B2B Inspired

Measuring the Metrics that Matter: Global Lessons from the Coal Face with Carter Perez

• BlueOcean | The B2B Agency • Season 1 • Episode 21

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Unlock the secrets to aligning sales and marketing metrics with Carter Perez of Revenue Chemists. In this episode of We Do B2B, Carter shares his tried-and-true methodology from scaling SaaS companies, demonstrating how a unified approach to metrics can bridge traditional departmental divides.

Discover how to track conversions from raw leads to closed sales and ensure your teams are working towards common goals, gaining actionable insights from an expert in scaling SaaS companies and demand generation planning.

Compare New Zealand's sales training investments with the robust programs of the United States, reflecting on the evolution of sales training and the urgent need for ongoing education and certification in the field.

Explore the power of product-led growth for early-stage companies, and hear inspiring success stories from the SaaS space that emphasize the role of community and knowledge sharing within New Zealand's tech ecosystem.

Tune in for a deep, enlightening discussion that offers practical strategies for growth while celebrating local innovations and the contributions of New Zealand's tech community.

For more B2B insights, ideas and opportunities, head to www.blueoceanagency.co.nz

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Dale Koerner:

Kia ora, and welcome back to we Do B2B, the podcast by Blue Ocean, where we unpick the ins, outs, ups and downs of B2B marketing here in Aotearoa, new Zealand. I'm your Dale Koerner, and I'm a B2B marketer like you. From emerging trends and thinking to inspiring real world stories from smart, good people here in New Zealand, we are here to help the New Zealand B2B marketing community to become one of the best and brightest anywhere in the world. If, like me, you're a B2B marketer looking for a place to connect, learn and be inspired, you have come to the right place. Welcome back to we Do B2B.

Dale Koerner:

We're here with another Southern SaaS session from Southern SaaS 2024 at the Cordis in Auckland. We have another international perspective and outlook to talk through right now. So joining us from the US is Carter Perez of the Revenue Chemist, who sits in the fractional space now and is here to share some insights from his journey and to talk about the role of metrics in the sales and marketing piece. So, carter, welcome. It's great to be here. So you are relatively fresh off the plane. When did you arrive? Came in Sunday morning, okay, cool, and have you had much time to have you gotten to see?

Carter Perez:

much of the country. I wandered about a little bit on Friday but or on Sunday, but not my first time here. So I was a CRO at SLI Systems Sunday, but not my first time here. So I was a CRO at SLI Systems, which had a large presence in Christchurch, so I've been here probably 15, 20 times.

Dale Koerner:

Oh, okay, cool, so you're. You know I'm Kiwi-tized. I like that Fantastic, so take us through a little bit about your role at Revenue Chemists. So you sit in the fractional space, is that right?

Carter Perez:

That's right. So a friend and I had worked together scaling a number of different companies and really kind of came up with what we thought was a really sound process for scaling SaaS companies, and so we developed this methodology and ultimately commercialized it to help scaling SaaS companies.

Dale Koerner:

And so what sort of any particular areas within SaaS that you've specialized in, or just across the board?

Carter Perez:

Really, we look at more horizontally across the go to market function and trying to help companies get to that next level of growth. So, whether they're you know sub million, whether they're you know sub-million, whether they're you know million to three million, or even companies as large as 30 or 40 million.

Dale Koerner:

There's okay. So there's a structure in the way that you, in the way that you help those organizations in the go-to-market space, that doesn't matter where they are on the journey, there is what should we call it cross-pollination.

Carter Perez:

Yeah, I think it's all about the level of maturity, right? Obviously, a $30 million, $40 million SaaS company is a very different environment than a $2.5 million SaaS company, A scrappy startup.

Dale Koerner:

Yeah that's right. That's right, Okay. So you gave a keynote speech just now on metrics. Okay, Now there's a lot of metrics in the world of marketing and SaaS. Which ones were you talking about?

Carter Perez:

Really trying to identify metrics that are specific to each stage of growth, so kind of the early stage in the zero to three million, the growth stage three to five million, late stage, five to ten, and then maturity, which we're going to say is ten plus.

