Danny Hodge

Our revops “team” at Chili Piper does A LOT OF automations. If you’d see our list, you’d think we have a full train of rev ops folks working here at Chili Piper (spoiler alert, we have 1 and a half). Here’s an example of an “unconventional” automation We assign churned accounts to SDRs. Yep, we automate outreach to churned accounts Here’s why and how First, let me tell you, it breaks my heart to see any customer churn. I feel like my heart is asking but always aim to learn from it and make everything better for them if they were to come back. Hence, we want to learn what made them leave, fix the problem, and win them back And the good news is that we win many of them back . Here are the nitty gritty on how we do this : We setup these rules for assigning churned accounts to our SDRs: – Account Status = updated to Churned – Transaction End Date = 91 days – Round Robin across SDRs and update SDR Owner – SLA: after 12 working hours, check if there was activity yesterday AND ROE phase ≠ unfit to work, send Slack notification – SLA: after 12 working hours, check if there was activity yesterday AND ROE phase ≠ unfit to work, reassign – Provide a Slack notification to the AM (80 days post-contract end date) – Provide a Slack notification to the SDR once the Account has been assigned (91 days post-contract end date) – Provide SDRs with information on why the account is churning in SFDC to give them the context to sell into the account effectively. If you are curious about more details on this, let me know!  

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ZoomInfo Copilot is working 24/7 — surfacing important updates you should know about your top accounts.  With breaking alerts delivered via Slack, you'll never miss when a buying group shifts or a key account spikes on intent. 🔔 Have a question about one of your accounts? Ask Copilot's interactive, AI-powered chat and get answers in seconds.  Ready to give Copilot a try? Request a demo: bit.ly/3Kj4myP #ZoomInfoCopilot

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Many of the RevOps teams I meet have had some version of tiering or scoring that they rolled back. ‘Reps didn’t trust it’ ‘It wasn’t aligned with conversion rates’ ‘It worked in testing but then didn’t work ever again’ So what should you do? Well, it depends on what you sell. 1) If you sell at a contract value where a quote-carrying rep has more accounts than a human can reasonably prioritise, then the granularity of scoring can help with focus. 2) If you sell a product where there are clear distinctions between relevant and irrelevant accounts then it's generally easier to implement tiering. But everything else equal, I would say that: 1) It is easier to add granularity than to remove it. Start simple, usually, that means tiering. 2) The underlying data matters more than the prioritisation engine itself. If reps don’t trust the data, nothing else matters. 3) Explainability > precision. No one trusts a black box. We try to be pragmatic. Sometimes it’s also just not worth changing and improving the underlying data quality and adding an explainer is what makes the most business sense.

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Top H1 takeaway from QBR's about our Rev Org: "We're an ecosystem, not a hierarchy." (h/t Alexandra B.) We collaborate, everyone's voice matters, and we strive to put people in roles they love so they can be madly successful. Hearing this statement was validation that what we are building in the Revenue Org at LibraryPass is unique, and scalable, and contagious. And we have roles coming soon! So if you're interested in being part of an ecosystem, let's chat. Here's to an even better H2!

