Inside the RevOps Playbooks of Top Tech Teams with Jacki Leahy

Picture this: The company is growing, deals are coming in, revenue is moving… but behind the scenes, everything is duct-taped together.

Google Sheets are breaking. Forecasting is guesswork. And leadership is flying blind.

That’s usually the stage where things feel like they’re working… until they don’t.

And that is the reality for a lot of companies that sit in that $5M + in revenue… 

Most SaaS companies break (or stall) because they can’t see what’s actually happening.

At 5M to 50M, things start to get messy fast:

→ Deals may be closing, but no one knows why
→ Forecasting becomes a guessing game, and you don’t know what’s predictable
→ Systems are duct-taped together
→ Leaders are making decisions without real visibility and gut feelings

I’m bringing a RevOps expert to break this down for us on Pre-Sales Unplugged: The Leadership Playbook. 

@ Jacki Leahy The Founder of @ Activate the Magic has worked with a multitude of startups to fix exactly all of those issues 

We’re talking about: 

→ What RevOps actually looks like behind the scenes in growing SaaS companies
→ The moment “messy but working” stops working
→ The 3 things I fix first when I step into a business
→ Metrics that matter vs metrics that waste your time
→ When to use AI and when not in RevOps
→ What actually changes inside a company when RevOps is done right
→ And what separates real RevOps operators from people who just manage tools

If you’re scaling and things feel a little chaotic… this conversation will probably hit home so come prepared with a pen and paper (Or your notetaker) 😄

Elite Talent Recruiting helps B2B SaaS leaders hire high performing Pre Sales and Post Sales talent when speed and quality actually matter. 

We are on a mission to prove Pre Sales and Post Sales teams are just as crucial to revenue as offensive linemen are to quarterbacks. 

They accelerate sales, fuel growth, and help SaaS companies win bigger deals faster. 

We build SaaS GTM teams by headhunting top Pre Sales and Post Sales talent and delivering hires in 35 days or less, including Sales Engineers, Solutions Consultants, Solutions Architects, Customer Success, and Technical Account Managers. 

If your team is stretched thin, specialized roles are sitting open too long, or you are scaling fast and need reliable recruiting support that actually moves the needle, we help you hire the kind of talent that drives growth, innovation, and customer success without wasting months in interview chaos.

Check out our website: https://elitetalentrecruiting.io/

Connect with Arvi directly on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arvi-carkanji/ 

All other resources: https://linktr.ee/elitetalentrecruiting

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:01

All right, hello. Welcome, Jackie. I'm very excited to have you here. Thanks for having me, Arvee. Of course. And welcome everybody back to the pre-sales Unplug the Leadership podcast. I'm Arv, the founder of Elite Talent. I work with SaaS companies to help them hire top-tier sales, pre-sales, post-sales talent, RevOps, go-to market, et cetera. But today really isn't about me. Today is about the leaders behind the go-to-market teams and the strategies that actually work in today's market. If this is your first time joining us, one quick note before we jump in. These conversations are always live and intentionally unedited. So what you hear today is exactly how it happened. We'll uh stream live on LinkedIn, but we you can also catch our replay on our podcast or Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or whatever your preference is, wherever you listen to it. And I my only ask is always if you get value from the conversation, make sure to follow, subscribe, or leave us a review. I personally read every single one of them. So yeah, that's pretty much it. But Jackie, I'm so excited to have you here. Um, I don't know, I know we talked about this off offline as well, but I can't believe I've never brought an actual woman into my podcast. So you are officially the first one. I know it's so crazy. Yes, I need to definitely get more women out here and just talk because I know we have a ton of expertise in all different areas. And honestly, sometimes I feel like um as a woman, sometimes we have a different perspective from men, and we can approach things the same way, but sometimes it's you know just a different perspective. So I'm so excited to have you on. I appreciate you joining us. Thanks for having me. Um, I'd love for the audience to get to know you a little bit. So tell me how did you end up in the RevOps world and just in tech and SaaS overall?

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Oh my goodness, everything was on accident, of course. Uh so I was actually a kindergarten teacher out of college. Uh, so I taught for three years before completely burning out. Uh and I did a bunch of things. I was a real estate agent, I was a personal banker, I helped my business. I did all sorts of things. Uh and I pivoted to tech in 2016. Um, because I figured I kept on figuring things out, right? So I was I was a real estate agent and I was like, oh, if I just do these ads on Zillow and I do XYZ, then I've figured it out. It was no, I I wanted, I wanted this like monster of, but you'll never really figure it out, sort of in chase, I think. I think. Um, so yeah, I started as a BDR, even though I was very, very mid-career.