Dale Koerner:

Okay, and specifically, we were just talking about this before we hit. Go on the cameras. You were talking around some of the metrics that you can use to align the sales and marketing functions. Is that correct?

Carter Perez:

Yeah, I think one of the things that we frequently see when we talk with companies is an age-old problem, which is sales and marketing aren't aligned right. You've got this going on. You've got sales saying, hey, you know the leads are not good, and you've got marketing saying, hey, look, I'm giving you all these bricks of gold. Uh, why aren't you converting them? And so one of the things that we've used throughout our career in not only scaling companies, but now in consulting and doing fractional roles, is what we call a demand gen planning process, and really what that does is it looks all the way at the top of the funnel raw leads and then tracks the conversion down throughout the funnel at every stage. And it's interesting because what you'll find when you go into a company is you know, if you ask a marketing person what's your MQL to SQL conversion rate, they'll be able to tell you. If you ask the sales leader what's your you know conversion from SQL to close one, they'll be able to tell you. But they're isolated points of data that aren't depicted in a flow that enables you to really gain insight into what's happening from the top of the funnel all the way down, and so the power of this solution or thought process is?

Carter Perez:

It really levels the playing field between sales and marketing and provides a format or a foundation for fact-based discussions, so that we're no longer he said, she said, or sales and marketing infighting. We're talking about fact-based discussions and we can say, okay, look, you got me all these leads at the top of the funnel, but guess what? None of them converted. So we obviously missed the mark there and we need to go back and figure out why that happened. Conversely, hey, you gave me all these leads. They converted, but then they got to a certain stage and all fell out. So maybe we need to think about some skills training for the reps, because as they went from discovery to demo, we lost a major section of the pipeline from discovery to demo, we lost a major section of the pipeline.

Dale Koerner:

So how does that then play out? When you look further up the funnel than the lead gen piece, and by that I'm talking about, how do you factor brand metrics into that whole flow?

Carter Perez:

I mean, I think, particularly now, with the age of digital marketing, you've got the ability to look up the funnel farther than you ever have, and if you follow any of the Gartner Forrester Research Serious Insights, they'll tell you that 60, 70, even 80% of the buying process happens before a company's ever aware of it, and so being able to identify prospects that are beginning to socialize the concept and beginning to do their research is critical, because then you can start to say, you can start to nurture that lead proactively, trying to influence them, deliver content to them that is useful in their education and buying journey.

Dale Koerner:

What would you say is the biggest misunderstanding or misalignment between sales and marketing? Because I know from our audience that the most listened to episode that we've published so far it was on sales and marketing alignment and it was on content-based selling from the lovely Sonia Weber, officemax here. So we know it's a hot button for the listenership. So you're obviously exposed to a number of different sales and marketing teams. What are the stumbling blocks? What are the biggest points of misunderstanding or, conversely, alignment?

Carter Perez:

I mean, I think, look, not having a holistic view of you know to your point from the very earliest stages in you know, web metrics, content consumption, those types of things all the way down, unfortunately biases either sales or marketing to feel like they don't, sometimes feel like they don't have a solid business partner, and I think part of the importance of having a single set of metrics that are shared across both sales and marketing is coming to that moment of truth, right Understanding.

Carter Perez:

Look, we're in this together, I think. As a CRO, I've run marketing, and so it's an interesting concept when you're both the head of sales and the head of marketing, right, because it goes like this Instead of the finger pointing at marketing and the finger pointing at sales, the finger points back at you and you've got to figure that out, and so that's really one of the powerful things is having full accountability for that entire go-to-market process. Really, I think, teaches you a lot, and so I think the challenge I would give to your listeners that are having this is go spend a week coaching the sales team and and walking in the sale the shoes of your sales leader. Conversely, have the sales leader go spend a week in marketing and understand each department has their own challenges. They're different challenges, but at some point they intersect, and when you can get the synergy working between the two functions, that really is a catalyst for success.