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In sales, it’s important to have transparent—and sometimes tough—budget conversations early and often. In custom software development, it doesn’t help the buyer to hold their budget cards close to the vest. Costs can increase quickly if we don’t understand the most impactful requirements and determine an MVP that fits within a realistic budget. "Realistic budget" varies by buyer. We need to talk about it...even when it's tough. Here’s how to approach them confidently (without breaking a sweat): Know Your Stuff Get the Numbers Right: Be clear on both your budget and the client’s. Break down where the money will go and why that allocation makes sense. Show the Data: Back up your recommendations with data—how past investments led to growth or how future spend will deliver returns. Spell Out ROI: Be specific about how each dollar spent contributes to the overall outcome. The math will sell the value. Keep It Real Manage Expectations: Be upfront about what’s possible within the budget. No one likes surprises, so it’s better to be candid than face frustration later. Explain Trade-Offs: If certain features need to be cut to stay within budget, explain what will be impacted, helping the client see the trade-offs. Be a Problem Solver Offer Flexible Options: If budget is tight, suggest scalable solutions. Start with essentials and add more features over time. Help Prioritize: Collaborate to figure out what’s most important so you can focus resources on what matters and get more out of the budget. Tie the Budget to Big Picture Goals Link It to Strategy: Show how the budget ties into broader goals—sales targets, efficiency, or growth. People are more likely to approve when they see the bigger picture. Highlight Long-Term Benefits: Remind them the budget is an investment, not just an expense. Focus on things like customer retention, productivity, or gaining a competitive edge. Listen, Empathize, and Be Patient Hear Them Out: Understand their concerns. The more you listen, the easier it is to address pain points. Stay Calm and Respectful: Budget talks can be tense. Stay patient and respectful. Focus on Building a Partnership Be a Partner, Not Just a Vendor: Frame the conversation as a team effort. Work together to find the best solution for everyone. Stay Flexible: Be willing to adjust to meet their needs without compromising quality or results. Know When to Hold Your Ground Stick to Your Bottom Line: If the budget becomes too tight to deliver value, don’t be afraid to speak up. Don’t Overpromise: Avoid overpromising things that could hurt quality or cause issues down the road. In closing, having effective and meaningful budget conversations will build trust with the buyer and certainly increase your close rate. #sales, #budget, #toughconversations, #customsoftwaredevelopment, #baytechconsulting, #roi, #sellwithconfidence

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You're thinking about renewals wrong. 66% of your renewals will be decided when you’re not in the room. Want higher NRR? Here’s the non-obvious CS strategy that's key to SaaS renewal: Hold customers accountable! In our current economy, customer acquisition is harder than ever. Every board of directors is obsessed with net recurring revenue (NRR). And they should be. After all, close rates are down (18%) and so are deal values (21%). There is no easier source of revenue than an existing customer. And nothing more painful than losing a customer, when all of the time, effort, and expense of building the relationship goes to waste. So of course we invest in the process. We hold our weekly meetings. We educate our champions. We have quarterly QBRs. We find success stories. But too often, we’re talking to one part of the organization. And we lose visibility to what happens when we aren’t in the room, when our champion needs to roll out or deliver using our stuff. It’s hard to see around corners in companies. A simple question suddenly gets hard to answer: Did they train the users they said they would? Did they share out the data or results? Did they get the feedback needed to tune the offering? When I worked at Ariba, which went from $0 to a $4B IPO in 4 years, we had a saying: Success has 3 ingredients: your people, your process, and our software. In other words, 66% of success depends on the customer. If they don’t do their part, they won’t get the value they bought from you. That’s a problem for them. But also a problem for you, because that’s a customer who won’t renew. Why should they, when the value didn’t happen, whoever’s “fault” it was? You need to flip the script. Accountability means asking the hard questions. Was the data delivered? Was it understood? When is the feedback coming? If the answers weren’t there, escalate to the economic buyer. They are at risk of not getting the value they bought. That should be a red flag for them and us. Are they still committed to the project? How do we get back on track? With all of our weekly tactics, we often lose sight of the most important question of all. Why did the customer buy in the first place? If the customer didn’t do what they said they would, that's bad news. And it’s 100% our fault. Want the renewal? Hold customers accountable.

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Pipeline Heroes use scripts in cold calls. Scripts that induce: Curiosity Dont target the meeting as the only purpose of the call Scale follow-ups and next actions for those in ICP, but not in market Treat conversations as reconnaissance and a cornerstone of a relationship with a stranger PipelineHeroes use scripts because they are professionals and want to be Accountable Measurable Scientific

