Welcome to our Blue Margin Expert Insights series. We're glad you joined us. This series is for private equity and mid market executives who want to use data and dashboards as the formula for executing growth plans more quickly and predictably. I'm Jon Thompson, co founder of Blue Margin, and today I'm hosting Paul Stansik from his office in Chicago. He's an operating partner at ParkerGale Capital. ParkerGale was founded in 2014. It's a boutique firm that emphasizes value creation through operational improvement. With 10 active portfolio companies they exclusively invest in profitable North American technology companies and assume a majority ownership. Prior to joining ParkerGale in 2019. Paul worked for five years at Bain & Company in private equity, leadership and talent and merger integration. Before Bain, Paul lead as VP of Sales for ITG financial research firm and earned his MBA at Wharton. Paul's a prolific business writer (we've enjoyed his articles), and a contributor to ParkerGale's podcast PE FunCast. We'll include links to his writings and to the podcast in today's show notes. At ParkerGale, Paul works with portfolio executives to drive top line growth, including sales, marketing, and leadership development. In his words, he helps emerging tech companies finish the work that founders started by making the most of their big growth opportunities. Some might call him Dr. Paul for his ability to inject growth steroids into companies- we came up with that. Growing companies is both an art and a science, and I'm excited to better understand your methodology. Paul, welcome. Thanks for joining.
Paul Stansik:Jon, thanks for having me. Yeah.
Jon Thompson:So to start, what's the typical revenue of companies you invest in? And- and how can PE operating partners best help those companies That they invest in, break through the ceiling That they've established and scale to the next level? Yeah, we're
Paul Stansik:typically buying b2b software businesses from the founder. And we're much past the stage of finding product market fit. In most cases, the companies we invest in have hundreds of happy customers, they're happy because the product works. So This is a very different model than, you know, the venture capitalists listening in who are trying to guess What the next big thing is, we found something That works inside of our companies. And now we're trying to scale it up. And that's where our operations team comes in. So most of the time, we're catching businesses when they're in the the range of call it 10 to 30 million in ARR. But it varies. I mean, we do one thing, we try to focus on What we know we're good at, which is b2b software, helping finish the work the founder started, which you mentioned. But there's a lot of work That goes into That, which I think is What we're going to talk about today.
Jon Thompson:Yeah. And is it typically operating efficiency? Or is it expanding the market for them finding better applications for the technology they have built is all of the above and many more,
Paul Stansik:It's kind of all the above? I mean, the fun thing with What we invest in is, It's a regression, not a hypothesis, right? So with a big base of customers who bought from us before who've given us years of feedback, we kind of subscribe to the Dolly Parton School of operational philosophy. She's got This great quote, which goes, you should find out who you are, and then do it on purpose. And when I think about What we do in our operations team, that's kind of it. I mean, What we're doing is analyzing, reflecting, talking to the management team, and ultimately trying to figure out What is This business already look like when It's operating at its best, and then pulling the levers That we can pull? So That happens a little more consistently?
Jon Thompson:Probably saying no to more things, trying to,
Paul Stansik:which is a hard thing, as you know, someone running a business. But yeah, that's part of the art
Jon Thompson:of it, right? Yeah, I'm reading This book called essentialism, he talks about saying no to very good things. If they're not in the bull's eye like
Paul Stansik:That one. We've, we've given That one away at a few of our summits. I think I'm looking at our office bookshelf, and I think I can see it from my office over here. Yeah.
Jon Thompson:Okay, great. So I appreciate That. In the current economic uncertainties That seem to I don't know maybe That maybe that's a permanent state. But P and portfolio executives are looking for ways to more predictably drive growth and be data driven. I'm curious about Parker gales prioritization of data. How do you view it data as a value driver or value lever?
