Michael Pashby

If you're a RevOps, Sales, or CS leader, take a few minutes to participate in BoostUp's RevOps Benchmark Report. We'll return the favor by providing insights into how critical GTM functions are spending their time and resources to propel their companies forward.

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There is often considerable overlap between Revenue Operations (RevOps) leadership and the Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) roles due to the interconnected nature of strategy and execution in driving revenue growth. This signifies a move toward a transformation in Revenue executives where decision-makers combine strategic foresight with operational expertise that drives sustainable revenue growth. The opportunity for senior RevOps professionals to take on these executive roles is more relevant than ever. Here is my advice on considering this move: https://lnkd.in/eEp263QR

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Get up to speed on any account in 30 seconds with ZoomInfo Copilot. On the latest episode of In Your Corner, our CEO and Founder, Henry Schuck, shows how ZoomInfo Copilot is changing the game for AEs and AMs. ZoomInfo Copilot makes meeting prep and account research simple — surfacing everything you want and need to know about an account. From recent engagements and key contacts to upcoming deals, ZoomInfo Copilot's AI Account Summaries help frontline sellers prepare for any customer interaction. Have a question? Just click "Ask Copilot." See how it works. ⬇️ #ZoomInfoCopilot

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🗓️ The latest Seismic release features enable teams to activate strategic initiatives, optimize workflows, and drive sustainable growth… 👩‍💻 Programs is your enablement command center 🤖 Aura Copilot speeds up workflows with AI 💬 Meetings are more impactful with collaboration 🎯 Skills shorten ramp time and accelerate attainment 🙋‍♀️ I'm raising my hand for all of this! Learn more in the blog linked below. #Enablement #SeismicAdvocate

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Another good report from Vendr on SaaS buying trends. (see in comments below) The metric that jumped out at me was ACV for Renewals. Remaining flat. In Q1 2024 Ryan Neu 's take is that as vendors have come across tougher times they are increasing prices to counter customer's renewing with down-sized contracts (presumably less seats) since most vendors charge per license. As a buyer, I have definitely seen this in 2024. Taken together with ARR, this really does imply that Net Revenue Retention in 2024 is plummeting. We are definitely seeing churn, so gross retention is down. And we are Net Retention (ie after upsell and/or downsell) is significantly down. In 2023, the investment guru's were saying that Net Retention of 130% plus was the mark of the very best SaaS companies. And valuations were being heavily influenced by Net Retention. I remember back in 2015 when Mimecast went public, we had net retention of around 110% and it was considered unbelievably good by the investment community. I have a sneaking suspicion that Net Retention of 110-120% in 2024 will again be considered very good to exceptional. Love to hear from folks like Ray Rike and Nick Mehta and Megan Bowen (and others) as to what they think about 2024 Net Retention benchmarks? #ACV #nrr #benchmarks

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Introducing ZoomInfo's new integration with Clari Groove! 🙌 Streamline your lead management and speed up your sales cycle with our latest integration. Now, ZoomInfo customers can sync contacts seamlessly between ZoomInfo, Salesforce, and Groove Flows — bridging the gap between lead identification and engagement. Save time, reduce manual entry, and focus on closing more deals. Head to the blog to learn how it works: bit.ly/4ffAMZ1

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Try this on when thinking about AI sales productivity software: Define the space as those automating internal and external activity. External - virtual SDRs, schedulers, chatbots. Anything effectively used by customers in place of interacting with sellers. Internal - Forecasting, activity tracking, account planning. Anything used by the seller in place of interacting with internal people and systems. External might make sense if you have a low ADS, high volume business where you need to get your cost of sales down at scale, and customers want a fast, consistent experience. Internal might make sense on more complex enterprise motions where you want to get your sellers back out to customers. What are the risks in crossing them up? Make sure external tools don't de-personalize your customer experience in enterprise, and make sure internal tools don't over-engineer governance if you have low variance in productivity. I'm not sure how this idea will hold up, but it occurred to me while looking at the crowded landscape of tools in the space. Not everything will be worth it for everyone, and we all need spend discipline.

