Hello and welcome to another very special episode of the

Sales Ops Demystified Podcast.

We are joined by a very special guest today over 12 years

experience in the Sales Ops space for years specifically

in SAS Sales Ops, Jeffrey Davis of

Baker Hill! Hello,

Welcome to the show!

Hello.

Thanks for having me.

So let's kick it off.

How do we first get into Sales Ops?

Because I have been looking at your work history and previous

roles have been Sales Ops related but when actually called Sales Ops.

So how did this place, how did you get into in the first place?

Yeah, so very unique experience, you know, like

entered my senior year of college not having no idea what

I want to do outside of you know, being in some sort of business

role. So my senior year we had a Capstone project and thought

I would get into IT consulting and really that was the track

and what I was really targeting so went through all kinds.

kinds of interviews at the end of my senior year and really

found out that you know being a consultant traveling wasn't

necessarily what I really wanted to do.

So I ended up landing a sales reporting analyst role very

junior level within at Angie's List in that was on the sales

operations team kind of underneath that umbrella and kind

of really learned this whole new world of the workings behind

the scenes.

How to support sales from know building up the funnel working

those leads and converting them into opportunities turning

them into signed contracts then getting people paid the whole

contracting process and really learning how the CRM works

within an organization.

Got it.

So you are like I don't want to be the traveling consultant in

the soon boring client work.

I'm going to get stuck in with one business and you entered

in as a sales analysts welfare's reporting analyst actually

the gave you exposure to the whole sales process.

Exactly.

Yep.

I loved knowing my my customers were at the same organization

someone I could go out have a beer with after after work

in and I found that you know in my experience when you're

able to establish those types of relationships especially with

the sales teams, you're supporting it makes changes and just

overall communication much better go to I know you said something

interesting that I think he said that having your customers

to the same organization.

I you you're referring to your salespeople, right?

Yes.

Yes.

Anyone that I'd support or help out.

I view them as my own customers some some of my early managers

had that mindful approach.

and it kind of rubbed off on me and like I said, you

know, it holds myself accountable to the organization and

the folks that I'm working with. Got it, can you see yourself

having having any other customers in the organization apart

from the sales team.

Yes, I've found that you know in a Sales Ops role.

I know there's kind of this movement into a Revenue Operations

where including Finance includes Marketing, but prior to

that kind of evolution, you know, I have found the benefits of finding

partners, finding mentors in other areas of the organization

because you get to share ideas.

What's working in one place.

Maybe you can apply, you know, the basic skeleton of that

process or you know leverage technology that other areas

of the business are using to to help sales what you find

out with conversations is you know in some way everyone within

the organization is either supporting or relying on on sales.

So anything you can do to make sales more efficient, you

know close more deals closed bigger deals closed bigger projects

is going to help, you know, the services team going to put

money bring money within the organization and give, you know,

the kind of learning story to help the marketing department.

What's working?

What's not working?

What could we be doing better?

What kind of messaging should we be changing?

So it's been a fun in ever-evolving sales operations world

for me. Got it,

And I totally agree like the sales team is the in my opinion

the team that's at the forefront of the interface in the

business and the customer.

Yeah, you have customer service, right?

But if I think the sales team get more because they are at

the Interacting where we're converting prospects to customers.

They get so much information, right?

So I totally agree when you send the marketing relies on

sales because marketing our interface and customers didn't

get as much I'm focused like sending those emails right back

where I'd really green current Sales Ops techs stack at big hill.

Yep, so we are a salesforce.com shop and it was implemented

about a year before I started and not implemented maybe the

best way and it was a big data dump in from our old internal

CRM into the new salesforce.

So when I brought on that was one of my first projects was

to clean that up.

So we deleted nearly 2,000 fields from Salesforce that just

were either duplicate field information or just not being

used at all anymore.

So major cleanup.

So we use that as our CRM manage our pipeline report our

sales. Our finance department uses Netsuite for all of our

rev wreck things like that.

Our marketing team uses Pardot, which we have a direct connection

into Salesforce.

