IRL - Dana Therrien
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Speaker 2: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Innovative Revenue Leader Podcast. I'm your host, Seth Mars. Join me as we deliver practical insights to help B2B CROs Find new and innovative ways to grow in this fast changing environment. The Innovative Revenue Leader is sponsored by Sandler, a triad company, empowering sales professionals and leaders to master the craft of selling at all levels.
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: Hello and welcome back. I'm super excited to introduce my guest today. He's a revenue operations leader, strategy expert, and commercial transformation executive. He advises Fortune one hundred companies and global clients on revenue optimization, territory design, sales process transformation, and forecasting.
led growth in sales performance management solutions, influencing major enterprise deals and, and industry analyst rankings. recognized as a thought leader, a speaker, has been published in Forbes, Demand Gen. We worked at the same company. I knew of the legend [00:01:00] of this person when I, when I joined, he had just left.
Um, he's currently the senior VP of commercial transformation at Vericent. Dana, welcome.
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: Thanks, Seth. I think it's probably the number one question I have is, "Hey, what, what was it like when you were working with Seth?" So I, I think I left one day and you stepped in the next day, uh, and continued the legacy. I was focused on comp a lot back then, and, and you picked it up and just took it to another level.
So
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: I, was so lucky to have that too, because there was a massive foundation and it just-- I think, like, strangely enough, not many people wanted it back then, but it, it's like the number one question most people have is like, "How do I help my comp plan?" So it ended up being a huge thing, and, uh, I was really grateful to have all of the base work and to be able to build off what you'd
done
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: Well, that, that's why I focused on it because I, I've never met a CRO that was happy with their compensation plan. So it was an easy way to get in the door.
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: So
true. So
true. All right. So the, the, the first question that I ask with all the guest, with all of, uh, my guests is, like, the most innovative thing that you've seen in [00:02:00] B2B right now?
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: Well, there's so much happening so fast. I've-- J- just me personally and some of the AI tools that I'm using help-- to help myself get budge- better educated, also to do things much more efficiently and much more effectively for sure. But I, I would say in the, in the realm of sales and sales performance management, and, and I'm speaking from experience at Varicent in the last few months, I've only been here for about four months, but we use Gong extensively, and I'm involved in a lot of the biggest sales cycles inside of the company, and, and many of these have been in play for 12, 18 months.
I'm stepping in where other people have stepped out. It just gives me the ability to catch myself up so quickly on what's happened in the past, the conversations. I, I don't have to go through and read notes. I can listen to conversations or I can see summarizations of them, or I, I, I work in tandem with our CEO quite a bit.
He'll tell me about a conversation he had. He'll send me the link to the conversation, said, "Listen in on this and tell me what you think." So it, it just makes us all so much more [00:03:00] collaborative and, and better at playing with one another. And of course, the conversational intelligence is interesting, but the ability to, to hand off opportunities and coordinate with one another is just ex- it's, it's stellar.
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: Yeah. I mean, you've got this more complicated buying, buying journey happening, and this just allows you to seamlessly pull it together in this, in these tools, ask questions to it. So you get-- 'cause you, you're working on those and get pulled in at certain points, and now I can get up to speed. I don't have to have five calls.
I can do all of that at
once
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: Yeah
And g- good job Gong because w- we speak in that language here. If I've got an SC that wants to bring me up to speed, they just send me the link and say, "Go and listen to that." It, it saves so much time and it, it really is a productivity enhancer. So it, it, it does as, as, as promised
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: one of the reasons I was really excited to have you on is like I'm a big believer on... I covered SPM when I was, when I was at Forrester. It's a, it's a play, it's compensation, which we both have a, a passion for. always [00:04:00] looked at forecasting and to me, like looking at SPM solutions, it just seems like such a opportunity.
But so far, very few companies have actually in the SPM space have taken advantage of it. You just started at Varicent and you know their technology. You were at Anaplan before, which you dealt with tons of forecasting use cases, a lot on the finance side and others. Like when, when you think of forecasting, where, where does it fit into a SPM solution?
Like what's your long term on how that's going to
go?
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: Well, we, we talked initially about the, the focus on compensation when we were both at Forrester and how it was an easy way into the door with a CRO. The, the second easiest way in the door was to talk about forecasting because n- n- their, their, their highest priority is normally to get their hands around the pipeline and what's happening and be able to represent it in front of the executives of the company and the board with [00:05:00] confidence and accurately.
