Seth Marrs: Hello everyone,
welcome back to the Innovator
Revenue Leader podcast.
So, for this session, what we're
going to be covering is a poll
survey.
So, back in October, I did a
pulse survey with around 175 to
100 people in different parts of
the go-to-market organization.
So sales, marketing, customer
success at different levels,
including sellers up to
executives, just asking them a
series of questions.
And what I'm going to do in this
session is just walk through
some of the outputs.
So do a quick review of what we
found.
And the goal for this is to do
these pulses every quarter.
So in January, we'll run this
pulse again, and then I'll do
the exact same thing.
So, but this time we'll have
trending data.
So over time, the hope with this
is we get a solid set of a
hundred people that consistently
provide feedback that are
working day to day in the
go-to-market organizations
around a bunch of different
industries and a bunch of
different places at a bunch of
different levels, just to get
context around how things are
progressing in perceptions.
So jumping into some of this
information, it'll be a quick
overview, but the the the the
goal of this is not to be
exhaustive, but just to get a
feel for what people are saying.
And and the things that you see
here are what I've pulled out of
it just from looking at these
different areas.
So one of the questions was do
you believe your industry or the
industries you cover grew last
month?
The interesting part, there's a
couple of things here.
One is if you ask the
executives, 71% say that their
industry is growing.
But if you go to sellers,
sellers, only 20% of sellers
believe that the industry is
growing.
So there's a disconnect in
optimism or in perception of
what's going on, which is very
odd, right?
Because you should be looking at
the same numbers and know if
you're growing.
But you could see that
executives are looking into the
futures where sellers are kind
of in the grind.
They they know what's happening
and they feel the pressure of
what growth is.
It could also be a classic thing
of sellers are usually given
much, much harder targets to hit
than the company itself.
So over assignment, a lot of
companies do it where they will
add 10, 20% to a seller's goals.
So it is harder for them to
achieve the objectives, whereas
for the company or for the
executives, maybe it's not.
So it's an interesting output
from that.
Another thing is big business
versus small business.
So like the smaller companies,
like fewer than 200, believe
their industry is growing,
whereas like 71% believe it's
growing.
But then if you go into the
bigger companies, only 40%.
So the the disparity of small
growth companies versus large
growth.
And it'll be interesting to see
how this plays out over time
because with AI, a lot of the
tools and technology that AI is
really enhancing allows small
companies to compete against big
companies.
And we kind of saw that with the
internet, but this is even
making it more so where you're
seeing these fast gross
companies that go with five
people up to a hundred million
in ARR.
But you could see the difference
in it is the smaller companies
are growing faster.
Okay, so then the next one is
what do you see is the biggest
priority for revenue teams?
At the seller level, it's sales
effectiveness.
So, like 50% of them said sales
effectiveness.
It was overwhelming.
I want you to help me become a
better seller.
That was the number one thing.
The next closest was at was at
20%.
So what a seller wants is really
important.
The interesting part is nobody
else really, really wanted that
as much as sellers.
And you could see that in the
charts, not even not even really
close.
When you look at the analysts
that took this survey, strategy
operations, enablement,
technology, and technology.
I well, when you look at the
analysts and the strategy
operations, enablement, and
technology leaders, they really
prioritize strategy and
planning.
That is kind of understandable
because those are the people
that do that stuff.
And as an analyst, you're also
you're also a little bit biased
towards those things because you
look at the world in the way
that it should be, not in the
daily grind of trying to execute
in your business, where in a lot
of cases strategy and planning
becomes a harder thing to
manage.
So that's under it's
understandable to see those
things there.
But from that standpoint, now if
you look at the executives,
there's a ton of talk around how
sales marketing and customer
success needs to align.
And Trilliad, the company that
owns Sandler and that that I'm a
part of, is built to really help
these executives with that.
They were the most interested in
sales and marketing alignment,
but they were still it was still
a distant third to the other
areas that they were focusing
on.
So even though when you ask
about sales, sales and marketing
alignment, it seems in a lot of
cases where the rubber meets the
road, it's more lip service than
it is really trying to create
value from it.