SPEAKER_04 2:49

I I felt like that's usually like your first step into SaaS in general and tech, because it's one thing I've learned, and not to cut you off real quick, but one thing I've learned is like we're a little bit spoiled in the SaaS industry. Like we want you to have our exact experience, and not that the outside experience doesn't matter, but it's like, no, I want you to do exactly what I have right now.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

So yeah, I actually really enjoyed it from going from like a full sales cycle and like straight commission as a real estate agent, right? Like yeah, that was true. Like you're going to pay me anyway. Just like you're gonna pay me. And then if I actually do my job, you're gonna pay me more. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I only have to I only have to focus about on this little part of the sales process. Like it it was actually really fun and like freeing in in a way, yeah. Um, but my third startup, I was higher number 10, and I was um brought on to build the business development team program, and uh somebody had to figure out the back end of Salesforce. And yeah, so it was a complete accidental admin uh rabbit hole, and yeah, I just ended up becoming completely obsessed, and like that's that ghost in the closet that can never fully be figured out. Like I feel like that is tech, of course, but but RevOps systems operations, oh man, it's um yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:27

I just to get everybody on the same page, because I think for RevOps can mean different things to different company sizes, you know, to different industries or leaders. Explain to me, since obviously you are the expert on RevOps, what do you define as RevOps? What are like the main responsibilities for somebody being either you know fractional RevOps or just being hired as one?

SPEAKER_00 4:50

Yeah. Um, our primary directive is to be a steward of the revenue engine itself. So I love that. We are if it was a national park, we're the we're the park rangers. We're like, oh please don't litter. Yeah. No building fires today. It's too windy. It's too indie for fires today. Um, but we are sort of the protector and also the the infrastructure, the like the HVAC and plumbing um for for the revenue engine. Um, I really see us as being loyal to that over everything else.

SPEAKER_04 5:38

That's actually one of the best analogies I've heard to describe RevOps. And as you explain it, it actually makes a lot of sense in my head too. Like it clicks even better. So I appreciate you for doing that. And I can see where your third grade teacher kind of expertise come in at this point. So I love that. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

Break, break down, break down.

SPEAKER_04 5:58

Yeah, exactly. Um well, before I get into more technical and tactical questions, explain really quickly how did you even end up with, you know, activate the magic? What led to that? And what is it, of course?

SPEAKER_00 6:11

Oh my goodness. Yeah, so uh at my third startup, we went from 350k R to 9 million in two years. That was sort of my accidental admin uh baptism, if you will. And so when it was time to leave, uh it was so funny, it was like the at uh it was like January 30th, 2020, or when I left, and uh I pivoted over right. Uh so I actually went to the consulting side. So I was I joined a small Salesforce consulting shop. Uh and so I was there for two years, uh, ended up turning uh turning the operate the internal operations of the Salesforce shop around, like uh running a uh a pod of developers. Like my boss was like, hey, can you just can you tell me what to do? That's so funny. So funny, so funny, so meta. Um, but actually I was obsessed with winning by design revenue architecture at the time. So that was like 2022. Uh and and Jacko heard around town that I was building things in Salesforce to be able to operationalize the bowtie, that's sort of the revenue engine uh of winning by design um IP. And so I was recruited to actually start building the revenue operations practice for winning by design. Um that's amazing that lasted a couple months. Oh no, it was yeah, it was 2022. So um Vestimer Capital later called it the Sassacre. Um yeah, so yeah, so just all of a sudden the the forecast for the year just kind of tanked, and they were no longer in a position to like invest in something new where they kind of had to uh shore up their core. Uh so I found myself on the streets, man.

SPEAKER_04 8:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:32

Uh and I was exhausted.

SPEAKER_04 8:34

It probably was the worst time to be let go of. I mean, there's never really a good time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

I thank my stars that it was before everyone, like I was early. I was an early impact, right? Um, so not everyone was going fractional. Um I didn't have you, RV. I didn't have you fighting for me for like, and I just I couldn't, I couldn't stomach like interviews and starting over. Um, so I kind of just put out my little shingle on LinkedIn. I was like, hey, I'm available for um for independent work. And 10 days later I had my first paying client. Uh and it just kind of I was I was before the fractional boom, right? So very shortly I had too much work, so I brought on a friend, and then another friend, and we they're like, Oh, but we brought on a junior person, and six months in, I was like, Did I accidentally start a company?