So that way our our sales reps can see the marketing events

that are going on.

So messaging being sent out who's coming to webinars things

like that.

We use Loopio for RFP process.

That's that's on my desk as well.

So whenever we participate in our feast, I used the tool called

Loopio where I can assign our subject matter as experts

and assign it to them they get Email saying hey, you've been
assign this section of the IRP.

They had the responses.

They send it back to me.

Then we export it back out and into our standard RFP responses.

We also use a tool called Insight Squared for a lot of our

visualization tools mainly automated emails that go out on

a weekly monthly and quarterly basis that go out to our executive

team that reports on the health of the pipeline the health

of the bookings

also kind of competitive feature to show how everyone

is trending to their annual quota, you know, it's that ranks

everybody and so you can see who's at the top of the leaderboard

and he's kind of close just to build that kind of competitiveness

within our sales sales structure.

Got it.

Wholesome a pretty comprehensive Tech stack.

I feel that you're responsible for data quality.

Yes.

Yeah myself well.

I'm lucky enough.

I partner with with a few folks from our Our IT team our

Salesforce administrator is actually on the IT umbrella,

which is good.

I would love for him to be on my team but understand that,

you know with our entire organization using Salesforce that

if he was on our team, you would pretty much be a hundred

percent dedicated sales and ignoring everybody else.

So the other good thing is our client base is our their

financial institutions.

So all that most of that data is public record.

So we use two different resources where we export reports

and then do a quarterly update to our data quality.

But ultimately outside of that, you know, we're relying on

our Sales Development Team our Sales Reps that as they engage

with Clients, Prospects what have you that any changes that

are made in the financial world?

There's a lot of acquisitions and mergers.

So we do a pretty good job of, you know, finding out about

acquisitions and mergers, you know, typically shortly before

they happen but we you know, we rely on our sales team to

loop us in or notate that within the account records themselves,

but it now moving onto your relationship.

With the sales team, how are you currently working to make

them more productive?

Yeah, so I've been lucky enough.

I'm in a role where we have roughly.

I think we have 13 Sales Reps.

So I have a pretty good relationship one-on-one with each

of them.

You know, I talked to them on a regular basis, but really

engaging them in you know, what's working.

well, what where are they getting stuck on deals?

You know what troubles are they seeing within Salesforce

itself? So I like that I meet with them on a regular basis

and ask for their input.

Hey, you know, what, would you like to see what's missing?

You know what you work with active clients you work with

prospects all the time.

What are questions you're getting that you need to have,

you know be battle ready for when those questions come about

and let's see how we can get that in the system and easily

visible and then said at the beginning of this year we rolled

out a new sales methodology.

So we were kind of rebuilt our whole opportunity structure

within Salesforce the follow that sales methodology.

So we've had from you know, we moved to be more buyer buyer,

but the clients buying process specific, so to advance an

opportunity a stage in our Salesforce.

You have to check off all the exit criteria for each stage.

Excuse me.

We've got that built within Salesforce, you know, check the

box you put any notes on there.

And that kind of helped us learn a lot.

This year is to what works forces what doesn't in our in

our sales process, especially against competition. Got it.

So I'm hearing the first part of what you just said that

you're able to understand how to improve the Rep performance

because you have a one-on-one relationship with all 13.

And what do you think I should make a living to make a scale

in the next few years?

Here's what are you going to do?

When you you won't have that one conversation?

Yeah, I think so.

I've been there before with a injuries loss.

You know, I started there.

I think there was like 200 total employees and then when

I left there we were up over 1,200.

So sales team Grew From You Know 30 40 people where you were

you didn't necessarily have that one on one relationship,

but you knew a lot of the players and in kind of met everybody

through some sort of process, but you know as you scale you

grow bigger, obviously.

You hear from certain individuals who are more outgoing and

asking for help, but really, you know, as you scale if you

can, you know have that partnership maybe not at the Rep

level but at the Management level so, you know Section Managers

Directors keeping that partnership, you know, ever-evolving

that those lines of communication and a lot of times what

I've found has been successful is tried to get invited to

the team meetings.