Dale Koerner:

I hear exactly what you're saying. Sorry, we've just lost the light here, which is throwing me a little bit. Producer Louie's going to sort that all out in the background. We're having a conversation later on in the day with a CRO who wants to talk about the stigma of sales. Now, I've been sales trained. I've spent time in the sales camp with a CRO who wants to talk about the stigma of sales. Now, I've been sales trained. I've spent time in the sales camp. Marketing has always been my passion, but I've done my time in sales. New Zealand is a country that famously under-invests in sales training. I think the recent stat is that for every 10 bucks you spend in the US, we spend a dollar on sales training. What would you say are the pillars that the marketing camp needs to understand about the sales?

Carter Perez:

camp. You talked about spending. I don't think it's. Um, I maybe reframe that question and say that both camps need to understand something about each other.

Carter Perez:

Right, and look, I think the underinvestment in sales is a global issue that has been driven recently. I mean, I started my career in Xerox fresh out of college, had 40 square blocks of Manhattan. They put us through a six month training process where we not only learned the fundamentals of spin selling, yep, but they actually sent us to a university camp like campus, yeah, for two two week periods to practice, um, videotape, get feedback, get coaching. That never happens Right now. Sales onboarding and sales training is a binder a few videos, two weeks and have at it. Good luck, here's your patch or here's your territory, and go after it.

Carter Perez:

So I think, while the US may invest more, the same trend is definitely in the US and, quite frankly, in Europe as well, where the expectations are much different now and companies are not willing to invest the amount that they once were in equipping salespeople to succeed. I think the other piece is, if you look at professions like lawyers, doctors, all of them have a certification or a continuing education component. Right, I mean, they have to do so many units every year to maintain their license in good standing. Sales and marketing. There's none of that. It's cowboys Wild West. As long as you can get the work done, you're in.

Dale Koerner:

Yeah, I don't know how that space changes because I mean, here we have the, you know, the Chartered Institute of Marketing so you can become a chartered marketer. But to be honest, it's the sort of thing that people do after 15 years in the seat. And again, when you talk about the sales training piece, I worked under a fantastic CEO who was ex-IBM. Okay yeah, you nod your head because you know yeah, yeah, yeah, he'd been the Blue Blazer Club, he'd been through all of that White shirt, blue.

Carter Perez:

Blazer gray slacks. Yeah, exactly yeah, you must wear these Red tie, or?

Dale Koerner:

blue tie. Yeah, and this is how you sell and they actually really, really put that much structure and training into that.

Dale Koerner:

And into that, and it's a shame that you don't see that anymore Because, to be honest, my experience in that sales and marketing piece is that the marketing mindset around sales is often that sales is just short term and they'll cut whatever corner they can to get the deal closed. But it's only when you actually start talking to a good salesperson that you realize that that's completely not who they are. Yeah, there's a ray of light. I was like it got much brighter. Oh, fun, no technical issues. So what else do you put into the demand planning space? You kind of touched on some of the ratios of MQL, sql handover, that kind of thing. What are the other key metrics that you steer that ship?

Carter Perez:

by. I mean I think you've got to push it back up into you. Know web traffic. Most companies these days are following either an account-based marketing or content-based marketing process and there's phenomenal attribution and visibility into you know how your prospects are interacting with you, which is an incredibly rich source of information for not only marketing but for sales. And I think part of this demand planning process helps you understand that attribution and make educated decisions on what's working, what's converting, where should we be investing?

Dale Koerner:

With all of that, then, and taken into the into the consideration that you, as a fractional CRO, are able to basically sell what's the right to put it war stories and you're able to sell off of the fact that you've fallen over and skinned your knees and you've made those mistakes and you've learned all those things along the way. What are your biggest learnings and takeaways in that whole space?

Carter Perez:

I think it's interesting because there are a lot of companies that portray a very public face, that they've got everything, they understand it, they've got it all together, but yet when you, you know, open the robe or the kimono, it's a complete mess underneath and in a lot of cases they've succeeded in spite of themselves. So you know, I think the stark realization is for those companies. Most of the companies I deal with are earlier stage, kind of in the zero well, not zero, but let's say one to 15 million space, and a lot of them have succeeded in spite of themselves. In those cases they've got tremendous product market fit and the product is really resonating. So you want to talk about product-led growth and whether they're doing a PLG motion or not, they've benefited from the fact that the solution they've developed serves an honest need, conveys value, brings a benefit to the customer.

