The Revenue Formula: Recent Episodes
Growblocks
This podcast is about scaling tech startups.
Hosted by Toni Hohlbein & Mikkel Plaehn, together they look at the full funnel.
With a combined 20 years of experience in b2b SaaS and 4 exits, they discuss growing pains, challenges and opportunities they’ve faced. Every now and then they'll bring in experts to dig a bit deeper.
If there’s one thing they hate, it’s talk. We know, it’s a bit of an oxymoron. But execution and focus is the key - that’s why each episode is designed to give 1-2 very concrete takeaways.
We've talked with a bunch of great folks. To help you improve GTM performance, we've distilled it into 4 things top teams are doing today.
And... we've added a bonus, so it's really 5.
- (00:00) - Introduction
- (02:32) - What the great teams are doing
- (03:35) - More AEs doesn't mean more deals
- (08:31) - Unblend the funnel and optimize resource allocation
- (13:43) - Focus on the skill level
- (18:03) - The parking lot exercise
- (23:59) - Continuous improvement
How do you orchestrate revenue motions at scale? And how do you successfully go from one to many motions?
This and more, we talked with Alina Vandenberghe (Co-founder & Co-CEO at Chili Piper) about.
- (00:00) - Introduction
- (06:33) - When a motion stops working
- (08:34) - Going from motion to motions
- (10:36) - Involving the team
- (13:17) - The outbound motion
- (17:59) - When was brand ready for outbound?
- (20:38) - Remote + Outbound = ???
- (27:07) - Getting motions to compound
- (30:19) - Accounting for new motions in the plan
- (37:59) - The 1 thing
What does it take to become unfireable as a revenue leader?
We boiled it down to three things you should do (besides just hitting target)
- (00:00) - Introduction
- (02:27) - Who's usually at risk?
- (05:48) - Are some roles more vulnerable?
- (08:47) - What are the table stakes?
- (10:12) - Keep a pulse on these 3 daily
- (10:45) - How's this quarter looking?
- (15:29) - And what about.. next quarter?
- (20:31) - And what if both quarters aren't great?
- (22:06) - And focus on the full year
It's time to rethink marketing planning. It needs to factor in revenue and not drown sales in dead-end leads.
Together with Chris Walker, we talked about the problems with planning and how to apply a business mindset to marketing planning.
- (00:00) - Introduction
- (04:07) - Planning in reverse
- (05:34) - The first step - where do you capture demand?
- (07:50) - Second step - Creating net new demand
- (09:44) - Serial planning vs overall view
- (14:06) - The hidden cost of waste
- (15:40) - What $42 million in spend teaches us
- (17:40) - Why we're still inefficient with leads
- (23:33) - Optimal resource allocation
- (28:13) - Growth goals drive wrong behaviours
- (32:36) - What do you do about the delta?
- (37:14) - RevOps is perfectly positioned
You can find Chris on LinkedIn or checkout Refine Labs here.
Every year roughly $2 trillion goes away unnoticed for companies. It's called revenue leakage.
In this episode, we dive deeper into this massive opportunity:
- (00:00) - Introduction
- (02:38) - Revenue Leakage.. Cool... But what is it?
- (04:32) - How big of a problem is revenue leakage?
- (06:55) - Examples of revenue leakage
- (10:24) - How do you prevent Revenue Leakage?
- (11:49) - Time leakage
- (14:50) - Revenue leakage from cost
- (19:57) - The full revenue engine
- (22:49) - What now?
Sources* 1-5% of EBITDA flows unnoticed - E&Y * Sales & marketing efforts could be wasting $2 trillion - BCG * 14.9% revenue leakage - Clari/Forrester
You've seen the research, maybe the problems. Performance is down across the board.
In this episode, we talk with Jacco van der Kooij from Winning By Design about where we're coming from, what's change - and how to solve performance going forward.
- (00:00) - Introduction
- (02:18) - Where is SaaS today?
- (05:13) - Who do we blame?
- (07:48) - Then everything got worse
- (15:10) - Abusing PLG
- (18:50) - What are we dealing with?
- (21:51) - So.. What's changed?
- (23:26) - Nothing has changed
- (26:10) - Underperformance comes down to this
- (30:27) - If you want to run a good revenue organization, do this
- (35:42) - But.. We need to make an impact this quarter
- (43:56) - To make an impact now.. do this
- (49:31) - Wrapping up: The new game we're entering
Research paper mentioned: Solving underperformance: How to lift up the 40%
For more, check out WbD research here or their YouTube channel.
Revenue Operations should do more than service commercial teams. Yet most struggle to articulate what strategic revops looks like.
