There’s Something About Mary

Author: Chuck Ingram

 

Same Desk, Hotter Seat

Many people say it’s strange post covid to get a new job. It certainly seemed that way to Mary.

Same spare bedroom

Same desk

Same plants

Same pictures

Different faces (or avatars) on the screen

It’s definitely a different level of heat on her chair.

Mary was Vice president of Marketing at a portfolio company of Rollup Partners, the private equity firm. She had a great run there, and the SAAS company ultimately went IPO.

Based on that work, the PE firm appointed Mary as Chief Revenue Officer at a wholesale distribution company. It was not quite as sexy as a business model, but the role seemed more impactful. Besides, she loved working alongside the partners at the PE firm Parable7.

Mary learned so much at the SAAS company, and it all seemed to work amazingly. Marketing did campaigns focused on ideal client profiles, sent them to landing pages that offered a demo, and the sales team closed the deals.

 

Welcome, and the Answer is Do more with Less.

It has not been that way here at the new Company. This portfolio company is a manufacturer that sells to distribution partners. Like her other Company, they experienced a boost right after COVID.

Mary was still full of excitement when she pitched her go-to-market strategy to the board. Even when they added ten points to her targets, she still felt like it was attainable. Even when they said she could not hire more people, she was still confident she could do it.

However, six months into her role, Mary can tell with absolute certainty that something has changed.

• Win rates are down
• Deal values are smaller
• Almost 3/4 of her reps are missing quota
• About half of her deals are slipping past the original close date.

The most challenging part was that she worked to implement her go-to-market strategy with the sales marketing and service leaders, but she could not tell what was working and what was not.

 

But is the GTM Plan Working?

The IT team implemented a CRM system with a large systems integrator a couple of years ago. They negotiated many features and a short timeline; we are extremely proud of them.

The problem is it seems like all the information is wrong in it, and the only feedback she gets about it is that the reps feel like they have to “Do CRM” instead of doing their job.

 

She’s Also Not Alone

The average chief revenue officer has a tenure right now of about 18 months, so Mary and many others like her do not have a whole lot of time to figure this out. And we all know, based on the layoff numbers in the marketplace, that there are downstream implications for folks like Mary not figuring it out.

According to Sam Jacobs from the pavilion

• win rates fell about 18% in 2023, and deal values declined by 21%
• 69% of reps missed their quota
• 17% of reps contributed
• 81% of the revenue, 44% of all deals slipped past their original close date, and the
• rep turnover increased from 22% to 36%.

According to Salesforce.com –

• 91% of data in CRM is bad, and 70% decays after just one year.
• Only 50% of companies are satisfied with their CRM overall.

The good news is there IS something about Mary – she’s resourceful and relentless. She is going to figure this out.

 

 How is it going with Mary at your Company?

Based on the statistics above – plus a lot more (you have copilot –ask it????), chances are there are some similarities at your organization or at least some areas that can be improved.

The companies that do this right have playbooks that are focused basically on the following formula –

• Right customers
• Right Deals
• Right Conversations
• Right Buyer Engagement

That is Great, but what if my Data is Bad?

Our Mary was looking around her LinkedIn one day (she wasn’t looking for a job yet), and she noticed she had a friend from college, Connie, who had the job title revenue architect—it seemed super different but maybe applicable, so they had a virtual coffee.

The last time Mary heard from Connie, she was into Lean manufacturing.

Mary learns that data is the big domino that makes them all fall down. None of this works if you don’t get the data right.

It turns out that we can’t get revenue right if we don’t get data right

Connie shares a framework that seems to make total sense. Connie talks about a revenue architecture and a framework that brings it together.

Collect – Take the friction out of data collection.

Contextualize – Harmonize and shape the data – think big-picture financial data, conversations, and emails into context.

Direct – How would lean manufacturing look at your end-to-end revenue engine? What are your constraints?

 

Besides Writing Blogs – What is CongruentX Doing About It

Big consulting companies and systems integrators have made customers carry all the risk for too long. Big projects with scope creep change order traps have made customers wary.

When you have a real revenue architecture and a long-term model built around outcomes – you can promise results.

CongruentX is confident in our ability to execute this formula in our CX Revenue Pulse offering – we literally guarantee it.

Want higher adoption? Guaranteed.

Want higher win rates by having better sales conversations – guaranteed.

Want more cross-selling and upselling? guaranteed

Do you have a “Mary” in your organization who is struggling?

 

If so – Let’s Talk!

 

 

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