don't have an executive team that is gung ho about driving, you know, what you're going to bring to the table, then it just makes it harder. You just run into extra roadblocks that, that you don't really need. Right. We talked about the ICP.
Speaker 3Definitely having a look at the ICP, you've mentioned now the messaging, which is critically important. The engagement model, I would think that this engagement model for Crunchbase is probably changed quite a bit. Like how does the buyer buy what we're selling and how do we meet that buyer wherever they are in that, in that process? Did you make major changes to that? Did you, how, what did it look like?
Speaker 1Well, I think that, I think that we're definitely moving upstream into enterprise. And as most enterprise companies are putting together what their, you know, internal AI solutions for their employees are going to be, that's where we wanted to be, right? Is, is more in the enterprise mix. I think Crunchbase was a lot heavier in definitely, there's not a financial services firm on the planet that doesn't know who Crunchbase is, but maybe the value prop is different now than it was. And they still know the old Crunchbase. So, so the brand, let's not underestimate the value of the brand because having the brand is what I said is going to be our secret sauce because we can easily go in and say, this is the new Crunchbase. But when you're trying to reach out to people you don't know, and they don't even know your brand, that is so much harder. Like I always used to talk about how selling behind a Google name to get a meeting is so much easier than selling behind ABC that nobody knows, right? So that adds another level of complexity and that, that all this stuff factors into the exact sort of type of person, type of sales person that you need in the organization. And I think that's something a lot of people don't understand. Like salespeople are not a dime a dozen and there are certain types of people. You need people that are used to working in ambiguity and changing things on the fly and creating things and having the opportunity to put together new deal structures and different things that make sense because they're smart enough to do that, right? Those are the people I want. I don't want the people that want like the playbook and the price list, and they're just going to do the transaction because we're not in the transaction business anymore. But we can be, and we can allow people to buy an access to the MCP right off the website, immediate connection, et cetera, et cetera. Click here and away you go. So it's about trying to figure out where your specific market is. And what are those buying experience lanes that we have to create in how we structure the organization?
Speaker 3What kind of impact does that have on a success profile for the seller? So you talked about ICP, talked about a value proposition. You talked about an engagement model changing the way the buyer buys changes. Who's doing what, when in the organization has changed probably. Oh yeah. Like, is there anything that you could share with us that changed markedly on the success profile of the seller? Like specific characteristics that have changed?
Speaker 1Yeah. Again, I think for me, it was finding people that are used to driving complex, potentially complicated sales cycle. AI is new to a lot of people. So understanding that, but it's also like... I mean, good salespeople, we love a startup because we got an untapped, uncapped comp plan and we want to come in and be rewarded for what we bring in the door. So yeah. Is there a little bit more risk because everything's not proven out? Yes, but it's also more opportunity and that you could just be at your local Publix and bump into somebody you hadn't seen for a while and get a sale. Like it's, it's, you know, it's... What about the amnesia of a...
Speaker 3Yeah. The amnesia of a, of a leadership team sometimes which says, well, we paid our SDR type person this amount and you want to go pay X amount for enterprise? Like how, how did, how did you kind of... 3X. What is it?
Speaker 1Oh, yeah.
Speaker 3At least 3X. I mean, so that's more and more.
Speaker 1Oh yeah. And, and I think that...
Speaker 3Talk about the planning process with the CFO.