So I, I think the, the play I always made was l- let's fix forecasting and pipeline management first, and then let's go?
after compensation after. Yeah I, I think what, what's interesting with forecasting is the higher up in the chain you go, the easier it is to be f- accurate because you're dealing with a much larger data set than when you're getting down to the individual rep.
Uh, at, at, at, at Varicent, we, we know that forecasting and pipeline is a leading indicator to, to sales success and wealth, so it-- there's a lot of elements that we bring into the, into it, into the solution and, and also give the ability to do the analysis for the individual reps and for all the managers in the chain.
But we also use it for commissions, um, accruals and things like that so that you can see what's gonna happen out into the future. So it needs to be, it needs to be linked to compensation as that leading indicator to it
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: Yeah. I mean, if you [00:06:00] th... The point you made is so, so true, and I think a lot of people don't understand that, is if I'm trying to forecast at a company level, it's infinitely easier to do than if I'm trying to for- than forecasting at my individual reps. one of the things that I, and I'd be interested in your take on this, like the whole forecasting game is about how do I align quotas?
So at the individual level,
at the
individual level. So if SPM is doing your quotas, why would you use another tool to do your forecasting? It always seemed strange to me
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: That, well, that, that's a great point around strategy and planning, right? Because the, the the planning process for most companies begins six months before the end of the current fiscal year.
Which, which means that you're looking at year-to-date actuals, and then you're looking at the projection from now until the end of the fiscal year.
S- and th- that's what's gonna determine the baseline for growth for the coming year. So as you're [00:07:00] going through that planning cycle, you need to have updated forecast at the end of every single week, at least every single month, so that you can make better assumptions around the bottoms-up plan that you're proposing to finance.
And if it's not connected to the strategy and planning piece of it, if it's not feeding that system, you're, you're constantly going out there to try to do manual updates to it, and you're, and you're ill-informed. Or you're, you're, you're operating off from outdated data where the forecast is off and you can't do it accurately.
So you're absolutely right that it, it belongs in the strategy and planning realm, or at least connections to it, um, because you can't plan without it
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: Yeah, it, yeah, it makes total sense. Like so I, I, I mean, I don't know if it is like for me, a lot of people don't correlate compensation to forecasting. They see them as two distinctly separate things. H-how would you tie it together? If I'm in a quarterly deal and I'm, or I'm trying to [00:08:00] motivate my sellers through compensation, and I'm also the forecasting side, like how do those two pair in like the day-to-day work of running your business as a sales
team? Yeah, I don't, I don't think it's just the two. I think it's strategy and planning, let's call that one bucket. It's, it's, it's compensation, and then it's forecasting that's informing all of it. Um, so it, it especially pairs on the strategy and planning side for all the reasons that I just mentioned. On the compensation side, it's motivational to reps to be able to go out there and see what's happening in their pipeline and be able to transform that into some sort of a commissions estimate, and always giving themselves the ability to go in there and see what they need to do different to keep themselves on track.
Yeah.
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: what I, what, when I joined, you, you start to... I, you, I, I got familiar with Varicent at levels that I hadn't been familiar in the past, and there, there's a product that we have, it's called ELT, it's extract, load, and transform. It's, it's how we gather all the data from all the different source systems for strategy and planning and compensation [00:09:00] management and put it into a single place and then feed it into these systems that require it as part of the overall process.
And the, the legacy of this company has been incentive compensation. They, they have a, you know, we have a planning solution now that's been around for a couple years, but when I see this ELT product, it's... And it's got generative AI that sits on top of it. Now you can query it and you can have conversations with it and ask about the attributes of, of a, of a well-run pipeline of your top rep, of your best deals, of your best opportunities.
So it's, it was, it was created for one thing, but it's got application in so many different areas now that we're just starting to untap
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: Okay, so let's double-click into that because I, I don't think people understand necessarily how important this is. Because to me, when, when I looked at ELT, it allows you to do is have real-time flow of data and almost instant updates of what's going on with compensation, your flows, and because you don't have to have this crappy data set that you have to do some, like, manipulating before [00:10:00] it can come right in, transform, and then flow in almost instantaneously.