SPEAKER_04 9:41

Yeah. That I feel like that's the best way to start a company accidentally, and then just you don't know how you ended up here and you have too much work, and then you keep on going, and then you raise your head and you're like, what just happened?

SPEAKER_00 9:53

Exactly, exactly. So um, and I always said I didn't want to, I don't I don't want to build my own Salesforce consulting shop. Like that was never something that I ever wanted to do. Um turns out, turns out entrepreneurship is what if if you like personal development and like leveling up crash course, crash course and eating humble pie for breakfast most mornings.

SPEAKER_04 10:29

Oh man, you're making my stomach cringe because I I've been through it all.

SPEAKER_00 10:33

Yes, you have, yes, you have. Um, so it yeah, talk about like thing something that can never be figured out, right? Entrepreneurship and business ownership. It's um it's a whole new it's a whole new journey and path.

SPEAKER_04 10:49

Um yeah, yeah, it's really exciting. Not sure. And if you weren't a problem solver before, you will definitely become one as an entrepreneur.

SPEAKER_00 10:58

I think it's more like problem period solver.

SPEAKER_04 11:04

Yeah. Yeah. You're putting out fires all day. Let's put it that way. Plus adding your line of work in RobOps, which is actually also putting out fires all day. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

Because I am the go-to-market team. So I am my Yeah, exactly. I have to put someone else in charge of RobOps for me.

SPEAKER_04 11:24

That's so funny. Yeah, um, and I'd love to know your perspective on this. I feel like as a typically when you're an expert in something, you're not that expert in your own company, in the sense of like, you just you're really good at it, you can do it so well for other people, but then it comes to you and you're like, I don't even know what to do or how to start.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

It is so funny because it's like I am I am both like the agent of chaos that's figuring out how to bring business in and and tackle it. But and then but having the having the lens that I do, I'm just like, what is this?

SPEAKER_01 12:04

Yeah, whose business is this?

SPEAKER_04 12:08

That is so funny. I love this.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

So it's it's yeah, it's a drink, it's like the cobblers, children don't have any shoes, sort of thing. But yeah, but uh no, bit by bit we're getting there. Of course.

SPEAKER_04 12:23

Yeah. And speaking of like all the chaos, obviously I I would love to shift a little bit now to just like the problems that you're typically solving for companies on a day-to-day basis. So in everything that you've seen, what does like a typical like five to ten million ARR SAS company actually look like behind the scenes when it comes to the RevOps?

SPEAKER_00 12:44

Yeah. So traditionally, I like to say you don't until you really need us, you don't need us. Like you don't, you're fine. If you're if you're if you're running, even if you're like a three or four million dollar annual revenue company and you're you're running your pipeline and forecast in Google Sheets. Is it working? Are you good? Awesome. Keep going. It it really only makes sense to to prioritize RevOps when the lack of organization is is in your way. Like it would actually unblock unblock cash money revenue to have some systems and infrastructure in place. Um and I always, always want the revenue to outpace any sort of uh organization, structure, infrastructure sort of thing. Because, you know, especially at the beginning, like that founding AE or that those first couple salespeople in a business, and it's like, oh, it's working, oh, it's working. And then it's it's it feels like an instant where the that early sales leader is like, I used to know literally every single person and every single deal, and now there are deals that are like mid-pipeline that I don't I didn't even know, I didn't even know the company name of. Right. So it all of a sudden is like it goes from I might not be in control, but I have that feeling of control because I know I know everything, I've got everything in my in my hands to this all of a sudden panic, this sensation of of not being in control. Um yeah, because it's it's it it's too big, it's too big to wrap your hands around, and you have to go from like flying an airplane by sight, yeah. Just you gotta trust your instruments, you gotta trust your dashboard. Um, when that sort of has to happen, I think that that's when it makes sense to bring in some rev ops.