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ZoomInfo Copilot is transforming the way sales teams work. Just ask Joy Rohde, Sales Director at Earnix. Leveraging customer intent data and AI, Copilot helps sales teams focus on the best accounts and confidently reach out when they're ready to buy. ⏰ T-minus three days until Copilot is here — you don't want to miss it! #ZoomInfoCopilot

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“What do they do again?” is the kiss of death! “What do they do again?” is intellectually lazy! “What do they do again?” screams I didn't care enough to spend an ounce of time looking them up! “What do they do again?” is disrespectful to relationships who believe in you, recommend you, or advocate on your behalf. Read this post and then watch the podcast interview by Jason M. Lemkin and commit to yourself to never stop growing, learning, or losing your edge. https://lnkd.in/exuuntYg? #GreatSalesLeaders #LeadersWhoWantToSell #SaaStr #NeverStopGrowing

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Are we falling into the trap of "what got you here won't get you there" in sales leadership? 🤔 As Mark Kosoglow, Co-Founder and CEO of Operator.ai, suggests, this may be a fallacy. How can we leverage the current state of sales technology to enhance buyer engagement and revolutionize the sales process? 🛠️ Is personalization and relevance in our sales outreach the key to breaking through the noise and attracting buyers into conversations? 🎯 Let's challenge the status quo and rethink our sales strategies. #SalesStrategy #SalesLeadership #BuyerEngagement https://lnkd.in/g9DX-c9p

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Over my nearly 15 years at ZoomInfo, I’ve helped countless customers with their go-to-market challenges. It’s not too much of an exaggeration to say some of them were prospecting like it was the old west, relying on bad data and confusing signals.  And we were almost always able to help them strike gold in their GTM. ZoomInfo Copilot is the next phase. It uses AI to transform how companies go to market. We’re ready for the gold rush! Learn more here 👉 https://lnkd.in/g3Sm3vBE #ZoomInfoCopilot

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Our sales team is having an Outbound only day today. Truth be told, we hadn't done one in too long... Why now? We just went live with an adjusted ICP list and we need coverage ASAP. Budget season is typically Q3/Q4 and our window is tight to be prioritized. If anyone from this list talks to us, we have a strong POV that we believe will resonate at senior levels. A small, tight list of accounts that meet several criteria that tell us they'll be a no-brainer, great customer. Some examples of criteria for this list: - Friends of Ambition (what we refer to as FOAs, promoters) - UserGems 💎 - Former Ambition users, product owners, buyers - Previous Closed Lost opportunities + Company size, tech stack, ASP, growth rate We also used AI to load in our criteria and make suggestions for accounts. This was remarkably easy and confirmed many of our thoughts. For example, we asked for accounts growing more than 40% YoY in certain industries. Done. We want to tell this list about our own AI coming soon 👀 , which sits in a unique place - combining KPI data <> coaching conversations + context. So yes, some of our team in the Nashville office dressed up ( 🌭 theme is a post for a different day). I'm "hunting." If you get outbounded by Ambition today, take that meeting! 🤳 Have fun out there! #outbound #prospecting #salescoaching

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Ready to unlock the full potential of ZoomInfo? "For 17 years I’ve had the vision for what is today ZoomInfo Copilot, but it wasn’t until GenerativeAI’s power was able to be harnessed that we could actually deliver it." - Henry Schuck ZoomInfo Copilot will mine pure gold buyer intent signals from your CRM and our best-in-class B2B data, then deliver you tailored engagement recommendations, and AI-powered personalized outreach. Learn more here 👉 https://lnkd.in/gwGPjDf6 #ZoomInfoCopilot

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I don't know what Partnerships leader needs to hear this, but… Your Google Sheet / PRM / Portal isn't a source of truth. Stop using tools that are isolated from your CRM. Your entire GTM business operates out of the CRM. That's where all core revenue and customer data lives. Why should partnerships be any different? "But my CRM isn't set up well for partnerships"... Ok, here are some basics that should be pretty doable in any CRM: 1. Create a Partner account type or object 2. Create classification field(s) on the object to designate partner type, tier, etc. 3. Create a partnerships funnel/pipeline 4. Tag associated Leads/Referrals/Deals to these partner accounts/objects to designate partner source, influence, etc. 5. Set up some basic reports to help track pipeline and revenue impact Make sure you have solid data, process, and tracking in your CRM. Then make sure any tools you bring on are deeply integrated to it. Why? Because then you can leverage a PRM like EULER to start reporting on important metrics like: Partner Win Rates Partner Sales Velocity Partner ACV And more... Metrics that will get your partnerships team funded. *This message brought to you by the CEO / CRO / Board that is asking, "What has Partnerships done for me lately?"*

