Revenue Operations, Building a World Class Sales Organization, and Empathetic Sales with Kyle Coleman

Episode Summary:
Travis and Kevin talk with the VP of Revenue Growth and Enablement at Clari, Kyle Coleman, about what revenue operations is and is not, how a mutual accountability system can be successful, unpacking what it means to be empathetic, and more.
Kyle Coleman Short Bio:
Kyle is currently the VP of Revenue Growth and Enablement at Clari. Prior to working at Clari, Kyle worked as a Director of Sales Development and Senior Director of Sales Development and Optimization, at Looker, a business intelligence and analytics startup. Kyle is an experienced sales and marketing leader with a passion for people development, identifying and solving problems, creating and optimizing processes, and unifying departments across the revenue org.
Episode Highlights:
SDRs downplay their position- “I promise you I would not be doing today if not for the skill set I developed from being an SDR.”
“Any SDRs out there, don’t discount what you’re doing now.”
What we do:
Growth team: Focus on creating and accelerate pipeline 
Marketing: Focus on awareness
Sales: Focus on closing the deals
There is no competition between teams, clean divisional labor
Approach growth in an integrated way
“I don’t care who created the pipeline, I just care that pipeline got created.”
“Having us all on the same team allows us to entertain the grey area and not be grabby about who gets credit for what.”
“Instead of fighting between one another about who created the pipeline, we fight together to get pipeline.”
Reflecting on work at Looker
“The only real way you can fail is if you don’t learn anything from the experience.”
Evolution:
Number of MQLs- model needs to die, avoided this at Clari
Opportunities we are creating that the sales team is accepting
Mutual accountability system, no longer assembly line approach
“The demand waterfall is not invalidated, but MQLs are not the defining success criteria
“MQLs are not as predictive of future success as they used to be.”
Clari’s missions: making sure everyone knows their role in the revenue process, inherent in DNA
Aligning views on success criteria
Revenue operations is a new category- not clearly defined
Revenue operations is not all ops coming together
“Revenue operations is thinking about revenue as an end-to-end business process that can be dissected into component parts, and each of those parts can be optimized in service of one another.”
Good at listening to customers
Customer success team- caring about prospects
Need to get better at creating a peer-to-peer community so customers can talk to one another 
Once we figure this out, that is going to be our secret to success
Get your customers to do your selling for you by creating conversations not trying to sell- empathy
Views on empathy:
Without unpacking what it means or how to do it- it's meaningless
Understanding the day-to-day pains of your prospect
Being understanding, not forcing your sales
Wanting to actually help even if it’s not through your business
Keeping people happy, trying not to burn any bridges
“Trying to genuinely help people is my main mission in life.”
Getting SDRs in interviews to pitch on a passion, not their product- see their excitement
“Care about the person behind the persona.”
Manual drip
Borrows from marketing automation principles, but manually executed by salesperson
Identifies unique scenarios, their unique objection right now, what can I do to add value
“If you’re not giving your SDRs the license to think, then you’ve just hired people that may as well be robots dialing a phone.”
“The SDRs that are successful are those that build the strategic muscle early and use that in their SDR process.”
Learning and thinking in an interdisciplinary way/studying things like poetry and flow, economy of word choice
“There’s lessons to be learned about becoming a better salesperson pretty much everywhere.” 
Technologies help with tactics, mindset/foundational layer is not solved...

Episode Summary:

Travis and Kevin talk with the VP of Revenue Growth and Enablement at Clari, Kyle Coleman, about what revenue operations is and is not, how a mutual accountability system can be successful, unpacking what it means to be empathetic, and more.

Kyle Coleman Short Bio:

Kyle is currently the VP of Revenue Growth and Enablement at Clari. Prior to working at Clari, Kyle worked as a Director of Sales Development and Senior Director of Sales Development and Optimization, at Looker, a business intelligence and analytics startup. Kyle is an experienced sales and marketing leader with a passion for people development, identifying and solving problems, creating and optimizing processes, and unifying departments across the revenue org.