SPEAKER_04 15:01

I love that. So if somebody is in that stage right now, right? They're in like, we're kind of sure we need somebody, I'm starting to lose control, I don't even know what's happening mid-funnel. And you know, they're like, Jackie, help me please. What are like the first three things you would either look at or start thinking about fixing for that person that's in that position right now? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

So I like to triage uh with I've sort of simplified the living by design customer journey bow tie for earlier stage. Uh so it the the bow tie has like seven segments. I just reduce it to three acquisition, conversion, and expansion, expansion. So I want to know roughly where are the bodies buried. Like 90 times out of a hundred, it's gonna be the acquisition, right? Um, for especially for early stage. So I just I want to get a baseline of of what what's going on right now. Like what do we what is the blocker? What is the key constraint? Because unless we're solving for the key constraint, we're not gonna move the needle on this, you know. So sort of get get curious, get analytical, kind of dig in, be like, oh, okay, it it it truly is um people are going after it's too many, like there's no organization, nobody knows who to reach out to, or we're reaching out to the same people a hundred times. We just need okay. So we do need some sort of uh account routing or lead routing sort of process. But I also want to make sure that yeah, I want to make sure that whatever we're doing, it's going to make its way to the bottom line. So even if it even if it's just a rough um back of the napkin sketch, okay, like we are we're start we're reaching out to eight eight prospects a day per rep, right? Um and two of those are probably either someone we've we've already or I'm yeah not supposed to, right? Uh okay, so if we actually even if we kept our same conversion metrics on who's opening emails, replying, or picking it, if we just simply had more accurate starting points, what will the output be? It's sometimes it's the lit are we sometimes it is literally that basic, like, oh okay, just a little bit just a little bit of a structure here, it's going to within one quarter, your pipelines are actually going to see the difference. And when you can when you can break it down and communicate what it is that you're fixing in those terms, even the CFO is going to be like, Yes, take my money, please. Yeah. Um, to do that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:19

Very true. I wanted to ask Jackie, so if I'm a leader or a founder, you know, whatever in my company right now, and I just have no clue how to even think like whose fault it, like, where is the fault relying in? Like, where is the clog? Do you have any couple questions that you recommend asking yourself as a leader of like to really start to diagnose the problem and then say, like, oh wow, okay, I I need jacket now because I can see where it's at.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

Um, I think a great triage is like is your revenue engine, what do you need right now? Do you need growth or efficiency? That is a big one. Um it's usually gonna be growth. Like, okay, so so what's working well? Like, how how many if if you did 10 demos, how many are sa how many are moving forward, right? Like get a sense of that, like okay. Uh when they when when they do close, uh are they are they getting it? Are they staying? Are they happy in general? Okay, so you can just kind of work back like okay, so truly, if we just put more if we had either better targeting and or more in the in the front in the beginning of the bow tie, it would truly just if we kept the same metrics, it would bring everything up. Great. Yeah, sounds like that is your key constraint. But if I told you, okay, I'm gonna get you a hundred more disco calls this month, and you're you're like, yeah, but those disco calls don't turn it into anything. It's like, aha, aha. Okay, let's let's figure out why.

SPEAKER_04 20:20

Yeah, why I love that. Is there any core metrics that you think every sales leader should actually be tracking? Um, I know we talk a lot about vanity metrics and like activity metrics, but what should they really track? And maybe you can um condense it down to three that actually drive the revenue behind it.

SPEAKER_00 20:42

Um I think it's gonna depend on the nuance, like if you're doing outbound or inbound, um, enterprise or like basically I wanna know an early stage, right? I wanna know um how many what awareness looks like like how are you doing that? Uh like the velocity of input, like what does that look like? Um what percentage of those first discovery calls usually are ending up in pipeline? I want to know that what percentage um and uh and what what percentage of once you've gone into like proof of concept or any sort of customized demo. Sometimes it's it like I'll call it demo, but you know, you know if it's not a real demo. Demo, right? Like if you're in the audience, you're like, we say it's a demo, it's not really a but like when you actually when you actually do a pitch. And so, and if it's a transactional, you know when you've pitched and when you haven't really pitched, right? Yeah. Uh I want to know what percentage of of those are going deeper into the funnel. Because that's that's all you've got. That's all you've got. Like, and it'll really tell you are we talking to the right people? Are we talking about the the the thing that we actually solve? Um yeah, yeah. So I guess that conversion rate of awareness to conversion, and then conversion to like that deep pipeline.