And where my mind went kind of when, when I was going through and learning about this was, okay, so that means I could do some really dynamic stuff. Like, to the point, like, when you hear-- Like, I've, I've made this comment before around, I think you and I have had conversations around it. I think you could do quarterly planning.
I think you could do monthly planning almost in month-- in-instantaneously as you go. So you talk about the strategy and planning side. I could almo-- I think, like, having an ELT solution that's constantly turning in accurate data in allows you to almost reconcile your strategy and plan, like, on cycles that have never, that just companies can't do.
Like, the big companies can't do, and I think that enables it. I mean
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: Yeah
it definitely says w- th- th- there's a framework that we created pr- prior to you being at Serious Decisions and, and Forrester. I, I, I really bucketized the different types of reporting that people [00:11:00] were doing, and it, it was a mix of what I would call manual and cognitive, and then let's just say routine and non-routine.
So if you think about an X-axis, you've got routine on the left and non-routine on the right, and then manual on, on the Y-axis and cognitive on the top. So you, you know, you're using your brain in non-standard ways in the top right-hand side of that quadrant. In the lower left-hand side of the, of, of it would be what, what you consider to be manual and routine.
So that's operational reporting, Yep So w- how, how am I doing against my quota? What's my pipeline look like? What are my year-over-year growth? Tho- those types of operational things that you can put inside of an operational report, and you look at them almost every day routinely. And just up and to the right of that, it's more non-routine, more cognitive, which is diagnostic.
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: Yep
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: And that, you don't know the questions you wanna ask until you're asked the question themselves or until a situation presents [00:12:00] itself where you need to have an answer to it. Yep that when, when you have ELT as the basis of that information, and you put generative AI on top of that, now you can start to ask it questions around, "Well, hey, why are some people performing this way?
Why is this product not doing quite as well? What's happened externally to the company that's changed the shift in our product, uh, demand?" So I think that's where we've always struggled. We were always able to get to the operational reports, and we had BI tools that would give you the ability to do that, but the diagnostics were really expensive because you needed to hire a few MBAs that were always on staff and ready to answer those questions.
And now anybody in the system can ask them, including the CEO.
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: And it, it's rotating though, right? Like, uh, with tools like that-- And, and I think a lot of people would say, "Well, why wouldn't AI just do that? Why would I need an ELT?" But AI can't do that unless you have strong, accurate data feeds that can consistently make sense of all this stuff. But like, where all the value's coming is in that cognitive piece, and it is.
It's right. [00:13:00] You're, you're right. It's, it's now making that highly distributed. So now the CEO can ask those questions, get real-time answers. It, it just
allows you to be so much more dynamic in, in the way you think about your
business and run your business
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: And well, and the AI tools, the generative AI tools need someplace to go for this, for the information. If you can sit on top of 10 years worth of comp data and, and years worth of pipeline and, and close and bookings and things like that, and then pull external information from the outside, now you've got the ability to, to, to look at things in a 360 way.
So
I, I just find it fascinating that, you know, at Varicent we developed this product for ELT to make commissions smoother, to make it easier. And, and I've, I've talked to companies like Pepsi that are using it. The, the amount of data volume that's going into their overall commission system is down by 50% because they can do it so much more efficiently than what they were doing in, in the past. But now there's this additional use case. It wasn't developed for that, but it's,
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: It's
hugely
valuable.
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: got applications that nobody ever thought about. Yeah.
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: Yeah,
yeah, [00:14:00] hugely valuable. So like when you were working through and looking at like for-- what's the biggest challenge that you typically saw when implementing? Like you're... I'm, I'm putting this new forecasting approach in because people are always looking for new approaches 'cause no one's ever happy.
It's similar to sales leaders are never happy with their comp plan, and they're usually not very happy with their
forecasting.
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: Yeah
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: When-- Like what's, what's the biggest challenge you see in trying to make that when, when people are
making that
change?
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: I Think one of the ugliest situations that I see and I've seen in my career is that, companies have different ways of looking at the same number, right? Like there, there's, there's a number that finance likes to see, there's a commissionable number that the salespeople like to see, there's an ARR number that the CRO likes to see.
They're all valid and they all exist, but how do you forecast in that environment? Because the salespeople care about how they get paid, but the CRO cares about what, what the CFO cares about, which is what the street cares about. I think [00:15:00] it's agreeing on a forecast methodology that's going to get it down to one way and one number that in the back end translates into all the different ways that you need to see it.