Episode Highlights:

SDRs downplay their position- “I promise you I would not be doing today if not for the skill set I developed from being an SDR.”“Any SDRs out there, don’t discount what you’re doing now.”What we do:Growth team: Focus on creating and accelerate pipeline Marketing: Focus on awarenessSales: Focus on closing the dealsThere is no competition between teams, clean divisional laborApproach growth in an integrated way“I don’t care who created the pipeline, I just care that pipeline got created.”“Having us all on the same team allows us to entertain the grey area and not be grabby about who gets credit for what.”“Instead of fighting between one another about who created the pipeline, we fight together to get pipeline.”Reflecting on work at Looker“The only real way you can fail is if you don’t learn anything from the experience.”Evolution:Number of MQLs- model needs to die, avoided this at ClariOpportunities we are creating that the sales team is acceptingMutual accountability system, no longer assembly line approach“The demand waterfall is not invalidated, but MQLs are not the defining success criteria“MQLs are not as predictive of future success as they used to be.”Clari’s missions: making sure everyone knows their role in the revenue process, inherent in DNAAligning views on success criteriaRevenue operations is a new category- not clearly definedRevenue operations is not all ops coming together“Revenue operations is thinking about revenue as an end-to-end business process that can be dissected into component parts, and each of those parts can be optimized in service of one another.”Good at listening to customersCustomer success team- caring about prospectsNeed to get better at creating a peer-to-peer community so customers can talk to one another Once we figure this out, that is going to be our secret to successGet your customers to do your selling for you by creating conversations not trying to sell- empathyViews on empathy:Without unpacking what it means or how to do it- it's meaninglessUnderstanding the day-to-day pains of your prospectBeing understanding, not forcing your salesWanting to actually help even if it’s not through your businessKeeping people happy, trying not to burn any bridges“Trying to genuinely help people is my main mission in life.”Getting SDRs in interviews to pitch on a passion, not their product- see their excitement“Care about the person behind the persona.”Manual dripBorrows from marketing automation principles, but manually executed by salespersonIdentifies unique scenarios, their unique objection right now, what can I do to add value“If you’re not giving your SDRs the license to think, then you’ve just hired people that may as well be robots dialing a phone.”“The SDRs that are successful are those that build the strategic muscle early and use that in their SDR process.”Learning and thinking in an interdisciplinary way/studying things like poetry and flow, economy of word choice“There’s lessons to be learned about becoming a better salesperson pretty much everywhere.” Technologies help with tactics, mindset/foundational layer is not solved with technology, there are no shortcuts, and you can’t do it if you’re not genuinely curious about itObjection handling is a long game and you need to treat every situation differently, approach evry situation as it’s ownLinkedIn Sales Navigator“Sales is a team sport. You can’t operate well as a team if you’re not thinking together, strategizing together, and executing together.”

Favorite Points:

The importance of the skill set you gather from being an SDRThe skill set you build is the foundation for what you do laterGrowth, sales, and marketing all working together instead of competing/mutual accountability system“Instead of fighting between one another about who created the pipeline, we fight together to get pipeline.”What revenue ops is and is notRevenue operations is not all ops coming together“Revenue operations is thinking about revenue as an end-to-end business process that can be dissected into component parts, and each of those parts can be optimized in service of one another.”Unpacking empathy

Tweetable Quotes:

“I promise you I would not be doing what I’m doing today if not for the skill set I developed from being an SDR.’“Any SDRs out there, don’t discount what you’re doing now.”“I don’t care who created the pipeline, I just care that pipeline got created.”“Instead of fighting between one another about who created the pipeline, we fight together to get pipeline.”“The only real way you can fail is if you don’t learn anything from the experience.”“MQLs are not as predictive of future success as they used to be.”“Revenue operations is thinking about revenue as an end-to-end business process that can be dissected into component parts, and each of those parts can be optimized in service of one another.”“Trying to genuinely help people is my main mission in life.”“If you’re not giving your SDRs the license to think, then you’ve just hired people that may as well be robots dialing a phone.”“The SDRs that are successful are those that build the strategic muscle early and use that in their SDR process.’“There’s lessons to be learned about becoming a better salesperson pretty much everywhere.” “Sales is a team sport. You can’t operate well as a team if you’re not thinking together, strategizing together, and executing together.’

Links:

Travis King: LinkedIn

Kevin Mulrane: LinkedIn

Kyle Coleman LinkedIn