You know, I may not go to every single one but it is nice

to show up and just listen hear hear what hear what those

folks are saying is working.

What's not working where they need help and then after that

team meeting, you know, I kind of schedule a quick one on

one with the the manager the director and just say hey, this

is what I heard.

This is what I think what kind of changes we can make to

the system to help your folks out and kind of get their buy-in

and then have them communicated to their team then really

any kind of feedback that way so you kind of move up a level

as you grow.

So you try to keep a one-on-one relationship with the entire

sales org just maybe not at the individual level. Got it.

And on that point when you do look to change something within

the sales process or some tiny it could be smaller could

be large.

What do you how do you go about getting self team to buy

into that change?

Yeah.

So what I've found that works, you know all almost a hundred

percent of the time is you get get everyone involved in the

process and maybe not everyone but you get a few individuals

involved typically some some top performers some mid-level

performers and even some some kind of lower performers, you

sell them on the idea of the change get their feedback because

obviously, you know me who's not on the phones every day

or on the front lines making sales, you know, it's much easier

for me to say oh this will work.

but you know, if you get their feedback their direct feedback

include them let them be a part of the change process and

you get their buy-in that when you roll it out to the entire

team, you're going to have some internal Champions that will

spread the good, you know, say hey this help me do this better

or say Hey, you know, I struggled last quarter, but now my

numbers have increased or what have you or a instead of spending

two hours to prep for a Solutions Workshop, you know, we

do enough at Discovery that we can get the solutions Workshop

to be prepped in 30 minutes or what

we have in. Got it, moving on to full costing at what's your

role in that process?

Yeah.

So it's a again another evolving process here.

I'm here at Baker Hill.

It used to be a data dump from Salesforce into an Excel spreadsheet

and the morning of the forecasts call.

So is typically hey.

One I'm running the report at 9:00 a.m.

Eastern time.

So any changes you have to your pipeline get those in I actually

send the Excel file to leadership at 9:30 Eastern.

So if there's any emergency changes that you need get them

to be before 9:30 and then of course you roll into the forecast

call and there's always changes that that didn't get communicated

outwards. So here in the past 60 days.

We have actually moved that into.

Or so we run our weekly forecast calls out of a Salesforce

dashboard that looks at current month current quarter next

month next quarter and we kind of talked about those deals.

So we also label every opportunity as they commit meeting

meaning Yep.

This deal is actually happening in the time frame.

I have it labeled as realistic means it's in play.

Everything is trending.

Well, there's just one.

You key pieces before we get final sign off on the deal.

And then we also have best case meaning it's not likely but

I haven't given up hope on it.

If all the stars align, you know, this deal could still happen

this month this quarter what have you so as we go through

the forecast call, you know, we kind of talked about recent

wins that happened in the past week talk about the commits.

Hey, is there any change do you need anything to finally

get that signature by?

By end of day tomorrow or first thing Monday morning, excuse

me, and then we kind of focus on the realistic.

All right, things are still in play.

What do you need from from us as a leadership team in the

good thing about still being small as our executive team

listens in on the forecast calls, and they're always saying.

Hey, you know, what do you need from us?

How can we support you and you know check off those final

boxes. I'm on these opportunities.

But it's so on that forecasting call all the Sales all of

the Sales Reps and the Sales Leadership and the Exec Team.

Yep! Got it.

And then so feedback.

So obviously the the Sales Reps are reporting up and then

feedback is coming down from Leadership and Exec Team kind

of offering help or asking specific questions.

Correct?

Yep.

So hopefully by the end of the month and of quarter, there's

a couple deals that are on everyone's radar and you know,

we're calling those out.

Hey, what's happening?

Are we still on Pace?

No, it's everyone hearing to the success plan that you have

in place with.

With that opportunity, you know just kind of focusing on

what what can we do as an organization to better support

that sales rep to get those deals across the Finish Line

Got it! KPI's. What in the 12 years of Sales Ops experience

was been a KPI that you particularly enjoy.