SPEAKER_04 22:54

Yeah. Yeah.

unknown 22:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:55

No, that's why I wanted to ask this question, especially in startups. Um, obviously, we hear you should be tracking this, you should be tracking that. Like there's 10 metrics we need to be tracking to tell us to the but as in a startup, as a founder or as a leader, like you're wearing so many hats, right? Like you just don't have the time to track everything or fully understand everything. So simplifying it to like the main three things right now, and of course, as you grow, you're gonna need more metrics, you're gonna need to track way more. And at that point, yes, you can go a little bit deeper into your numbers, but that's why I wanted to ask that question because it's it's important to know what brains are having you now and what problems can you solve right now versus you know having numbers because you have them and you don't know what to do with them.

SPEAKER_00 23:37

Yeah. And remember, I'm talking more earlier stage, like once until you're a year or two in, you really don't know what your right CAC to LTV or LTV to CAC is yet, like directionally you might be able to tell, but it's too it's too soon to tell. Um so yeah, late later on and um deeper into the maturity. Um I'd probably do LTV to CAC, but it's usually too soon. And you probably don't have the data without normalizing it and massaging it to actually get um until yeah, until you've got that uh like a couple cohorts through, it's it's too soon to tell. Um yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:26

I love that answer. I wanted to ask about the topic of the last two years, AI. Um, where do you think AI actually replaces RevOps versus where does it like fall apart?

SPEAKER_00 24:41

Um, well, let me tell you something. Uh for for a friend who's kind of uh pre-revenue, like she's gonna be the go-to-market uh and someone's the product, right? She's like, Can you help me set up my uh HubSpot? Absolutely. So I took her like sales vision doc and I just put it into Claude. I was like, hey, help me help me design yeah for like what fields, what fields do we need for contacts, companies or accounts and opportunities or deals. Uh it it like Reddit kind of output it, and then bit by bit, I literally I did not create a single field in HubSpot. Literally, Claw did it all for me.

SPEAKER_04 25:31

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 25:32

Like from like if I was going to actually operationalize this, I'd have to build in agents that would like handoff and stuff like that. So like I was I was very much like, I brought it to this little machine, and then I like picked it up and brought it to this little machine in terms of automation. But yeah, like from that Chrome extension, it created all the fields like via UI. Uh it did it, it will build workflows for me. Uh edit record outlaw uh layouts, uh list view columns and filters. It like so you still need to to have the vision, but like I didn't have to like I think very much in like atmosphere, right? Yeah, and and like if if you're if you're here with the vision and the plan, and then a lot of rebops people, especially the accidental admin ones or team teams and one, we're used to like, okay, now let me build it, let me get deeply granular and da-da-da. And then all of a sudden my brain shorts out because I've I've I've been doing too much context switching or just like altitude switching, so it really does save me from having to do that. Um yeah, just more and more I think it's it's taking the granular work out of the cycles. And so yeah, I think what we're getting is is faster and faster iteration cycles. Uh and yeah, the faster it can kind of like self-experiment and iterate and shore up little parts of of the process. Um that I think that's where we're going. And so yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:45

Yeah, I I love the way you explained that because I agree. I think that obviously we all know it makes you way more efficient now. You can take what you said and have it build it itself, but at the end of the day, you still need the vision, you still need to understand that what it's doing, is it actually right? Does it make sense? And really kind of like you said, build the entire workflow. Like, does it make sense what it did from start to finish? But it doesn't take away the strategic thinking. Um, although it does probably help in some parts from what I heard, it's not necessarily taken away the strategic thinking and the logical sense, like, yes, I know we did this, but does it make sense for my company for the business right now or what it's what we're trying to go to?

SPEAKER_00 28:29

Yeah, yeah. And for a while we'll still have people who understand the step-by-step kind of QA or like iterating troubleshooting. Um, but I can see in like one and a half to two what RevOps generations, right? If my if like my mentor, me, people I've mentored the what right. Uh the art of the art of the, you know, even the process builder of Salesforce, which is what I learned on back in 2018, 2019, even that is legacy now, right? Yeah. Um crazy, crazy, crazy stuff, Arby.

SPEAKER_04 29:19

Jackie, I'm gonna ask you the question of the century. Which one is better, Salesforce or HubSpot?

SPEAKER_00 29:26

Salesforce.

SPEAKER_04 29:29

I think we're gonna get a whole uh set of comments here of like why HubSpot is better.

SPEAKER_00 29:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:37

Why? Tell us why.

SPEAKER_00 29:39

Okay, so I answered as a as a as Jackie Leahy the human.