Paul Stansik:At a philosophical level, I think It's just part of your job if you're being a good partner and being a good investor, and certainly our job on the operating team. I kind of think, you know, coming in, I thought This was going to be a lot like my role in consulting where you diagnose the problem and you Drop your solution off, and you kind of dust your hands off and move on to the next thing. And while there's some elements of That, I think we supply some of That diagnostic power for our businesses and help them learn faster, What can be improved, or What could be improved. data for us is part of our job of keeping score. And I think that's one of the really important elements of help That we provide. I think we'll talk about the role That data plays throughout the portfolio shortly. But for most businesses, and most founder owned businesses, keeping track of KPIs and metrics and just measuring performance, That is a new thing. It is extra work and teams need help doing it. So I think It's our job to help them do That work to help build simple, consistent reporting, That not only to answer your question gives us as investors visibility into what's going on how the business is performing, and What needs fixing. But something the management team can use to have a better conversation every week with the team without us in the room. So there's a bunch of different answers to That questions. But the first thing That popped into my mind is It's It's one of the most important foundational elements of support That we provide from our operations team.
Jon Thompson:Yeah. And we'll dig into it. I know there's some pitfalls, even when companies are looking at the numbers. I mean, you know, back to the days of wooden ships, they were tracking numbers and so on. But like you say, It's a new thing. So there's, there's a certain dimension to it. That's new. And we'll we'll dig into That. One of your recent articles you mentioned there's a difference between being data aware and data driven, That might be towards What I was speaking to, what's That difference?
Paul Stansik:Well, the way I see it, being data aware, It's kind of like This. So most managers only look at their data when they absolutely have to. And too many of them out there use numbers, kind of like a defense attorney uses evidence, they use it to protect themselves. And It's only there to get them out of a jam. Right. And so when you think about if you've ever been a part of a business that's in This cycle of Oh, the board meeting is coming up, or Oh, a fundraising round is coming up, we better get the numbers ready. And they talk about the numbers in This third person sense That you go and you go and get them when It's time to impress someone important. That I think is a situation where you might find yourself in a data aware mindset. A data driven mindset is, you're answering the same questions That every management team is there to answer, how is the business performing? What do we have to do next? What do we need to fix together? But instead of answering those questions in a gut instinct kind of way, or just with the feeling or whatever is happening That day? You're answering them as honestly as you possibly can. And inside of most businesses, the most honest answer is quantitative, at least in part. So that's the way I think about data aware is, you know, the numbers are there, you're going to get them whenever you have to get yourself out of a jam, data driven is you're asking yourself the same questions every team does. But instead of just firing off That gut instinct, answer, you're using the numbers and the objective measures of performance in your business, to answer the questions as honestly as you can, and ultimately, to make better decisions That improve the performance of That business.
Jon Thompson:Yeah, and It's curious being in a business That is oriented around data for quite a while now. Why folks would resist That, besides, the obvious of you don't want to say things are not going Well. Even though I imagined as an owner investor, you would more respect and trust someone who says we have a problem here, as opposed to someone who's trying to put a veneer on everything. That's the obvious bit. But we've subscribed to This book, The Game of work, wrote a book called The dashboard effect. It's all about how humans really thrive on having some empirical reference to What they're doing and knowing if they've won or lost and What the score is and What needs to happen next. And in business That seems to drift away in the myths for some reason, What is the what's the psychology, in your opinion, That keeps founders from wanting to drive their business by data be data driven? And is That a symptom of why they're where they're at? and why they need a Parker Gale to get them to the next level?