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How can RevOps be more strategic? How can we drive more revenue with less resources? Right now, coming off "Growth at All Costs" we're all strained for budget and resources. Meanwhile, it's harder than ever to land and expand customers. What can we do as revenue and operations leaders to better utilize what we have, to build more efficient Revenue Engines? My team and I have spent years thinking about this. Here's a preview. 𝟭. 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗴𝗼𝗮𝗹 𝗶𝗻 𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗱 2. 𝗔𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗺 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗢𝗽𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝟯. 𝗜𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗳𝘆 𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗢𝗽𝘀 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗲: 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝘇𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 Where do we start? On 𝗠𝗮𝘆 𝟭𝘀𝘁, I'm joining Ben Murray to dive into this. In this webinar, we’ll introduce the: -> 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘂𝗲 𝗘𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆 𝗣𝘆𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗱, a proprietary model designed to measure your company’s operational maturity and identify the most critical bottlenecks hindering growth. We’ll also show you how to: -> Prioritize projects and align your teams towards large strategic goals using a 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗢𝗽𝘀 𝗥𝗼𝗮𝗱𝗺𝗮𝗽. And we'll dive even deeper into a tangible example: -> How to conduct 𝗣𝗶𝗽𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝘀, a process used to spot issues in the sales process and reinforce optimal pipeline management. Register here: https://lnkd.in/e3qqMEaf ✌️

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**SDR Teams: Unlock the Power of Persistence and Timing** Let me share a story from a recent "Share and Tell" session with our SDR and Marketing teams. One of our SDRs was having no luck breaking into one of their target accounts. His emails were going into the void. However, thanks to a timely alert from 6sense about the account, he decided to quickly pick up the phone-- That quick move was a game-changer. The prospect answered. What started as a simple call quickly turned into a promising late-stage sales cycle in just three weeks. This journey from one phone call to a sales opportunity shows the incredible power of persistence, acting quickly, and using all the tech tools in your arsenal. #SDR #outboundsales #salessuccess #marketinginsights #6sense #tiptuesday

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I still can’t believe how many companies are making their sales team jump through hoops to get contracts out. This week at INBOUND, I talked with a ton of AEs on the booth floor and asked them about their sales processes, yeah I geek out on that. Several folks from big-name tech companies told me that they are held back from getting contracts out at end-of-quarter by their deal desk, since proposals that have custom pricing have to be double checked. Sales teams should be selling, closing, and prospecting, not managing internal approval processes. Other AEs shared that they have to deal with navigating a horrible CPQ system, and having to manage proposals separately from quotes. RevOps and Sales leaders, why are you not removing these roadblocks for your AEs? Your sellers are way too valuable to be burdened by bad processes and tools. If you are interested in how PandaDoc can help, or just want to chat through different solutions to your problem, please DM me, check out our new CPQ page, or schedule a demo. https://lnkd.in/gVifRUJM #cpq #proposals #sales #revops

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Are you building an SDR/BDR function? Stop what you are doing and read this. Megan Hardy is some you need to learn from - I’m stoke I get to learn from her EVERYDAY She’s really brilliant. She’s freaking cool. She’s got a fire to win like no other. She’s a builder. She’s a wife and mother with an awesomely cool family……..ask Chester Hardy….he’ll agree 😁 She cares about her people……..but doesn’t put up with nonsense. She done this multiple times….. She’s been an SDR (multiple times), AE (multiple times), run enablement (multiple times)…… Built a kickbutt SDR/BDR organization multiple times……… Read the dang thing….. She knows her stuff……. https://lnkd.in/gFG7qSem. #sdr #bdr #sales #saas #enablement #rockstar #leadership #restauranttech #wfm #leader

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Just bought a Gozney pizza oven. Because every #nj kid needs to learn to make pizza, right? 🍕 Great product. But what's really amazing is how they inspire customers to become pizza chefs and provide us with educational resources to do it. (shout-out #customereducation!) The oven is the tool, but their mission is to inspire and enable everyone to be pizza chefs. I think every startup has this greater purpose, but it often gets buried in features, functionality, and jargon. Founders/CEOs: If you haven't prioritized discovering and crafting your story, I encourage you to do it. Your story is your superpower. It's what's distinctly you and what should power your brand, product, and all your marketing, sales, and service motions. Once you have it, you'll be amazed at what you and your customers can achieve. PS - Don't put creating your story on your CMO. Sure, they'll be your top collaborator and drive the initiative, but a company's story is the founder/CEO's job. #brand #startups #storytelling #saas