SPEAKER_02 29:44

Um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:45

So if you're like me, if you are a control enthusiast and in it like really enjoy precision, like HubSpot will just always to me be like my first CRM, like play school CRM. That being said, what we use internally at Activate the Magic is HubSpot. Right? Our sales process, I like to say, tastes like chicken. Like it's this there's nothing fancy, yeah, right. And we don't need to do any crazy like monitoring of POCs or inventory, like we don't need anything complex kicked off. So we're HubSpot is fine. And like yeah, you just plug things in and it works. Salesforce is just it's it's so fussy and particular, but the pit like if if you're if your business really demands that level of specificity and precision, then you just need Salesforce. Like there's no there's no way around.

SPEAKER_04 31:10

There's no other way. Actually, that's a really good question. Do you have like companies or industries maybe that you've seen in your career that like, hey, if you kind of fall within this category, and I know you mentioned with like POCs and things like that, but maybe somebody is right now deciding moving from HubSpot to Salesforce more vice versa, where would you say, like, or maybe you've even changed companies, like, hey, you've gotten them into HubSpot spot, and it's like, no, guys, you really need Salesforce, and here's why. Just maybe a little bit of understanding for those that are listening.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

Uh if if if you have questions that you cannot answer in in HubSpot or you you just need more granularity around, um either get yourself a data lake, what like Snowflake and some BI and as but usually that's that's I wouldn't necessarily say that's like a five to fifty million dollar adventure journey stop that is that's not usually a field trip along that way yet, quite yet. Um so I would just be like, let's just do Salesforce. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:33

Okay, thank you. Yeah, I think we I'm sure you've uh you've heard that battle around a lot. So figured who best to ask and then be expert in remote.

SPEAKER_00 32:44

Salesforce is making it really hard to root for them right now, though. Let me tell you, I think they are absolutely shooting themselves in the feet. HubSpot is like, yes, we MCP to Claude, let's go, it's your data, have a party. Whereas Salesforce really thinks that their future proofing themselves by locking all their stuff down, um and abandoning the the social um pillars that they were built on. Um so yeah, it's really upsetting and disturbing, and and I kind of hate when geopolitics veers veers into my lane of of business Legos. I hate that. But yeah, Salesforce is it's it's making it Salesforce, if you're listening, you're making it really hard to root for you right now.

SPEAKER_04 33:46

Is there a sharm that you recommend for somebody that's maybe not even ready for HubSpot or Salesforce yet? Maybe you've seen something out there besides Google Sheets, which we all know we have on the uh yeah, Google Sheets, man!

SPEAKER_00 33:57

Uh you're good. Yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, I mean, if you're if you are like Scrappy uh founder, if you're if it's like a couple of you guys and you're experimenting, go for the audio. Um what is it? Claire clarify is one as well. I think I like audio a little bit better. Like, yeah, have fun, experiment. They are not ready for prime time yet. Like, don't like anybody who is actually using it, they're there's they're more frustrated than they're letting on. They're just they're just really dead set on making their uh contrary noise.

SPEAKER_03 34:47

I love that. Well, I won't put you in hot water, so we'll move on from the CRM questions. Please.

SPEAKER_04 34:55

I don't think now in my life a long time. Yeah, love that. Okay, um, tell me a little bit more about RevOps. When that is done right, what changes for a business?

SPEAKER_00 35:09

Yeah, there's just a a sense of certainty. Right, because sales sales is insane. You what what what on earth are we actually doing? We are making something out of nothing. We are turning strangers into giving us money, right? That is that is if you kind of step outside and look at it, like that is a wild profession. Um and you know, there's a little bit of superstition. There's a little bit of like, well, it worked here, it could work, it's supposed to work here. Uh, I've got the playbook, I'm magical. It's there's such it is such an open world video game in so many ways. Like, there is no there is no playbook, especially now. There is no playbook. Um but I think RevOps really lives in in what what we do, why we do it, and who we are, right? Yeah. Uh so always come back to the revenue engine itself. So when when a company is truly embracing like constraint-led go-to-market, we are not gonna get on some crazy side quest about qualification chat bots. Uh yeah, because it's the new AI thing. We're not we're gonna be like, oh, that's interesting, but actually that would not move the needle for us at all. That is not that is nowhere near our care key constraint. And we actually have we trust ourselves enough to confidently attack the problem that's that that is our problem, and we're going to be mature and and focused enough for everyone to be on the same page and solve for this. Um great, there's there there's going to be dumpster fires everywhere. Are you kidding me? Chaos is the glitter of growth. Like we're that that maturity, where where I'm like, yeah, RevOps is actually doing its job is when there's a bit of deliberate deliberate calmness, curiosity about okay, what are we solving for now? Um and so many, so many CEOs and execs and and boards, they want everything fixed already. And it's like, okay, but you've been doing that since the dawn of time.