And the, the companies that I see struggle the most are the ones that can't agree on what they're gonna use in the forecasting side of it
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: Yeah, that makes, it makes so total-- You would think like you talk about that as rational people and you go, "That can't be true." But then you get into the day-to-day work, like those numbers for those three different people, the way they move, they are very committed to those numbers. So it's not as easy as it sounds to get those three people, not to mention the marketer in there, and then the customer success person who also have different ways they're viewing those numbers
too,
and to get them to rationalize that on top of it so that it makes total...
It's, it's con- it's a constant
challenge
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: Well, and if if you add some cl- complexity to it, or if you've got a company that's going from a perpetual to a subscription-based model, now they're managing two different revenue streams where one of them's all hardware and software based, and the other one's more subscription or [00:16:00] subscription equivalent, and on top of all that other complexity.
So I, I would say if, if you want to be successful at forecasting, first agree on the way that you-- on the number that you're going to use. If, if you can agree on that, you're already way, way ahead of the, the path.
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: do you see it like, one, one of the things I was gonna ask you is like an easy... Like what's an easy fix that you see that you could, that you could offer up to put things in place? Now, I think that's a hard thing,
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: That's
a hard one.
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: would you say that's like... there easier things that I would start with that I can, as I'm trying to build out a strong forecasting structure, process, cadence?
'Cause it's not just how do I forecast. Like there's a whole structural piece with it. Like what's an easy step that you see people break down on that you could just turn and make it a little better?
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: Well, I
See companies abandoning forecasting tools because they've got bad data,
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: Yeah
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: and they're saying, "Well, our pipeline's a mess. We can't forecast with it right now." Uh, to, to me, the, the easy solution to that is start forecasting with it right now. Let people start showing up to their weekly [00:17:00] forecast calls with ugly pipelines, with, with data that they can't sort through, with, uh, with, with numbers that they can't defend, and they only have to go through about two or three cycles like that before they get the message, and, and miraculously, the data starts to correct itself and everything gets cleaned up.
So d- don't, don't clean the data first. Forecast first, report first, and the data will clean itself
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: It's a gr- so it becomes about accountability. The only thing I'm telling you, seller, is you've got to do all your forecasting through this tool, and you better show up and we're gonna have this conversation. And be prepared for it to be broken, but you, you'll fix it through the
process
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: Yeah. I don't wanna show up and embarrass myself three weeks in a row, especially when my peers are the ones that are getting it straight. It, it's a little bit of a peer pressure and public exposure thing, but hey, what else can you do? The expectation is that you're gonna manage a pipeline that the company and your executives can understand, and if you're not doing that, then you're failing.
Um, so the, I, I would say when companies first start to deploy a forecasting solution, especially in one that's never done it before or had [00:18:00] any kind of pipeline discipline, there's a reluctance from salespeople because they don't, they don't want that kind of scrutiny. They've never had it before, and their lives have been probably better without it.
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: Totally. So,
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: Yeah
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: let's talk a little bit about where this stuff is going. So everyone's talking about agents and all the things and all the stuff that AI is gonna do. Like what do you think the role of the seller is gonna be when it comes to their accountability to forecasting?
Like what it is now, which is still pretty much how the way it's always been, sellers accountable, to what it will be in the future, where a lot... I mean, a lot of this is hardcore analytics, understanding what's going on. You mentioned Gong at the beginning. Now I can expand my analytic analysis beyond just structured data into unstructured.
What's the role in, in the future of a seller in, in, in forecasting? What do you think it will
be?
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: Yeah
I, I, I've thought about this quite a bit, Seth, where I think we have to define what the purpose of forecasting is. And I, I think a lot of people assume that it's about having the ability to, to predict the future [00:19:00] accurately. That, that, that's one piece of it. But also, the, uh, another piece of it is it's a conversational means between managers and employees on that weekly call, having a conversation about what's happening inside of their accounts and working towards a goal that, that they're gonna achieve together.
And then the third piece of it is applying pressure on the pipeline for people to, uh, accelerate actions that are gonna lead towards closing something more quickly. So there, there's a pressure, there's a conversation, and then there's a predictability element to it. And people focus almost entirely on that, on that predictability piece of it.