Dale Koerner:

And how much when we talk about you know you talk about those businesses succeeding in spite of themselves. How much further and faster do you see those startups or those SaaS companies getting when they have a great product that they've got product market fit, they've got that down pat as well, but they're not getting in their own way?

Carter Perez:

I mean it becomes a catalyst. You go from, you know, 30, 40% growth to 100, 200, 300, because if you've got, if the product is already resonating with the market and then you have the insight to figure out what populations is it resonating, what content is resonating, then you can just multiply that and it becomes a flywheel. Right, you get that flywheel spinning and it just keeps going very quickly.

Dale Koerner:

So one thing we know of our audience because we've done some research in conjunction with not in conjunction with the Marketing Association I sit on the Business to Business Special Interest Group Committee with the Marketing Association here. We've done some research that says our B2B community in New Zealand wants case studies and they want inspiration and they want to know who's doing it well. Who's doing it well? Who should we be looking to on your radar to say this business is absolutely smashing this out of the park in terms of the sales and marketing piece?

Carter Perez:

Yeah, I'd give you two examples. I think Marcello, which is a customer loyalty platform yeah, doing it exceptionally well, and they're solving a very complex problem, which is loyalty across digital, in store, basically wherever the customer is interfacing with that brand, they're able to support the loyalty process, and so they have really accelerated and gone a long way, I think. The other one that I would say is EasyVet. They're rapidly expanding in the US and really gaining traction. They've got a great value proposition because their platform supports running a veterinary organization.

Dale Koerner:

So those are two shining examples of Kiwi companies that get it and get it right, I'm glad you mentioned EasyVet actually, because, just dialing back to the conversation earlier around the stigma of sales, it's the team from EasyVet that we're looking to talk to about that, okay.

Carter Perez:

Good to see that I'm having dinner with their head of sales tonight. Fantastic. Whereabouts are you going? I don't know. He's going to pick me up and surprise me.

Dale Koerner:

Knowing what we have to offer here in Auckland, I'm sure you're in for a really, really good evening. Any parting thoughts to share with our community? I mean one thing that would be really interesting to hear your take on New Zealand has a very strong sense of self. We have this very, very strong identity of who we are. We have a tight-knit community here and the likes of KiwiSAS are doing, I think, a very comprehensive job of trying to bring that community together. Comprehensive job of trying to bring that community together. Where do you see the role of community in the SaaS space and in the founder space in particular?

Carter Perez:

Look, it's 100% an accelerant. I think there's also a subtle undertone of humbleness in the kind of the New Zealand persona and my experience is in a lot of cases, whether it's KiwiSAS or the industry as a whole, you're far ahead of things that are happening in the US, things that are happening in Europe. So I've been super impressed over the last two to three years in working with the KiwiSAS community about the level of knowledge sharing and you think about the aspects of the community. It's bringing subject matter experts in to share their insights, their expertise, but doing it instead of a one-to-one share their insights, their expertise, but doing it instead of a one-to-one, a one-to-many, which just accelerates the learning, accelerates the growth and everything else that's going on. So I'm super impressed. I have a soft spot in my heart for New Zealand and the KiwiSAS community.

Dale Koerner:

Oh, that's great to hear. I mean, particularly when we talk to people from the New Zealand camp and, like you said, there is that humility that comes with the Kiwi mindset and what I really appreciate hearing in that is that you're looking from the outside in and saying you guys actually do it better than you think, and that, for me, is a really uplifting thing to hear from someone who's from basically our biggest export market. So, thank you, thank you so much for coming and sharing and really really appreciate the conversation. Carter, been a pleasure. Good stuff, that's that. Thanks for listening to.

Dale Koerner:

We do b2b by blue ocean. Now brace for ct8. If you want to join and grow the community, make sure to subscribe. Wherever your eyes and ears absorb information, don't forget to switch on notifications so you know when the latest episodes drop. And for more B2B goodness, be sure to follow Blue Ocean, the B2B agency, on LinkedIn. Now look, you know how this next piece works. The more reviews we get, the faster this thing grows. So please do for us what you hope your customers would do for you Leave a review and share your thoughts. Let's stay connected and keep the B2B marketing conversation going.

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