That's exactly what we cover in this episode - how to become an advisor and actively help grow revenue, rather than just doing salesforce validation rules..
In the episode, we cover:
- (00:00) - Introduction
- (01:57) - Don't get blinded by software
- (05:31) - Everyone struggles with articulating strategy
- (07:30) - Start monitoring
- (09:56) - 3 Thing RevOps should care about
- (15:06) - Identifying and mitigating risks
- (18:53) - Define the operating cadence
- (23:41) - Revenue planning
Interested in checking out Growblocks? Take a look here.
Everyone agrees brand is important, but struggle to articulate why or even how to manage it.
That's why we brought on Udi Ledergor from Gong to share his insights from building the gong brand.
We get into:
- (00:00) - Introduction
- (02:29) - Why brands don't invest in branding
- (03:37) - What does brand even mean?
- (06:14) - Why even consider brand?
- (09:36) - Creating a category
- (15:48) - Brand at the early stages
- (18:37) - Investing in big brand bets
- (30:25) - How to handle budget and brand
- (35:01) - What are the signals to pay attention to?
- (37:44) - It's not enough to say "the CEO doesn't get marketing"
One year has passed, and maybe you've missed an episode or two. In this episode we've picked our 6 favorite takeaways and distilled them in a short 30 min episode.
This is what we covered:
- (00:00) - Introduction
- (01:56) - Quick review of year 1
- (05:23) - 1: the 10% rule to double revenue
- (08:57) - 2: CAC is useless
- (12:08) - 3: Want sales consistenct? Try this
- (18:19) - 4: 200 QBRs later, they're broken
- (23:03) - 5: 1 thing to scale
- (26:14) - 6: 5 efficiency plays you haven't thought of
What if you had $10 million to allocate in 2024? How do you know to spend that cash in the best possible way? Simple: act like a portfolio manager.
In this episode, we borrow lessons from Boston Consulting Group's Growth Share Matrix and show you how you can apply that to your revenue engine. After this, you'll never look at your GTM strategy the same way again.
Read More: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/bcg.asp
In this episode, we want you to forget all about the word alignment. Because even if you do achieve it, it won't drive growth on its own. Alignment should be an outcome, not a tactic.
In this episode, we explain why the classic concept of alignment is broken and what 3 things you should have your team focus agree on instead to drive efficiency.
2/3 sales reps aren't completing quota.
Sales cycles are extending.
Win rates are down.
Yeah it's tough - that's why we cover what you can do to get back on track.
What we covered 👇
- (00:00) - Introduction
- (01:35) - The problems in SaaS
- (05:05) - Only 2 out of 3 reps hit quota
- (06:44) - We need an impact now
- (07:28) - First step - do the analysis
- (09:09) - Time is neglected
- (12:09) - Where is the volume
- (13:24) - The limitations of CAC Payback
- (17:36) - Now what?
- (20:00) - Help customers overcome indecision
- (22:01) - An example
- (25:39) - Another example
- (28:32) - Find problems
Sources mentioned:
Solving underperformance by Winning by Design
Demand picking up a smidge by SaaStr
Decline in win rates by Jacco Van Der Kooij
Net promoter score is terrible - it's become useless for SaaS. We discuss the problems with it, and how to fix it.
- (00:00) - Introduction
- (01:39) - The old framework: Net promoter score
- (04:47) - The problem with NPS
- (06:21) - It's self-correcting
- (07:29) - A metric that can be gamed nicely
- (09:35) - Promoter today, detractor tomorrow
- (10:15) - A honeypot for promoters
- (11:35) - Are the teams using it? And what is it needed for?
- (11:56) - OK, NPS sucks. Now what?
- (12:28) - If the focus is retention & satisfaction, listen here
- (24:13) - For word of mouth - listen here
Also mentioned in this episode:* Earned Growth Rate from HBR * NPS isn't a leading indicator of churn from Gainsight
PS: NPS was developed in the 90s by Bain & Co -- before SaaS really came around.
The biggest growth lever you have? It's your customers. In this episode we talk about CSMs, incentives and 4 common expansion strategies.
- (00:00) - Introduction
- (02:17) - The CSM rule of thumb
- (04:39) - It's decided then, this year we focus on our customers
- (08:31) - The role of the CSM
- (11:33) - 4+2 ways to drive expansions
- (12:06) - Usage
- (12:53) - Tiered
- (13:31) - Add-on
- (13:56) - Products
- (14:14) - The add-on you can do today
- (20:03) - The 2 bonus tricks
- (21:27) - Track decisionmakers
- (22:52) - Incentivizing CSMs
We’ve been zinging finance a bit on the show. Today we decided to invite a SaaS CFO, Ben Murray.