Paul Stansik:Yeah, It's a big question. And if you know, we extended This podcast to two hours, I think we could we could fill the entire time on That question. I think there's a biological answer to That question. And there's a there's a business answer That question. The biological answer is we are not wired to be vulnerable in front of each other. Right? We are tribal beings. And you know, 1000s of years ago, if you couldn't sense very quickly about whether you were in a group or out of a group, you were in trouble like you could have, you could have brought physical harm on yourself, and That wiring is still in us. So we're always trying to sense whether a group is going to accept us. And at some level, we're always trying to behave to be accepted by the group That we're a part of. And so when you think about opening up, you're part of a business or a team and exposing the warts and the flaws and the mistakes and the things That are going wrong. That's a scary thing. And It's not a scary thing, because It's learned behavior, It's scary thing of how we're put together as a species, right. And so if you think about That biological reason That vulnerability is hard for us as human beings. And then you think about the typical team structure, especially in the last couple of years, where teams are spending less time together in person, where people just have fewer collisions in the office. And I would say most teams out there haven't done the work they should be doing to build the trust that's necessary for them to have conflict and be vulnerable and talk about the things That are broken and That need fixing, and argue about What the best solution to those problems might be. So if I just
Jon Thompson:could interrupt real quick to get back to essentialism, I was just listening today on the way in, but he speaks to That exact same thing. There's a physical pain That comes with not being accepted. It's brief, and the respect is long term. And getting used to That is tough. I mean, we're pain avoidance creatures. But I like What you say, if you build the trust, it makes That hurdle a little bit easier to get over. Sorry to interrupt, but That was just right on point,
Paul Stansik:no 100%. And there's tons of research studies out there That underscore That point That our brains are actually wired to treat uncertainty the same way That they treat physical pain. Because if you think about it, whether you were walking through a scary forest back in the day, or happening upon another group of humans, or whatever it was, if you weren't kind of sensing whether there was danger or not, if you weren't a little bit paranoid, you probably weren't gonna turn out in a very safe environment, right. So I think that's an important point is if you are in a team environment, where people are not sure whether It's safe, to talk about the things That are broken, the things That need fixing the things That aren't going That Well, or just to expose the most objective version of an answer using data, like, we are going to err on the side of being more protective, being less forthcoming and being less vulnerable. So, you know, we're talking about data, we're talking about numbers, we're talking about the quantitative lens, on a business. But ultimately, if you want to become more data driven as a person, as a company, as a team, you need to build a foundation of trust. So in That moment of truth, when someone is deciding whether it makes sense to give a protective answer, versus a vulnerable answer, if you haven't set That foundation, where people know That safe, you're gonna have a really, really hard time having a different conversation about your business without doing That work.
Jon Thompson:And I imagine It's not just saying to folks, hey, by the way, It's safe to be real. But It's getting in the practice, over and over and over.
Paul Stansik:Yeah, and I'm a big disciple of Patrick Lencioni stuff, we work with his consulting firm in our portfolio. And I've been in the room for many of these off sites where a management team management team starts to come together, they start to decide who they're going to be as a team, and they actually practice This act of getting vulnerable. And I think the biggest thing is the leader has to go first. And the leader has to recognize when That moment of truth happens, and someone makes the choice to expose a little bit more and talk about the difficult topic or bring up the thing that's broken or point out the negative trend. Because if the people don't see the leader modeling That behavior, and if they actually don't get recognition, when they make That choice, we're going to slide back into This more protective, less data driven, less honest conversation about the business. And we're probably going to wake up a couple years from now wondering why our performance wasn't so good. I can trace That right back to That moment, where you didn't make it absolutely clear That that's the conversation That we have, and That no harm will come to you by having That type of conversation about the business.
Jon Thompson:Yeah, numbers are great as a bridge for That kind of vulnerability because they're objective. But as you mentioned in some of your writing, It's easy to use those numbers and as you said before as a sort of a shield or a spin or whatever. In your work prior to your current position where you were equities analyst selling selling equities analysis, you talk about separating signal from noise. You're going into companies now as an operating partner. Is there a methodology for getting to those those few signals and set Writing them from the noise? And if so, What is That methodology?