Speaker 1Yeah. I was just going to say that was probably the hardest pill to swallow for the CFO, but I think he would have did a little AI research on his own and figured it out. He did a little AI research on his own and figured out what percentage range he needed to be in to make sure that I was coming in under that. you know, we are very fortunate in that we have multiple sort of revenue streams and our partnerships, you know, drive a lot. Like not every deal is touched by everybody. So I think I was able to get him more comfortable with it in that, okay, direct sales is probably our most expensive channel, but they're going to be focused here. And this is what they're going to look like at a hundred percent or at 150%, but I'm going to get, you know, X percent of revenue from this stream over here. And this only costs us Y. So, so I think that, that, that was definitely dissecting that. That's falling back on my math skills. Yeah. What about the planning process
Speaker 3that says, and I know you probably don't want to get too specific here, but how much are we going to be in the same motion? That we had and how much are we going to be in the enterprise motion? And by when I'm trying to think of CROs that are trying to figure out whether or not to join a company, you've given some really good indicators on what should be present there. Like they should have, they should have some thought of enterprise before you show up, but is there, you know, how do you negotiate that? Because companies get that wrong. They're like, you know, we're going to make a bet. We're going to make a bet. We're going to say, oh, this is going to come. I mean, Johnny, I don't know how, what we saw in the last 10 years, but all SDRs were out, went all enterprise, hired, you know, hired a bunch of customer success people, fired the customer success people. Yeah. Yeah. What advice do you have for people on the planning process of this? Yeah. Um, I think, yeah, exactly. Um,
Speaker 1I would say don't underestimate the time to close. So, so I can say with, without a reasonable doubt, cause I just lived through this, that, um, you know, Crunchbase had lived a lot in, you know, what I'd call, you know, SMB corporate world. They didn't have enterprise customers. They did, but they didn't have hundreds of thousands of them. Right. So it didn't define the motion, whereas they're sort of that the smaller group did. So, so making everyone on the executive team and the board crystal clear, and that an SMB deal is going to, it's going to take about three months. An enterprise deal is going to take 12 to 18. And our pipeline is a barren desert. So I need the runway to get to that. So even if I got, you know, $5 million in the pipeline in the next six months, it's not going to close for another, you know, 12 months. So just really making that crystal clear. And then also defining and understanding the difference between demand, demand, fulfillment, and demand generation. So this is critical because demand fulfillment is people are coming into us or we're talking to people and they're like, yes, we've got a budgeted project. We're going to get this done in three, what, three months we're moving forward. And this is, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Versus demand generation is we're going out and, and, and selling people on a story that we have crafted. That's, that's delivering real value for people saying you want to get in on this. And so we're going to get this done. And so we're going to get But they don't have a project. They don't have budget that adds another six months plus onto an enterprise deal. So I think those two facts alone were what I insisted upon. I even talked to the board members that I interviewed with it about it. Like you got to be prepared that it's not going to happen overnight and it's going to take some time.
Speaker 4A lot of them say yes to that, but then they have a really hard time buying into it along the journey. So now- Nine months in, 12 months in, and they're like, when is this going to happen? And you have to remind them why it takes so long. They have no idea why it takes so long.
Speaker 1Exactly. But also too, like, at least from the board members, like really, how much time do they spend knowing your business? They're there for a quarterly meeting. They probably spend a couple hours a quarter, right? So I just coffee. What? Yeah. Don't send your coffee. Yeah. So, so I try very hard to just reinforce a lot of my same, you know, messaging along the way. But again, obviously I left a very comfortable, lucrative position to come here. And it was because I saw the opportunity and, and I'm just a person that's going to make shit happen.
Speaker 3What is the channel play? What are the discussions around? How much of this would, would we kind of drive through a channel and how much would we drive through, direct selling at an enterprise customer level? Have you, have you, is there, is there some
Speaker 1thinking behind that? How do you test? Well, again, I think one of the first things I did when I came in was figuring out what all my revenue streams were. So, so I have about four that I've developed over the last year. Some are better than others. Some are less friction. Some are less people dependent. And, and I think for me that as being sort of the architect behind it without a lot of other resources, understanding per se, what I'm doing has been nice for me because I can just drive and I don't have a lot of people in the car asking questions like, are we going to get there yet? Are we going to get there? No, no, we're not. But, um,
Speaker 3that must be your strong personality as well. Most companies,