So the silos are still very
real, and the talk around sales
and marketing alignment is
there, but it's when push comes
to shove, it's not necessarily a
priority for executives.
What they're prioritizing
strategy and planning, similar
to what you see with the ops
leaders, not surprising.
And then sales technology and AI
adoption.
I mean, I think that if you
would have if you would have
taken that, it'll be interesting
to see how that grows over time.
But if you would have taken that
a year ago or two years ago, it
probably wouldn't have been
there.
But in today's world where AI is
everything, it's not surprising
to see that that there.
But it was also interesting
because the executives had a
bunch of different priorities.
Nothing really popped to the top
that you would see with like
customer facing where they were
like technology and AI or
executives, that type of stuff.
The next one is we we asked,
like, where does AI make the
biggest difference for you last
month?
So that's just looking at like
place and time, where did this
make the the biggest difference?
There's some interest, two
insights that I thought were
very interesting.
Preparing and planning has the
biggest interest in terms of
where AI is making the biggest
difference.
That's a huge surprise for me
because preparing and planning,
preparing, I can understand from
a seller standpoint.
If you're trying to prep for a
deal, there's lots of tools AI
could use.
But if you're an executive or if
you're an operations person,
that was kind of surprising that
you'd see AI, because in a C AI
making a big difference, because
it hasn't really permeated into
that space yet.
But I but but based on
information I'm seeing, I think
it's starting to, because they
even in Gong search survey they
did, forecasting and planning
was a big growth area for them
in terms of the users using it.
So I think it's finally starting
to work its way in.
It had been there before when
you talk about like machine
learning and how you do
snapshotting with forecasts and
all that stuff, but it seems to
be making inroads, which is good
because now that that's a
sucking that it's embedding
itself into sales organizations.
So 40%, 42% said preparation and
planning.
So that that was that was the
biggest one there, uh, with 25
being the next 25% being the
next highest level.
When you look at individual
sellers, and the next point,
their focus was on two areas,
preparation and planning, which
we talked about above.
I think that makes tons of sense
because there's a lot that that
AI can do with planning,
understanding like it's the
things it could do for account,
all of that type of stuff.
It makes a seller's job very
easy.
And then researching prospects,
another key area.
And to a certain extent, those
two combine together.
Because if you're going into a
deal, you're probably
researching the prospect as a
part of your preparation and
planning.
So those two things are were
very interesting.
The part that was most
interesting for me is what
wasn't in the list.
So none of them used it to
prioritize leads and
opportunities, which is a core
use case for AI that tech
vendors talk about all the time.
Like if you go into any revenue
orchestration demo, they will
tell you about how they could
tell you which leads to call,
who who you should be talking to
next, all of that stuff.
So, like the next best action
game, all of that that is
pervasive in vendor speak is
non-existent.
Um, also, it was interesting to
see on the analyst side, they
also had nobody that was talking
about these types of things
around prioritization of leads
and opportunities.
So that that's gonna be another
one to watch as we go forward
because it's a core use case.
Ideally, these tools will help
surface who you should call to
help the seller prioritize, and
that is still very much in the
game, in the in the hands of the
seller today, even though there
are technically tools to do
that.
Now, I don't know if the tools
just aren't good enough to make
it useful for the seller, or if
the sellers just aren't
comfortable enough to let them
do that work yet, because it's
so critical to them.
We'll see that play out.
And the three most frequent ones
they came up.
The most frequent frequent one
was date deep research and
account prospect intelligence.
That makes total sense.
These tools can do all sorts of
amazing things where they
surface and aggregate data that
was virtually impossible to get
before them, and they do it in a
very elegant way.
So doesn't surprise me at all.
If you're not doing this or if
your sellers aren't using these
tools for this, you are really,
really missing out.
The next one, contact
enrichment, prospecting, and
lead prioritization was another
one.
Now we know the lead
prioritization thing was talked
about, but it actually wasn't in
the survey.
So these were two separate
questions.