Paul Stansik:Yeah, I mean, some people have the playbook or they just plunk it down on the first day of the investment and say, This is how we're going to do it. It's not up for debate, we're going to run This process every week or every month, and It's going to be the same for every company in our portfolio. And, you know, part of me would love to get to a state of the world where we could do That, because it would be way easier, it would be way more rinse and repeat. And it would be nice to have That kind of certainty about What it takes to improve a business. I think the reality is, there's some timeless principles and timeless questions That if you ask them, and you answer them, honestly, you're gonna uncover things That are useful to take stances on. And by the way, That stance can be do nothing, because It's not important yet, or we don't have the ability to do anything about it yet. We'll talk about That a minute. But the way in which you answer those questions, the order in which you do the work to be able to surface That data and the things That the management team are ready for, those are all different business by business. So I think our approach in general, you know, on the spectrum of, we don't have opinions on how a business should be run, and the companies can do whatever they want to, there is a dogmatic paint by numbers approach to growing a business and having a successful investment. We're somewhere in the middle. And I think in my world of growth, and sales and marketing, it all starts with answering questions. And so we're going to finally publish a handbook That we use inside the portfolio This month, where we're actually open sourcing the questions That we ask our companies to answer every week and every month, and we share the actual Format of the Reporting That we use to answer those questions, as honestly as we can. But it starts with agreement on What questions do you want to have answered as a management team? What questions do we have to have answered to feel comfortable as investors and how much overlap is there? And That can be a pretty powerful alignment exercise, because we always discover the same things. One is, there's there's a ton of the same questions That we both want answered. And two, there are very natural forums That come up every week, every month, every quarter in the life of a business, where a management team has to have conversations about how things are going, where things are going and What changes they need to make. And when we have That conversation, and we start from a place of Let's just answer some questions in the best way That we know how one That drops people's gloves, because you don't start from a place have, thou shalt do reporting. And This is What the reporting needs to look like. And you sort of honor the fact That data is only as good as the dialogue it creates. So Let's talk about What dialogue you want to have as a management team, and how we can help you arm yourselves to have the most effective and improvement oriented dialogue you possibly can. Because, you know, again, going back to the idea of data aware versus data driven, if you're an investor, and you put yourself in a situation where you hand over a report, or you're asking for KPIs, or you're asking for numbers, and the only reason those numbers are being produced is to appease you as the investor. Some people might disagree with me, but I think you're doing it wrong. Because What are you doing, you're creating extra work for the management team that's taking them away from running the business. And there's no dialogue around those numbers. They're just chucking them over the fence and hoping you leave them alone for a little bit. Right. So
Jon Thompson:But isn't it the case That the PE manager or owner is looking to take a small business, you know, It's been run like a family and trying to turn it into a business That scales. And that's going to run into conflict with the status quo and the patterns and the biases That the owners have had for a long time. But but everyone is aligned That we're trying to maximize return on investment in This business, trying to maximize multiples and at exit and so on. I imagine there's there's good alignment, and yet conflict there. Does it take a while to get the executives to switch how they're thinking towards scaling from comfortably running the business up and running for however long? Do you get there just through the numbers? Does it take some time? How quick do you get to That new place where you're aligned on those numbers?
Paul Stansik:There's a couple of different factors in your question. And we can we can talk about whichever one is most interesting to you, or whichever one might be most interesting to the audience. One I think is alignment around. What are we doing here? So What is the goal for This investment? What is the plan for This investment? And if we wake up 12 months from now, and say we accomplished our goals? What does That mean? Like What numbers will we point to and say As we were at 100% of plan, and the second piece of That is incenting people so they can actually get excited about hitting That plan because it makes a difference in their compensation or advancement or equity or or all three. Right? So That seems very obvious. But if you skip That step of painting, the vision of why the heck we invested in This thing in the first place, Like What Did We Learn and diligence That just got us really excited, building the plan with the management team and having crystal clear buy in That This is What we're going for, for the long term. And This is What a successful 12 months look like. And then building the incentive plan so That not only are you excited, viscerally about being part of That journey, but you do really Well, if we end up on track, I think that's the most important piece, the harder pieces, you're talking to the changes That are necessary for That. And it goes back to the idea of being data driven, like in most cases, What are we doing, we're asking a business to do slightly different things. And It's done in the past, not to sell a new product, not to talk to different kinds of customers, not to make some technological quantum leap in What they've built. But in most cases, just to have slightly tighter operations and make some few high leverage improvements and how they do things. But ultimately, like, companies don't change, people change, right. And so every investment case, every thesis, every model ultimately comes down to the people inside the business doing things slightly differently. And doing things differently, is hard. And This is where our job becomes, you know, sometimes I'll say I'm, I'm a consultant, therapist, Spy and coach all at the same time. And That coaching piece becomes really, really important when you're asking people to do something different than, you know, the 10 or 20 years of history for how the business has operated in the past.