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It’s no secret that software buyers have tool fatigue. Large revenue orgs have bought SO MANY TOOLS over the years. DOZENS, in some cases. These tools create a data problem. In talking with rev ops leaders, it’s pretty stark… tools mean integration. Data pipelines, data prep, data cleanings, centralized system(s), a centralized pane of glass for your centralized panes of glass. They’ve heard it all. And half of their job has become taming the mess. And they spend a LOT of time on it. It’s somewhat ironic… the point is to help sales teams, but the buyers and owners of these tools spend all their time buried in data challenges. And to what end? These tools tend to perform pretty basic functions– data lookup, add to sequence, add notes, update status. Basic data, basic forms, basic outbound motions. We’ve given reps the ability to rapid fire at their prospects… but what’s in the chamber? Are sellers even better off? The same data mess that plagues the buyer manifests as noise for the seller. Yet another todo, yet another system, yet another distraction from BUILDING TRUST WITH YOUR CUSTOMERS. The more fascinating paradigm shift of LLMs is that it offers a change in this pattern. We can go beyond the basic CRUD apps of old. LLMs can actually offload portions of human work– the rote stuff that doesn’t add value to customers. LLMs offer the ability to augment the seller by actually doing the work, not just offering a place to catalog the work that has already been done, or to provide contact information lookup. We’re early, and you still have to squint a bit. But the revenue organizations committed to winning the future are doing it, and they’re doing it at breakneck speed. And they're finding immense value TODAY, even in the early innings. We find some leaders paralyzed with indecision. “We have 15 tools– why do we need another?” Yet we find others who are charting a course into the future. “We can reinvent how we sell, and outcompete our competition… with AI centric platforms that augment the people we’ve already invested so much in, and trust already.” The future is already here, but as always… it’s not evenly distributed. 

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Salesforce Sales Cloud just released its 6th State of Sales report last week aggregating insights from 5500 sales professionals across 27 countries 🌎 Sales growth is back where 79% of sales leaders say revenue has increased over the last year 📈 Sikkkk! But the "how" looks different this time around... For example: Partner selling is contributing to growth in meaningful ways. Enablement is rightfully emerging as a top growth lever 🔑 Another surprising stat: 83% of teams that adopted AI saw an increase in revenue over the past year vs 66% of teams without AI. Causation or Correlation? 🤷‍♀️ Yet another stark reality is that 70% of a sellers time is spent on non selling tasks. 😫 Everything from researching accounts to manually entering things into the CRM to sitting in hours n hours of internal meetings... I dream of a world in the future where AI can help us with rethinking : 1️⃣ Smart list building 2️⃣ Automated pipeline management and 3️⃣ Real time enablement in the future!! Just imagine a world where you don't need to trainings or the same forecast call every week!! 🔥 Check out the report in the first comment for more sales insights!! #stateofsalesreport #salesforce #genai #salesorgs

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Coming on the heels of a successful Salesforce-focused webinar this week, we have more #AI knowledge to drop on you... 🤖 Next week, me, Jay Cutler, and Lauren B. Jones 🐐 from Leap Advisory Partners will be going LIVE on LinkedIn to further define how exactly staffing agencies are leveraging AI, and what types of results they are seeing 🔥 You won't want to miss this, we've been hard at work preparing an awesome session for you. #staffing #recruiting #recruitingacceleration #webinar

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Imagine a GenAI that talks to you, analyzes all your revenue execution to brief you with key metrics, areas that need your focus, and recommendations to solve issues. Then, it also answers all your revenue queries that you ask in voice or text commands. #MIKI is a true gamechanger. #GTM #SaaS #NYC

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