So you when you have people
saying that they're
prioritizing, I think that's
probably an executive that's
talking about it, not the people
that are actually doing it.
But contact enrichment is is
absolutely essential.
I'm on the prospecting side,
identifying people to call,
super important.
So that one makes total sense.
And then the final one is role
play coaching, skill
development.
That this is all the pre-call
prep, post-call follow-up,
in-call support, role playing to
prepare for your deals.
This doesn't surprise me as well
because you'll see this with a
lot of sellers because sellers,
as you saw earlier, are very
much into how do I get more
effective at my job.
So a tool like roleplay, which
is kind of having a moment right
now, like these roleplay
companies, is super, super
important to them.
And so they're they're starting
to use them to make themselves
better.
So the the next thing and the
final area that I'll talk to is
just like technology companies
that are that are doing
something valuable.
Now, I'll preface this by saying
I have a biased community.
I spent the last five years
working in revenue
orchestration, and so the people
in my network are going to be
around revenue orchestration.
So it there is some bias here.
But when you look at it, now
I'll define revenue
orchestration because this isn't
a common term.
Gardner just released a magic
quadrant on revenue action
orchestration, and then Forster
did one a year and a half ago.
So it's becoming the term to be
used for the sales execution
tool, the place of work for the
seller.
So it includes CRMs, but CRM is
a broad term that's used to
describe anything around the
customer record.
Revenue orchestration tools have
a focal point that is on what do
these two tools do to help the
seller, which is the most
important thing for the people
that I work with, that that
anyone who's working in the
sales organization.
So what you should care about is
the revenue orchestration piece.
The back end, how does it
connect with all it'll connect
with a place?
Either it is the tool that also
has the customer record for what
the master account contact
opportunity is, or it's the
interface above.
Those two things will work
together.
Um, just in one, it's the tool,
the other one is a connector to
the tool, which has become
pretty common.
But number one, wasn't
surprising to see orchestration
there.
Like go-to-market data
applications isn't surprising as
well, because those are having a
moment because a lot of the
technology where like you could
see it in the in the previous
slide where where you can see
date research, contact
enrichment, that's all
go-to-market data tools that are
helping do that.
So you could see how that's
playing out.
It's interesting to look at
things like role play and sales
AI assistance.
A year ago, those probably
wouldn't have even been on the
list, and they're already being
coming up over and over.
And we'll we'll see how this
evolves over time.
The top three vendors that came
up that were above anyone else,
not surprising to see Gong, like
I said, network effect.
It's very surprising to see
Glean.
So Glean is a content tool that
is really focused on giving IT
the ability to put all their
data through their tool to be
able to easily surface it.
And they just released a bunch
of agents that or agent
capabilities that allow you to
use that.
So they took a really slick
approach around going data first
and then building the agents on
top of the data once they got
the data piece stable.
Very so not it's it was
surprising for me to see them on
this list, and it also tells me
that they're very much having an
impact in sales and
go-to-market.
It's also not surprising to see
clay, they've found a niche in
the market with AI where they're
able to do very cool stuff in a
in in ways that are new and
different, and they're changing
the market for how do you do top
of funnel prospect
identification.
It's it it's so it's not
surprising to see that tool
there.
There were a couple others that
were interesting.
So these are the ones that kind
of came up, but they weren't in
like separated from the rest of
the group.
At up X makes no sense to be in
my list.
So if they're coming up, they
must be doing something cool
that that I don't know about
because for people to bring it
up on the list, it's not
surprising for me to see
Fullcast on there.
They're doing a lot of things
that are disruptive in the
market.
Hyperbound not so is is
interesting.
Role play company that's
extending into CI.
And then like outreach and
Salesforce would make sense to
me.
And Vector is another one that
really, if if they're coming up,
there's something happening
there.
So it'd be interesting to see
more.
I hope this was valuable to you.
And we'll do these every
quarter.
We're gonna start out um doing
the the survey again.
Please take the time to do it if
you can.
You'll see the post come out on
it.
But thanks again and have a
great day.