Jon Thompson:Yeah, just want to call out a point you made there, which is sort of the start start with why principle. You know, if you're told by a physical therapist do these four moves, and they don't explain why or you know, breath work or anything like That, and they don't explain, Here's the mechanics, Here's What happens, Here's how it improves things. Here's how you're going to feel, Here's the benefits you're going to receive. It's just It would take a you know, a robot to do those things. But if you can speak to Here's, Here's why it pays you Here's, Here's the good things That happen. You got to make That bridge and I think it could be easy, from sort of a, you know, a serial business expert to say just do This, trust me. And you don't get the internal change of people. I just a quick tangent. Well, It's often said That you don't invest in a business, you invest in the in the leaders. Do you look for those who are already embracing the vulnerable truth of the data? Or is That not necessary?
Paul Stansik:Yeah, I mean, I kind of look for three things. And This is grossly oversimplifying because we, we have very strong opinions on What an executive hiring process looks like. But we also spend a lot of time crafting, both the job description and the assessment process to fit the first 12 months of What needs to happen in That person's part of a business. But regardless of whether you're talking about a CEO, CRO CMO, I tend to be very involved in all three of those searches inside the portfolio, I'm kind of looking for the same three things, regardless of the position. First, I'm looking for high standards. So does This person have a crystal clear vision of What good looks like in their area of the company. And with a CEO, That doesn't mean they have to have a PhD level understanding of finance, marketing, sales, technology, engineering, if you know That person, I'd love to meet him. Most of CEOs That we work with spike in one or two of those areas. And that's that's all you need in most cases, but they have high standards in their area or several areas. The second piece is they have the means to detect whether those standards are being met. So they don't just have strong opinions, but they're not afraid to stick their nose into what's going on. And notice when things are falling short of their high bar. So there's This nice pairing of, hey, I know What good looks like. But I also have This awareness DNA where I'm going to do the work. Some people call This management by walking around to notice where people are falling short and to be a coach and help people help people catch up. I say the third thing That I look for is they're not afraid to self critique. Right? So we do a lot of behavioral work in our interview process. And one of my favorite follow up questions to any question That you start with is What would you do different? What do you think you screwed up? If you had to do it over again? What would you do and I'm listening very closely. The two, if a person is actually bothered by the plan That they use back in the day, because with hindsight, they can see all the mistakes That they made, how off they were in terms of their initial assumptions. And they aren't afraid to critique themselves a few years later. And they're just looking for ways to get better. Because again, the first thing we talked about, if you have someone That knows how to do the job, Well is going to help notice when That job isn't being done up to standard. And they're going to model the vulnerability That their team needs to have That different kind of conversation about improvement opportunities. That's when I start to get excited. And that's when about halfway through an interview, I start to go from assessing to selling mode, because that's an equal part of equal important part of the search process.
Jon Thompson:That's great. Let's segue to top line growth a bit. Just to jump from That last question CEOs. Do you typically want them to in those various veins, they could have a PhD and one of them to be business development in some form? Or is That not essential? I know you're investing in technology companies.
Paul Stansik:So when you say business development, are you talking more kind of go to market or more m&a?
Jon Thompson:I was thinking more go to market, strategic partnerships, channels, marketing, sales, those sorts of things.