Can, can you forecast accuras- accurately within 5%
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: Yeah
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: or 10%? Um, so Yeah
I, I, I think when we start to look at it in those three factors and we understand what the purpose of, of the forecast is, I, I think the number one hack to an accurate forecast for anybody, and it sounds really simple and [00:20:00] it's not, is the, the, the, the bigger the pipeline, the more opportunities that you have in play, and I'm not talking about the garbage that you stick in your pipeline in order to hit some sort of a metric, I'm talking about real opportunities that are maturing all at different levels.
If, if you've got that inventory of opportunities that you can choose from, some of those are gonna drop out. They always do. But if you've got a big enough inventory, you can replace them with other ones, and then you start to make your forecast. It's not about predicting what's gonna happen with single opportunities.
It's about having a big enough amount or, or a large enough amount that are constantly churning where you can replace things that fall out constantly
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: Yeah. So how do I get enough? I gotta hit a number and what's enough to hit the number, uh, that I can manage? So I mean, if I understood it right, like it doesn't matter what-- who's doing the number, what the number looks like. This, the fore-- the term forecasting is basically how does a rep run your-- run their business, and how do you communicate with your manager to ensure that they, [00:21:00] that they can help you and that they understand the way you're running your business and that it's running in the best way
possible
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: Yeah
And you can't penalize people for having that many opportunities either, because y- like your best reps will have that many opportunities, and as soon as somebody else on the team drops off, they're gonna start going to that person to, to pull some unnatural acts on these more developed opportunities that they're working on.
And then they'll start to burn relationships and things like that.
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: Excellent. No
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: I, uh, e- every company is really focused on making the quarter and making the year. I can tell you the, the conversations that I have with customers and prospects at Varicent is so refreshing because... A- especially with our CEO, Mark Altshuler.
If, if No
one's ever heard him speak, you really should get to know who he is 'cause he, he's like an unsung, uh, I don't know. How do I even explain Mark? He's t- he just, he understands this market better than any other person I've ever worked with, and I've been in this for over 30 years. But when he's having conversations with customers and prospects about the value of Varicent, [00:22:00] he's, he's incredibly honest with them and he's telling them, you know, what some of the decisions that they're asking us to make for them is, is gonna cost.
And he's able to do that, number one, because of the quality of the solution, but he's also helping them make informed decisions, and he's not afraid to do it, to be truthful with them, because it could potentially jeopardize our o- our opportunity to close the deal this quarter. It's, it's more about ensuring that the customer is going to like what they bought and they're gonna get the most value out of it because he's thinking about the long-term value of this relationship
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: Yeah. I, I mean, yeah. Uh, yeah, talking a little bit about Mark, I mean, he's-- he is literally, like he is the person in SPM that is most passionate about what it could be. And he's also, I mean, you could see it in the product, like, uh, with Varicent and how, like he-- Yeah, he is great
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: Yeah, listen asked him, you know, a- after I first started and, you know, we have a relationship. I said, "But I just kind of off the cuff, Mark, why did you start this company in 2006 when you had these massive competitors that were out there, like companies like [00:23:00] Callidus and Xactly and Oracle?" They'd all been out there for a very long period of time.
And he, you know, he gave that look. He went up to his upper right-hand side and said, "We just thought we could do it better." And, you
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: Yeah
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: he he did, whi- which is really interesting. So I would say the quality of the solution that you're selling has a lot to
do with your ability to forecast accurately, because you have the ability to hold out for value for some of these customers and not do un- unnatural things in order just to make the number.
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: Yeah
It, Yeah.
Fits you in a way that allows you to-- I mean, just going back to it, like it allows you to run your business seamlessly. You're not encumbered by the tool, you're enabled by the tool
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: Right. And if, if you're a salesperson looking to improve forecast accuracy, I would say the number one thing you can do is go to a company where there's great product market fit and, and, yeah, and there, there's, there's, there's, there's a b- a burning need for your, for your solution, and there's more customers that you could potentially, that you could possibly get to in a day.
That, that's, that's when it feels good.
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: Yeah. [00:24:00] Yeah. That it, that is so true. Let's talk about like, there's the one big thing that's happening around forecasting and, and it's coming up with AI, and it's becoming very, uh... It, it's a, it's heavily talked about, which is consumption versus, versus kind of the, the seat-based forecasting, right? Like consumables, uh, w- what you would call in the past would be consumables versus equipment.