Speaker 1would still ask. Yeah. Oh yeah. They're still trying to ask, but I'm, you know, trying to figure out how to like, you know, and so it's like, then you got to post something big. Like, so we have some big announcements coming up that I think that the board will be very happy about. But, but that being said is, is like, you understand, you know, what the revenue streams are and what sort of energy and resources and effort needs to get them going. And for me, I started all four and I'm starting to see there's definitely a difference. I'm starting to see that there's a clear winner in it. And there's one, I got to adjust and change. And for me, it's, it's about being decisive and taking action fast because there's so many people in this world that are willing to just say, oh, let's just give it till the end of the year. Like I'm making changes right now, announcing next week that are for the rest of the year, because I'm not waiting for more months because I know it needs to get done. So what is it going to benefit me to wait? I need to do it now. So I definitely believe in, you know, just the decisive action, you know, of the CRO and look, people follow you, they follow you or they don't. And I'm very fortunate enough that, that people buy my vision and they purchase my products. So I'm, I'm, I'm very fortunate that, you know, I, I have the skillsets that I have to, to drive this, but there's lots of people that do. And I think that's really it is again, fortunate enough to come into a company that was a PLG motion and being one of the only enterprise people, you know, within it, at least when I started and just being like, this is what we have to do. Like I've done this seven other times. Like I know what I wear your own rep rev ops hat, or do you have a rev ops person? I do not have a rev ops person. Currently I don't have a rev ops person, but I have a rev ops person, but I have a rev ops person. So I'm putting a pin in that position right now and am driving a lot directly with the controller and the
Speaker 3CFO. But all joking aside, could you tell us some of the things that like, that you would expect out of a position like that in order to, in order to help you? Cause there's a lot of CROs or a lot of potential CROs that are listening. And there's a lot of discussion around rev ops, whether you, you, you are more analytical than most. And so you have that advantage. What are your thoughts on that? Some advice to CROs as it comes to rev ops? Yeah, I think that again, if you have like an AI
Speaker 1type of front end on top of your Salesforce and your gong, you can do most of the analysis that you need to do. Because again, obviously there's the devils in the details in terms of like cycle particular deals take and this, that, and the other that, that you want to provide the proof points to your CFO and your board and CEO as to why your strategy is working. Right. So I think that that's one of the biggest areas I was looking for in the two rev ops people that I have hired and had to let go because they weren't doing it is, is that whole analysis, like help me understand the business and, and dissecting it and doing it or not. But fortunate enough, we've got MCP and I'm just plugging away and chat GPT and figuring out everything I need to support or prove wrong and make adjustments to it. Right. So I think we just depended on a person or a team of people to do that for us in the past. And we don't have to any longer. And, and you still can, if you have, if you can find, you know, good people that are, that are going to deliver that for you. But for me personally, especially as I just mentioned, being very decisive in making changes when needed and not waiting around having the data behind it again very data minded is is it's got to support um some of that if i've got other people i have to convince does that make
Speaker 4about rev ops people is rev ops means different things to different people in different companies it's not it's not well defined between companies correct so you have some people that have a background in sales or a background in tech or a background in finance so they're limited in what they actually know and then some companies the person's in charge of the crm system and maybe building some reports and forecasting reports and other people are in charge of recruiting and onboarding and training and an analysis of what's going on in the sales force so it really differs you got to be really careful when you talk to somebody that has a rev ops title what is it that you actually do exactly
Speaker 1and that's why i always say show me someone's resume and i'll show you what to expect from them because i wouldn't expect them to do anything vastly different than than the things that they've done in their past right right no i i think you're exactly right i mean we used to call rev ops sales ops it's always sales and what happened all of a sudden it's now rev ops i go why is it rev ops what's different why is it you know yeah no and that's a great question for your cro listeners to understand is what does rev ops in your actual organization do right it's just great now that there's so much more available you know at our fingertips to get deep into the data which we never had before ever
Speaker 3put your uh prediction hat on or your crystal ball and tell us five years into the future what does the role of an enterprise seller look like i think the role of the enterprise seller
Speaker 1is to still you know be the person to drive um the value proposition the business outcomes and the roi for their particular service or offering um into the people that they're selling it to i don't think we're gonna get away from that because it's always about proving it along the way when you're talking enterprise i'm talking you know five hundred thousand dollar plus type deals i'm not talking about a five thousand dollar deal that can be completely automated right you don't need a seller for that but but true enterprise selling because there's so much of the interconnected tissue at the company you're selling to that a seller is responsible for i've got to bring all these people to the table in such a way and get everybody on the same page and moving in the same direction get them in my boat and rowing in my direction that i don't think is ever going to change at the enterprise level right well said thank you ann davis appreciate it thank you john and john amazing great energy and yeah yeah you're really
Speaker 4lacking a lot of energy but you know i don't know if you're gonna need a cup of coffee or something
Speaker 3but and i won the over on down whether or not you had a rev ops person yeah i just had to let my
Speaker 1second one go like two weeks ago oh
Speaker 3it's not not we're not working out um yeah that's a big brain somebody's got to tap into for you
Speaker 1shit yeah you're telling me well done all good super super fun really enjoyed the conversation guys um whatever else you need from me just let me know thank you davis thank you john
Speaker 4caplan thanks to everyone for listening to another episode of the revenue builders podcast
Speaker 2thanks for listening to today's episode if you enjoy the content please subscribe rate and review the show to help us reach more people this show is brought to you by force management where we help companies improve sales performance executing the growth strategy at the point of sale check out forcemanagement.com for more information
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