Paul Stansik:Yeah, I mean, my bias is I like to work with CEOs who really want to get involved in sales and marketing. We have great CEOs in our portfolio who spike in That dimension. And we have great CEOs who spike more on the product and engineering dimension. I don't believe That there's one right answer. Okay. I think ultimately, the sequencing of how you build the management team, and more of the collective intelligence of That management team and how It's coming together, needs to dictate What the CEO needs to be uniquely great at, right? Because if you have, Let's just say This is a hypothetical, but Let's say you have a business That has really big chunky gnarly contracts, like true enterprise grade, seven figure deals, and you need your VP of sales to be uniquely great at just wrestling those deals to the ground managing multiple stakeholders advancing the ball. Maybe in That case, you're willing to cede the ground of, hey, if we could choose between This person just being a deal architect versus the revenue scientist, like really into the metrics understands things. The second decimal point, This is when we say strategy is about making hard choices, that's a hard choice, because we want both, but there are trade offs. That's a situation and probably I want a CEO, who was more in the weeds on go to market has strong opinions, not so they can second guess their VP of sales, but so they can complement their natural strengths. And by combining the two of those people on a management team, you create This organism where between the two of their strengths, you kind of cover all the bases when it comes to go to market. So I think It's super important. And This is something I've learned as I've gone along. Yes, making the right decision for each member of an executive team is important. But understanding how you're covering the bases from a collective sense, with a management team and the trade offs That are inherent in That. That's a bit of an art form. But It's an art form That we try to keep at the forefront, especially in the first year of an investment where we might be constructing That management team, we're at least adding to it.
Jon Thompson:Yeah, you're just continuing with the argument That there's not a formula, but there are frameworks there their bounds and principles That you work within. But speaking of formula, you advocate for a weekly set of metrics around top line growth and a weekly meeting. You advocate for sharing less data. More often can you speak to sort of your your approach to That is you're trying to drive top line growth?
Paul Stansik:Yeah, ultimately, we we were investors were quantitatively driven. We like hanging out in spreadsheets, and we like measuring things. And we like noticing a trend, especially when That trend is going up into the right. And that's great. But again, if we aren't creating a more honest conversation inside of the business, and if we aren't helping the management team, either enable themselves or learn how to have a conversation where they notice how the business is performing. They have a really good sense of What the leading indicators are. So they know not only how This quarter is going to go, but how next quarter is going to go. And they're comfortable having That conversation using numbers. Like even if we have the best data in the world we have failed, right? Because ultimately we need to be talking about and looking at and having the same conversation That the management team is having. So putting the sales thing aside for us I can like, There's This great quote, I think it was Dan Gable, who's a very, very successful Olympic wrestler. And his big point is if something is important, do it every day. And if something isn't important, don't do it at all. Right? So frequency, Trump's intensity. And if you want someone to have a different conversation about how sales and marketing is going, you should be compressing your operating cycles and allowing them to practice having That conversation as frequently as possible. So businesses, they have This kind of natural rhythm to them. We think in terms of weeks, like when we complain about, you know how the week is going at work, you're like working for the weekend. So you can start over the next week, It's unrealistic to have a management team at a growing software company have a really data driven conversation about what's going on every day. So the next click up in terms of the rhythm that's even possible is just once a week. So ultimately, we feel like we're doing our job if we're enabling the management team, to have a better conversation about how sales is going, how marketing is going, how the business is performing on a weekly basis. And back to What we talked about earlier, how do you enable a better conversation? You answer questions, really, honestly. So This will come out in our weekly sales metric playbook. But we'd like to give This the Schpeel at the start of an investment in the first board meeting where we say, Hey, we're probably going to be in This together for about five years. That's 60 months, that's 260 weeks, I think, 20 quarters. Yeah, check my math on That. Let's not waste a single week. Let's make every week a good week. And that's a bit aspirational. Like every, every business has bad weeks, it makes for a nice speech. But it also sets up an interesting point related to being data driven, which is, how can you tell if you're having a good week or not? Is it a feeling thing? Is it a like a vibe in the office thing? I don't think so, I think It's a two part test of whether you had a good week or not, if you're giving yourself a chance to hit your target for This quarter, from a growth perspective. So if you're converting pipeline to revenue, that's pretty good week, right? You're setting yourself up to hit your number. And if you're creating enough new opportunities for next quarter, so setting yourself up for the future, you're also having a good week. So again, how can you tell if those two things are happening? Are you giving yourself a chance to hit the number This quarter? And are you creating enough new opportunities to hit the number next quarter? And how do we typically answer those questions inside a business That hasn't yet become data driven? Oh, you know, we talked about the deals That we're excited about, we talked about This big, you know, chunky deal that's been in the pipeline for a year That we think is finally going to close This quarter, we kind of get into the What I call the storytime of sales, and the drama around the individual deals and whether they're going to close or not. There's another way to answer those questions, which is an honest assessment of What the pipeline looks like versus your plan. And then looking ahead to next quarter, how many new opportunities are we creating That are truly qualified? And are we getting better at creating new opportunities? Every single week? So there's more questions That we asked our companies to answer in our weekly reporting pack, we could talk about What those are. But taking it back to What are we trying to do here, we're trying to spend five years with a business and help them do things a little bit better. And in doing so, we want other investors and other companies to take notice of the good work That they're doing. We don't want to waste a week when we're doing That we want to have 260 Really good weeks in a row. And It's possible for us to know, really, honestly, really objectively, whether we're doing That each and every week. And the way That we do That is we answer to questions every single week. Are we giving ourselves a chance This quarter? And are we giving ourselves a chance next quarter? And we answer That with simple numbers? And that's What I mean when I say less data more often all you need is enough to answer those questions. But It's important to answer those questions as honestly as possible, and then have a dialogue around them saying, based on What these are telling us, What stance are we taking about What to do next?