And because of the tokenization, the way data flows and how it's being charged, all these c- SaaS companies are now gonna start switching over into these pay-per-drink type models. H- how do you think that's going to impact forecasting? 'Cause my, my experience with the forecasting side is consumables is one of those things that most sellers don't understand how to forecast, and they just kind of leave it on the side, and they're focused on the big deals.
Like how, like how do you think this is going to change?
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: I, well, so I've worked with companies that have done that usage-based forecasting from the rep level all the way up to the very highest [00:25:00] levels. And th-this goes all the way back to 2006 when I was at Akamai. Akamai is, b-back then they described themselves as being a superhighway for the, for the internet because you had all these different internet service providers that would fight with each other.
They would throttle each other's traffic. So Akamai would just go out there and co-deploy servers all over the world, and it would, it would skip those fights. So it just, it literally was a superhighway. And at, at the individual level, it's very difficult for a s-seller to, to be able to go in there and forecast how much consumption was gonna happen from their customers because they're all over the place, right?
And then you add in seasonality for retailers or, uh, m-major sporting events like, uh, the March Madness or whatever. But at the, at the highest levels, we were able to do it, and, and we, we, we did it just using basic algorithms back then. And then we, we took out some of the big outliers, the ones that could swing very greatly in a month, and, and then kind of added [00:26:00] them back with a bottoms-up number.
So nu-number one, I think it's unfair to ask sellers to do it. I think the higher up you go in the organization, the more accurate it is. I've worked with AW in the, AWS in the past, and they, they were just doing it at the aggregate levels, at the highest possible level and the lowest possible level po- that, that they could get to w-with a degree of accuracy. Yeah
So don't, don't ask sellers to forecast usage. They can't do it
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: Yeah. And, I mean, the-- this is where-- uh, consumption is where analytics are just a beautiful thing,
right? Like, you can get super precise with that type of stuff and almost give the seller the levers to pull and hold them to the levers to pull rather than having them forecast. They still need to be accountable, but it's a, it's, it's-- it can be different
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: Yeah Let, let it be algorithmic in the, in the way you're gonna forecast because we can't possibly take all those factors into consideration
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: Yeah, so true. So let's shift a little bit and talk a, a- about, about you a little. So as a kid, did you think that you were going to be a sales [00:27:00] compensation expert, like working in-- like you, you've, you've become a stalwart in this industry across multiple of the, the key players. Like I, I could just see as a kid, were you like, "That's what I'm do"?
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: No, like who, who knew that sale-- I mean, what, what fifth grader would think that sales compensation even exists? I would say as, as I progress in my career, even as a younger guy, I was always sort of interested in the intersection between people and systems and patterns. I've always studied those types of things.
I'm, I'm, I, I s- I, I'm into philosophy and I study religions and I study cultures and civilizations and how things progress in e- economics. I was always fascinated by that. And to me, when I discovered, let's say, strategy and planning within the realm of sales, I, I was at first fascinated with that. And then I started gravitating towards what really motivates behavior.
And it was, it was the intersection of, of [00:28:00] people and numbers and processes, and that's where I think compensation lives, is the intersection of, of human beings and systems and, and, and all of that. So I, I, I started, I, I started to think of it more as human performance intelligence rather than sales performance management, because there's a human element to it
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: Yeah. How people are motivated, like what motivates people and how do you use tools to motivate
people
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: What motivates people and how do they really act? I, I, I put something up on LinkedIn a couple of y- uh, months ago. I, it's called "The Desire Path."
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: Uh-huh.
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: And I n- I never knew there was a word for it. There, there, there's a translation that goes in French as well. But Yeah
I, I was out running in California one day and I came to an intersection.
It was the intersection of, of two sidewalks, and then off to the right-hand side through the woods, somebody had walked a dirt path.
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: Uh-huh
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: Everybody had walked a dirt path. Everybody went around that sidewalk. And, and, and for the hell of it, I, I put it up on LinkedIn. I said, "Okay, the, the [00:29:00] sidewalk is the sales process, and then that, that desire path is sales people."
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: Yep
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: They're, they're, always gonna gravitate towards the path of least resistance and, and we, we judge them morally to say that they're bad for doing that, but they're just acting rationally.
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: Yeah. Yeah,
yeah. You've gotta listen to people.
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: Right.