We talked about how the two functions should create a solid revenue plan together - how to manage crazy ambitions and much more.
- (00:00) - Introduction: Finance + RevOps
- (03:52) - How the CFO sees RevOps
- (05:22) - The focus is on sales and marketing
- (07:09) - Getting operational
- (08:32) - CFOs
- (10:43) - What planning looks like
- (15:02) - Hidden improvements
- (24:22) - Driving the plan forward
- (26:16) - Creating flexibility in the plan
- (31:01) - Selling to the CFO
- (33:16) - Making the case
- (38:53) - Where should RevOps report to?
About Ben
Ben is a fractional CFO and founder of TheSaaSCFO.com and TheSaaSAcademy.com
Want more from Ben? Check out his newsletter here https://mailchi.mp/df1db6bf8bca/the-saas-cfo-sign-up-landing-page
You have a pipeline coverage ratio (PLC) of 10x. Is that good? Is it bad? Will you hit target? Will you team understand it?
The only thing you know for sure: It needs a winrate of 10% to work out.
But how do you use it operationally? Well.. It's pretty difficult. We dive into the problems with PLC in this episode.
- (00:00) - Introduction
- (01:26) - Pipeline coverage isn't helpful
- (11:53) - Pipeline coverage gets impacted so many ways
- (13:47) - This is how you can use PLC
- (16:33) - What's the alternative?
- (22:15) - The "boring" answer
- (24:06) - Unblended PLC
PS: Want a masters degree in B2B SaaS? Head over to the revenue letter.
You can calculate churn however you want. The problem? Churn as a metric will start to lose meaning.
We discuss the different options to make it useful.
- (00:00) - Introduction
- (01:58) - What churn was used for
- (04:35) - The intention behind churn
- (07:36) - Churn definitions from public companies
- (10:46) - The most brutal churn
- (12:42) - So what do you do with churn?
- (18:43) - Collateral damage
- (21:19) - Churn defined, now what?
- (23:11) - Vintages of customers
- (25:09) - Creating future churn
- (26:45) - But.. How to improve it?
Toni and Mikkel Sources
You can check how different companies report churn here.
Watch Dave Kellogg's presentation on churn here.
Something you want us to cover? Drop us a note on podcast@growblocks.com
The most predictability businesses have for revenue is the forecast. But what are some other simple steps you can take to build more predictability on revenue?
Toni and Mikkel discuss non-magic steps you can take towards predictable revenue.
- The industrialization of sales (05:09)
- How to go about it (06:32)
- Giving targets to your team (08:31)
- Steer clear of magic (10:31)
- The 10% rule (11:02)
- Give quarterly targets (13:44)
- Where will you add a buffer? (14:47)
- How do you get to quarterly targets? (19:41)
- Too much cushion? (21:33)
- Focus on the 10 percenters (25:30)
- The board and the plan (26:50)
Interested in GTM live? You can sign up here
Product led growth is still all the rave. But is PLG right for you? How do you build the business case and how do you think about modeling it out?
We're not experts in PLG. Fortunately we brought on Leah Tharin who is to discuss it.
Here's what we covered:
- First: Is PLG right for you? (07:54)
- 2 stages where you can implement PLG (09:54)
- PLG is not about acquisition (11:08)
- Can you easily explain your offering? (17:44)
- Modelling PLG (21:02)
- Product Qualified Accounts (30:57)
- Operating cadence for PLG/PLS (40:04)
You can check out Leah here:
www.leahtharin.com + her linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leahtharin/
Enjoy!
The budget always has one important line: Revenue. But behind that line you'll find very little detail.
If the plan is being made for 2023, we cover a simple analysis you should run to ensure the business can actually reach the targets desired.
There are four plans a business needs; Budget, people and product. But almost everyone forgets number 4: The revenue plan.
We’re fixing that in this episode but diving into what problems it’s causing for you, how to think about your engine and creating a revenue plan.
We've talked about having a model to manage and execute revenue at b2b SaaS companies. But we've not really outlined how you build one.
We're fixing that in this episode as we get into how Toni build the first operating model for revenue, what dimensions were considered and how it was used. Hopefully it'll serve as inspiration for you to build your own model to manage revenue.
Data quality. Clean data. Measure everything.
There's a lot of data available, and because it's very black and white, we tend to get stuck on the quality and cleanliness of the data. Can we even trust it?
We discuss why you don't need to chase perfect data to grow revenue - and at the same time when you really need to make sure you have solid data.
There's a difference between fastfood chains and Michelin star restaurants. One has repeatability allowing them to scale, the other doesn't.