Jon Thompson:That's great. We we have already hit our time. Like you said, we could talk all day just about question number two, I guess last question when you are looking to harness their data for using it to drive the business. Do you have a methodology to use a data lake? Do you end up using BI tools Tableau Power BI any of those things? Is it a clipboard with a pen Excel spreadsheet? What do you do?
Paul Stansik:Somewhere in the middle? I mean, we This is one of those areas where we're a little less prescriptive. And typically when we get deeper into an investment, we will have companies That will make investments in BI tools. I like to start people on spreadsheets. Partly because I'm not a bi expert, I'm starting to play one on TV. And I think I'll get there eventually. But to me, there's some kind of magic in making the executive What I call put their fingerprints on the numbers. So even though It's extra work, if you if you force someone to take the numbers out of Salesforce or out of HubSpot, or whatever it is, and get a touch, as they're transferring it into a very simple spreadsheet, you're giving them an opportunity to notice things in That trend That if all they're doing is pulling up, you know, a dashboard and a BI tool. It's just an extra touch. And What I've found is for a busy executive, especially in the sales or marketing side, where they're managing multiple people, they're kind of playing This player coach role, engineering and environment where you're forcing them to get a touch on their performance dashboard, That additional touch goes a long way to making it not just This thing That they're serving up for the investors, but That they're using to notice what's going on inside of their business. So talk to me in a couple years, and maybe I'll nail the big thing. But for now, I don't know forcing someone to, to handle things and kind of get a taste of a dish that's coming out of the kitchen. It's It's kind of This sneaky trick That seems to help make these things stick and ultimately drive a better conversation about what's happening inside of the business.
Jon Thompson:Yeah, so getting him to own those numbers a bit more and get some ancillary insights as they're going along. And just the context and not just being served up a pie chart and a number.
Paul Stansik:Yeah, it goes back. Like another way of saying less data more often is it doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be theirs. Right. And I think ownership is a great word That encompasses all of That. Good insight.
Jon Thompson:So your sales metrics playbook. I'm sorry, if I titled it wrong. When is That coming?
Paul Stansik:It'll be out in the next couple of weeks. I think we're recording This on May 3. So come and hunt me down. If It's not out before the middle of the month, I'm putting the final polish on it. We include a little bit of our philosophy in there about just how we think about This stuff, how it shows up inside our portfolio. But I think especially for folks That are interested in making This leap going from data aware to data driven, I'm also going to include the actual template That we give our companies That answers the same questions That we're asking for each and every week. So that'll be out by the middle of the month. And like I said, come get me if It's if I missed That deadline,
Jon Thompson:and publicly available, right? Yes, sir. Sharing. Okay. So we'll get That probably before we publish This and get it in the show notes. So I look forward to it as long as you don't delay.
Paul Stansik:This is a public commitment, and It's a intentional forcing function for me. So thanks for helping me build it.
Jon Thompson:Yeah, you bet. Paul, It's been a pleasure. Thanks so much for sharing your insights and taking the time. Yeah, thanks. Yeah, take care.