So I think if we can design our systems to give people the ability to act rationally and in their own interest a- and have those interests serve the interest of the company, that's the, that's the ideal motivation program right there where, where, where the goals are aligned.
So the, the long answer to your question is I'm not surprised they arrived here because I've always had this fascination of human behavior and what motivates it and what, what we do. The difference between what we say we're gonna do and what we actually do. We, we say we're gonna take the sidewalk, but we actually do the desire path.
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: Yeah. Yeah. fascinating. Yeah. And even as a kid, even in sports and all of that stuff, it, it all leads
there
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: Yeah. What I learned too, when they design college campuses too, uh, the, the great, [00:30:00] the great planners don't, don't put sidewalks down for the first year. They let people walk where they're gonna walk, and then they put the, they put the sidewalks in after they see where everyone's gonna go.
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: Makes so much
sense. Yeah.
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: Imagine if we could do that with CRM,
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: I don't know where if they would
go
anywhere.
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: We, we build these people these squiggly sidewalks and tell them to walk all over them. They're completely inefficient. It's no wonder they're irritated.
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: Yeah, exactly. You know?
So like you have a, you, you have a noticeable, like you are one of the most passionate people that, that, that I've seen when it comes to strategy and planning. Like you live that, like you believe in it, you've advocated for it, you've shown people how to do it. Um, another person that like y- y-- I mean, I think you even motivated another colleague that we work with, with Robert Munoz, who has a similar passion for
that.
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: Yeah
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: so I was really interested to ask you this question. Like when you graduated college, someone like you who thinks in that way, like what piece of advice, if you could go back, would you give yourself at, at, at like right when [00:31:00] you graduated that you think would have been really tangible to, to what you've done in your career so far or where you wanted to
go?
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: I, I've had a lot of time to think about that over the last year, year and a half, Seth, because I wrote a book, uh, about what my experience was growing up in a small paper mill town. You know, the, the son of a blue-collar worker and then ending up in the, in the US military and working at NATO. And then just the experience that I had in growing up through corporate America and, and how things shaped me, uh, and the philosophies that I studied and how I applied those philosophies.
I, there's probably nothing more liberating I've ever done in my entire life than going through and reliving all those, uh, it's 20 some odd chapters. Going through a second edit right now and helping me formalize these types of things. And what I realized is that a- as a younger person, and this probably just hap- has to do with, with youth and and hormones, if anything.
But the, the, the level of aggression coming out of, out [00:32:00] of college and military and just punching your way through and using force as a tactic to get what you want, it, it took me until I was in my 30s to realize that there was a softer, more nuanced way where you didn't have to break glass to, to, to, to, to prove your point or to get what, what you wanted, and you didn't have to break relationships and piss people off.
So that I, I, I think that was a failing of my, of my youth and something that I had to grow into. And I don't know if, if everybody goes through that. I've, I've talked to some people in their 40s now who are coming to the same realization and, and maybe it's just you, you know, you're, you're that, that, that little turtle on a beach trying to make It, to the sea and you're, and you're stepping over everybody else.
But I have a re- that, that, that's, that's regret for me and, and my life didn't really improve a lot until I learned how to be a lot more nuanced and a lot softer and to use both, you know, both [00:33:00] force and, and, and softness as, as part of the overall nuance to it. Does that make sense?
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: it it makes total sense. I mean, it sounds like it's-- it, it sounds like that your passion for this came through experience in life. That at some point you were bulldozing through to try to get things done, and then in your thirties you realized, if I look up and I could see beyond the paths that I'm going down and think about how I want to go down those paths, be a lot more successful, gonna be a lot less stressed.
be able to do a lot more. That's fascinating. So it didn't-- it sounds like it didn't come to you naturally, it came to you through experience finding it, like over
time.
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: Yeah. I, I can tell you the moment it happened and, and, and how I realized that I had made a mistake. I, I-- when I, when I got out of the military, I was 27 years old. I was a captain. I, I, I moved to Boston, and then I just felt like I needed some sort of a, a direction. Like I, I was successful career-wise, but I was looking for something deeper to help guide me.
And then [00:34:00] I just, I became fascinated with Daoism. You know, Eastern philosophy was really interesting to me. And, and I found a school outside of Boston that, you know, it was an authentic Daoist master.
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: Uh-huh.