So my favorite KPI's are you know, not only WIN rates but

Close Loss reasons.

So why are we losing deal?

Is where we losing them in the sales process and who are

we losing it to? Those

Those are my favorite.

Those are that's pretty much the tried-and-true, you know,

every board meeting every annual review is you know, what's

our win rate those that we've lost why have we lost them

who have we lost them to and getting that competitive information

and again kind of incorporating the entire organization going

back to marketing and saying, all right.

You know, how do we highlight, what we do best as an organization

that our competitors can't in continuing to evolve that message

looking back at lead sourcing, you know where that deal

come from.

Did it come from a webinar.

Did it come from someone downloading White Pages some that

come from an RFP things like that?

So, who are we who are we losing to but also you know, who

are we?

Who are we beating in every deals?

It's always fun to look at look at those.

So those Win|Loss

Reports said those are pretty consistent everywhere that

I've been but any other kind of standard KPI's, you know,

you have your your deal cycle.

How long does it take to close the deal average deal size

things like that?

But typically you know what I've found that is its what's

the strategy every organization and one thing that I always

ask him in those strategy meetings is all right.

What's your desired out outcome?

All right.

You know is that the gross sales by 20% in this region?

Okay.

So what kind of steps do we need to do that to get there?

Do we need to get more leads at the top of the funnel and

typically those kind of conversations Drive?

What kind of KPI's you want to be tracking one thing that

that I always love doing is showing value whether it be it

in a change in saying these KPI's these things will improve

with this process change or hey, you know, we've invested

x amount of dollars into this product.

All right.

Now, how do we make that?

You know, how do we go to market?

You know, how long is it going to take for the market to

see the buy into you know that new product and things like

that. So, you know, like I said specific KPI's, they're kind

of all over the place, but I said it kind of comes back to

what's the desired outcome and in the strategy of your business.

Sure, I think the master stroke there is really digging

into the courts data and then the feedback loop, right?

So okay.

We lost three deals with company.

Let's change the sub headline on the side because we're not

I focused on that and that I think is that really important.

Yes.

Finally who have taught you the most in Sales Operations?

Yeah.

So kind of looking back at my career.

I can think of like three or four folks that kind of really

stand out that usually first hired me back at Angie's list

than again coming out of college.

Not really sure

what I wanted to do kind of showed me the ropes

and they taught me the importance of branching out outside.

Not only you know, the different Sales Teams, but, you know

other business functions finding mentors partnering folks

with and really kind of given me the keys to kind of start

my Sales Operations career and just being a resource to use

also at a Angie's List,; Mike Rots, you know, I met him I think

day one of the job and he kind of drove me to be better

every day.

So I really appreciate that my last stop at Duo Security; Erin Hau,

She brought me on she was Director of Sales Operations there

and just said, you know, hey, it's up to you to partner with

Sales Leadership, Marketing Leadership, Financial Leadership

Product Leadership and really build your brand within the

organization. So she she kind of brought me on board made

the soft inner reductions and then let me run wild with it.

So that was those big help and then here the past four months.

I had the opportunity to work with Lee Oar, kind of came in

and drove a whole bunch of process changes to to our sales

team. And again, you know just said here you go, you know

make it happen and I really appreciate that.

I appreciate that 4 months that I had with him.

Awesome, so I can map purely Mike Rots, Erin Hau and Lee Oar.

Yep! Fantastic!

Okay that brings us to the end of the interview now, here

are the things.

I have a lot of notes and I like the only the initial insight

about the customers being salespeople.

I thought pretty powerful the feedback loop from the Close

Loss Reasons.

I think like every Sales Team or Sales Leader ourselves person

should be doing that and then, yeah, the still maintaining

the one-on-one relationship with the sales team.

as it scales, but maybe switching from Reps to Managers or

Leaders have let us go but few people one-on-one relationships.

Awesome!

Thank you so much for sharing your Sales Ops wisdom.

It's been an absolute pleasure Jeff and thank you so much

for coming on.

Yeah.

Thanks for having me.

Happy Holidays!