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🚀 Why a Salesops team extension is not a Revops Replacement 💼💡 🕵️‍♂️✨Recently, I was chatting with a Director of Sales Operations at a Series C startup. They were debating whether to set up a separate RevOps vertical or simply expand their SalesOps team to handle it. This conversation got me thinking about the exact value addition of RevOps and why SalesOps just can’t double as RevOps. So what exactly is Revops bringing to the table: 🔄 B2B Buyer Cycles Are Evolving: Everything’s digital, and the old linear sales approach is history. We need agility, and product-led growth (PLG) is leading the charge. 🔧 RevOps to the Rescue: Think of RevOps as the glue that holds your marketing, sales, and customer success together. It’s the mastermind driving data-driven insights, streamlining operations, and creating a seamless customer journey. 🌟 Align, Build, Succeed: Achieving alignment at the executive level is the trickiest part but oh-so-crucial. Build your RevOps engine with strategy, core operations, enablement, and analytics. Watch your revenue teams transform into well-oiled machines. 🧩 Real-World Magic: From annual planning to product launches, RevOps makes everything smoother. It’s about eliminating low-value tasks, enhancing productivity, and ensuring every team member knows their next move. Why SalesOps Can’t Double as RevOps: SalesOps is primarily focused on sales process efficiencies and execution. RevOps encompasses a broader scope, aligning marketing, sales, and customer success with a unified strategy. It ensures consistent data flow and insights across the entire customer lifecycle, something SalesOps alone can’t handle. Has your org established a Revops vertical or is SalesOps handling the extra load? #RevenueOperations #RevOps #GrowthHacks #GoToMarket #SalesStrategy #Marketing #CustomerSuccess #Productivity #BusinessGrowth #FounderLife

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The way most SaaS companies structure sales leadership compensation creates inter-team competition in a *NEGATIVE WAY* that costs millions of $’s in revenue and 100’s of hours of headaches a year. Here’s why (and a simple change you can make to fix it): Typically sales managers are compensated on the performance of their direct reports. For example, if their 8 Account Executives crush their targets, the manager's compensation reflects this. This sounds reasonable, right? But what about the rest of the sellers? What about the other 25 Account Executives who need to succeed for your company to hit its growth goals? Sales Managers have different strengths and need to be incentivized to help the ENTIRE sales organization, not just THEIR team. That’s why every time I started a new sales leader role here’s what I did…. I switched the manager comp plan so 20% of their variable earnings were based on the total sales orgs performance, not just their direct reports. I often got pushback, but this simple change always led to stronger collaboration, teamwork, and unity. And helped us avoid account controversy, resentment and entitlement. Sales leaders aren't coin-operated, but they are human and humans respond to incentives. Make sure you're incentivizing the right behavior. And create one team.

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What we know about Saas sales: 💡 The traditional BDR model is broken. The volume-based, headcount intensive spray-and-pray model is expensive and doesn't generally generate enough meaningful pipeline to warrant the costs. 💡 In order to close more deals, AEs need to listen more, be thoughtful and actually help buyers buy instead of blindly following their scripts or the steps laid out in their rigid playbook. 💡 Sales leaders and revenue orgs need to shift from a "growth at all costs" mindset to a "profitable, efficient growth" approach. Why are these such novel realizations in 2024? Strong sellers and successful revenue organizations have known this and operated this way for a long time. "Selling" has been buyer-led, especially in B2B, for a long time. Yet, when we look for talent, we often prioritize previous experience selling the same product, in the same industry, at the same company stage, at the same ACV. Shouldn't we instead be prioritizing underlying skill sets like customer centricity, intellectual curiosity, helpfulness and business acumen?