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: I, I'll tell you, wh-when I do commit to something, I commit to it for a very long time. So I went there and studied for 17 years, almost 30 hours a week, right?
But it was, it was probably five years into it, and I'm, I'm, I'm training on a Saturday with a Daoist master, and he's teaching me kung fu. And th-this guy, you know, he was unbelievable background. He's one of the most unique individuals I've ever met. Just tough. Gr-grew up in the Soviet Union underneath a Chinese master.
Like, the perspective this guy has, you just can't even imagine. And he was terrifying. He was that effective, but also one of the kindest souls you've ever met. Uh, and I'm talking to him about a frustration I had at work where I just kind of bullied somebody and, you know, I gotten passed over for a promotion.
And he said, "You know, Dana, you scare people." And I was I said, "That's, that's ironic coming from the scariest man I've ever met in my entire life." The guy was a bounty [00:35:00] hunter. And, uh, he's telling me this, and what he was really trying to show me, and especially if you practice martial arts, it's this nuance between force and, and, and, and, and non-force.
And it's, you have to apply that in your life 'cause you need to be a lot more delicate in the way that you're having these types of conversations and that the way that you're treating people. And I, I didn't have the ability to see myself from the outside in, Seth. So I, I went a little philosophical on you, but it, it really...
'Cause I just had a conversation with an executive that called me last week and was having a similar problem. And, and I was telling her the same thing. Y-you get to a point where it, it-- what's, what's the cost of being right?
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: Yeah.
So
true
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: you get, you get, the satisfaction of being right, but at, at what expense? And maybe you could be right and not have offended everybody in the room at the same time.
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: Yeah. There's a different path. I think we go-- It kind of turns back to where there's a different path,
right? Like that, it's a different path to
it. So th- just, uh, to finish up, like say a little bit more about Vericent, um, how, how people could find you, [00:36:00] find Vericent. Like I just, I want our audience to know a little bit more about your company and then kind of where they can reach out to you and
Vericent if they're-
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: Yeah. Well, the easiest way to get to me is on LinkedIn and then Varicent, you know, V-A-R-I-C-E-N-T.com. But I, I'll tell you how I got here, Seth. You, you know that I've been in the sales performance management space for 20 some odd, 30 years, and I, I've, I've worked as a practitioner. I also worked as the, the, the lead o-of that advisory group at Forrester and SiriusDecisions.
I know this market well. I've worked, I've worked for competitors in this space, and as soon as I had the opportunity to join the market leader, that's... I jumped at it. And, and the reason why I came to Varicent, because I, I see what everyone else is doing in this space. Everyone is scrambling to try to figure out how to retrofit AI into their solution and say that they're-
AI first.
But Varicent grew up with it. They've been doing this for, for the last 10 years, especially during the y- the years they spent with IBM. They built it out in, into their, their [00:37:00] platform. So when the AI revolution hit, they were, they were like, "No big deal. We've already been doing this. It's, it's ingrained in our platform.
Let us show you how it works." So it's such a refreshing conversation to be able to go in to a customer or even a, a prospect and say, "Here's how we can help you be a lot more efficient at sales planning, compensation management, and strategy using solutions that are already built into our platform." And w- we're taking market share everywhere.
The company's growing 30% per year, and the projections are it's gonna double in the next three. So it's it's it's a great ride
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: it's a match made in heaven in my mind, right? Because it's one thing to have a great product, and Verason has a great product. It's another person-- It's another thing to have a person that can sit in an executive boardroom and, and connect that great product to outcomes. So yeah, I was super-- I think I reached out to you super excited to see you join them, and it was a huge, huge win.
squadcaster-6f34_1_04-09-2026_124437: Yeah. And
it's, it's so,
so refreshing to be able to have a conversation with a customer about actually solving their problems and not have it be in [00:38:00] slideware, but actually, "Hey, let me, let me jump in here and show you how it's, done." So
it's, it's awesome.
Yeah
seth-marrs_21_04-09-2026_124436: Dana, thanks so much for joining. It's great having you
Speaker: And that wraps up another episode. Thank you for joining. For show notes and other episodes, visit us@innovativerevenueleader.ai. The Innovative Revenue Leader is sponsored by Sandler, a Trilia company. Sandler provides top corporate sales and business development training while empowering sales professionals and leaders to master the graph of selling at all levels.