Understanding the limitations of repeatability helps you pick the right initiatives as you seek to scale revenue at a b2b saas company. We discuss the common misconceptions around repeatability, and how you can make things repeatable allowing you to scale.
If you’re ever gonna miss a quarter, you should do it the right way.
It’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when. We discuss why companies usually miss, and what can be done to avoid a hard miss.
And if you have a hard miss… What you should consider next.
Retaining your sales reps is the same as retaining your "quota on the street". If you can't retain sales reps, there's a good chance you'll struggle to scale.
In this episode we cover one of the foundational reasons why sales reps quit - and no, it doesn't come up in employee feedback surveys. We'll also cover what you can do to identify if you have the problem & fix it.
Discounts is a common practise - that's why we discuss what benefits you can unlock by removing them altogether.
But.. Removing them flat out might be hard. Don't worry, we also cover what you can do instead to gain the same benefits a discount free future offers.
There are 4 things that might already now ruin your plan for next year. Even before you've started planning. We cover the four challenges, and what you can do about it to help land a plan you can deliver on.
It's very compelling to get rid of compensation plans theoretically. There's not a system that can be gamed, and research even show that it might not improve performance - but actually decrease it.
That's why we cover why you can't get rid of compensation plans, what challenges you'll face and how to avoid common pitfalls if you're building compensation plans for the first time.
Whether you already have RevOps or just thinking about it, you might want to put on your headphones and listen in.
We discuss why most b2b SaaS companies have or will have revenue operations by 2025. We get into how the team evolves with the business, how you can get more value from RevOps and succeed.
Did you know that 10x7 is not 70? It’s a 100 - because of compounding interest. Rather than going for radical improvements or big projects, consider improving in increments across your funnel. This will reduce risk and your CFO will love you for it.
What’s the methodology we used to hit 12 quarters in a row? A loooot of hard work. We discussed how to set the right targets & plan, how to ensure relentless focus on execution and how that led to what we called ‘predictable revenue’.
You can spend time creating the perfect and most accurate sales forecast, but what value is it really creating? Will you close more deals? Generate higher deal sizes? Not really.
You can only forecast accurately as far into the future as your sales cycle. Also, if it's being done to know whether people get commission, you're not creating actual value to the business.
What should you do instead? We're not gonna tell you in the description (sorry).... but listen in and get some very concrete examples and tips that create value for the business.
Whether the crisis is caused by the business itself or external factors - a crisis (depending on severity) can present some significant career opportunities. If you're in a squeeze where it's staying on a burning platform or jump into the water, the question becomes: Do you stay or leave the business? There are pros and cons of both options, and that's what we cover in this episode.
Can you clearly explain to your team how you can hit your target? If not, then you might want to listen to this episode. We discuss how to balance targets that are realistic and ambitious. We'll also cover how to close the gaps, what you can do to shift the conversation and ensure you have what's needed to hit.
The growth hack no one talks about: Quarterly business reviews.
Want to know why building a habit around business reviews will help you grow? Then this is an episode to listen to.
We cover why they make you better, and how to run the first successful QBRs.
Outbound as we know it will never be the same.
For buyers, a lot of tools have surfaced to help protect them from outbound reps. But the reps also get access to tools helping them play offense.
In this episode, we talk about what's changed, why outbound is relevant and how it can be used today.
What on earth does feedback have to do with growing revenue?
A lot - and in this episode we share some approaches to feedback we've taken - and how they help you get better as a team or as an individual.
Also while we have your attention, please provide feedback on this episode by dropping a note to podcast@growblocks.com
Thinking about adding enterprise sales as a new motion?
Everyone wants that too, but there are some pitfalls - thankfully we discuss them in this episode.
We cover when it makes sense, what you'll need in place and what will change (RFPs ring a bell?)
Why does RevOps exist, and how do they switch from busy work to business impact?
In this episode we cover the evolution of RevOps and why they’re critical for the GTM teams.
As a team, RevOps must focus on revenue by creating shared funnel metrics and running quarterly business reviews with the revenue driving teams.
At the same time we cover the questions RevOps needs to be able to answer.
In this episode we talk about the unicorn path. You’ll need to find your way to the first $1M ARR.
Whatever path you take, you need to make sure it’s repeatable. We’ve got a suggestion, consider two things: 1) The playing field - what are your options to reach your audience, and 2) the ceiling - how much scale is there, how repeatable is it?
If you search for a direction, we discuss the common issues that’ll hold you back: Bias, measurability and mindset.
PS: You’ll need to be patient and persistent.
New show coming soon: The Revenue Formula. Get a feel for the subjects and format with this 2 min trailer.