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Just finished SaaStr's interview with Daniel Lang, CEO of Mangomint. It's a quick but comprehensive view in building a modern vertical SaaS platform for SMBs. Key takeaway: "You really have to do it all now to build a true platform for SMBs: software, payments, payroll, marketing, workflow and more." SMB customers today expect a one-stop solution for their growing needs, and it's our responsibility to deliver. Some fascinating points from Mangomint's journey: 1. Automation & AI aren't just for efficiency — they're solving critical labor shortages 2. Multi-product strategy is critical for achieving high net revenue retention 3. Laser focus on the right customer segment is key https://lnkd.in/eVQHUGEk #VerticalSaaS #SMBTech #PlatformStrategy #EmbeddedFinance

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“𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗢𝗽𝘀 𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗽𝗲𝗱 𝗺𝗲 𝘀𝗲𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝘄𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺 𝗮𝘀 𝗮𝗻 𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗮𝗻𝗶𝘇𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗮𝗱𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗲𝘀.” - Tim Strickland, Former CRO at ZoomInfo, now Advisory Partner at Summit Partners. This clip exemplifies to me what “Strategic RevOps” really means to me. In our last episode of 🎙𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗢𝗽𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿🎙we talked to Tim and his former VP of RevOps, Scott Sutton, about the relationship between the CRO and RevOps. Interestingly, RevOps didn’t report to the CRO - They both reported to the President Reporting aside, Tim had a third-party organization that "𝘄𝗮𝘀𝗻’𝘁 𝗻𝗲𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗹𝘆 𝗴𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗲𝗹𝗹 𝗵𝗶𝗺 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗜 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗿, 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗮𝘁 𝗹𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗲." To do this, they built a team covering: - Capacity Planning - Compensation Planning - Quota Planning - Territory Planning - Sales Process - Systems Architecture - And, of course, Analytics This to me is a perfect example of why reactive systems admin is not enough to help CROs hit their revenue goals. (And this is why we’ve built our RevOps team in a similar way.) RevOps was there to build the Revenue Factory - To industrialized best practices - To create (almost) an assembly line of sales - And to operationalize their overall Go To Market In other words, finding ways to generate more revenue beyond just adding more headcount. Scott is now the CEO at Later, a $70M B2B SaaS company, and we also dove into how to scale this down for companies much smaller than ZoomInfo. Check out the full episode for more: 𝗦𝗽𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗳𝘆: https://spoti.fi/3VvpKax 𝗔𝗽𝗽𝗹𝗲: https://apple.co/4aRQoiq ✌️

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we're making progress with a Slack app that automates driving more & better practice / outputs / behaviors with your AEs & other sellers… goal: make role-playing practice more manageable, realistic, & consistent while applying it to actual deals during prep ofc we're plugging into AI for some fun feedback loops too 😊 our next phase is seeing how more teams react to decide what to build for early customers. we can focus on anything you're looking to improve right now: outbounding, cold calling, disco, negotiation, storytelling, improv, forecasting, testing champs, etc... let me know if you want to test it out with your team, or it's easy to get started with the link below. thx!

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Building Weflow, I've spoken to 200+ #RevOps folks the last 12 months about common Salesforce data capture challenges. Here are things that come up: 1) Poor Salesforce adoption - Shadow tooling - Reps avoid Salesforce - 42% forecast in sheets 2) Poor activity capture - EAC not reportable, nor stored - Missing activities on opportunities - Limited insights based on activities 3) Missing contact data - No contact roles - Buying committees unclear - Multi-threading happening? 4) Process in-compliance - Missing stage entry/ exit criteria - MEDDIC (etc.) not populated - Close date pushed/ overdue 5) CRM bloat - Ops-debt (fields, integrations) - Over customization - Consolidation nightmares after acquisitions 6) Historical data - Opportunity snapshots missing - Process change, data worthless - No unlimited field history tracking Takeaway: Poor Salesforce data quality > missing insights > poor visibility > ineffective deal execution > low predictability > broken revenue engine. What would you add? Comment 👇 -- ➕ Follow me for RevOps content 🔊 Listen to the "RevOps Lab" podcast - link in profile 👀 Visit my free RevOps content library - link in profile ♻️ Share with your friends #RevOps #GTM #Sales

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