unknown 37:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:55

We can like three a quarter from now, do you wanna have actually moved past this this little this blocker, or do you want to do a million things, be really stressed, yell at everybody? Yeah, uh, and have this same conversation in three months where we're like, no, we need to do it all now. Because if you're fixing more than if you're if you're can re tooling something in more than one place in the boat in the revenue engine, it's a system you won't actually know if that worked or didn't work or cost.

SPEAKER_04 38:38

Yeah, you don't want to point your finger at what didn't work. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:42

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:43

Yeah. With that being said, do you think there's any uh couple of giveaways in a way that I feel like as founders or as leaders, we always love to blame people because it's like the easiest thing to do. It's like, oh, you didn't do this right, or you know, you need to be better at sales, or whatever that looks like, when it's actually a systems problem.

SPEAKER_00 39:04

Yeah, yeah. Um the name of the game is building robust revenue, stackable revenue that is process over heroics. And of course, every startup is going to have superhero heroics, the always that's kind of what it takes to get like, oh, turns out this works. Okay, let's codify it, let's let's see if we can um replicate it, let you know, repeatability, let's build repeatability. Uh but that that heroics, that above and beyond that 24-7 stuff, it might be necessarily to like crack the crack the code. Um, but that's not a way of life. Because you're gonna need that genius, you're gonna need that creativity and energy and innovation, you're gonna need that, but you want to have that applied to the actual thing to be figured out of the time.

SPEAKER_04 40:17

Yeah. Yeah. Jackie, do you have an example of maybe a company that you might be working with right now, or in the past where you came in, this is the chaos they were having. What did you guys implement and what did that lead to?

SPEAKER_00 40:34

Yeah. So uh one of our clients right now, we just completed, we like to organize our uh our work in quarterly sprints. So we just completed their first quarterly sprint, and this is one of the AI native companies that are like they're on their way to 100 million in like four months. Like it's it's actually it is such an unnatural growth pace. It it's I'm I'm still just like this is our second client like this, and it's just like, I don't know, guys, like this is this is this is not a chart, this is a quick cost thing, yeah. Um and it's so funny because they their product is so good, uh, and they're winning, but like it's almost like anything is working, and so everything is working, and so they have their BDRs just like doing events and it and like throwing like spaghetti at a wall and it's catching, and it's and it's awesome and it's fun, but it's also exhausting because they're like, we don't actually know what's working, like yeah, and so uh we got we over the we've got them some like a dashboard of like okay, this is actually these these are the sources of your best clients. Uh here here's here's what their uh buying journey looks like. Uh and out of like 250 closed one in the last quarter or something, only 12 of them actually went through the sales process. Oh wow. So it's like now do you see why we need a little bit of structure? So it's like, oh, yes. So it's just like it's not zero to fix, it's like you just in layers. See, look, this is where it's coming from. Wait, oh, if we do this, I don't know. We we might have to actually follow process to know the question. Should we do that? I don't know, guys. Should we do that?

SPEAKER_04 42:38

Yeah, yeah, I love that. And I think that must be very fulfilling on your end, like seeing it go from that to like a process and then just leaders having clarity, and it's like, wow, I can't believe I didn't know this before.

SPEAKER_00 42:51

We were doing five strategies if we just double down on this one, exactly, yeah, and also like, no, you do you like sales leaders almost kind of come to me like with their tail between the legs we don't have a sales process, like yes, you do, just because it's not written down or like in the CRM, like you do. We just need to kind of like figure out what are you doing, and you know, yeah, put some guardrails around it.

SPEAKER_04 43:19

Um, yeah, yeah, it's really fun. It's really fun. I love that. I actually wanted to switch gears a little bit onto the hiring side and just uh RevOps as a person as an A-player uh skill set. What do you feel? And obviously, you've hired for your own team, plus before as well. You've been on the hiring side and as a candidate. What do you feel like makes a a player in RevOps versus somebody who just knows tools and knows to implement without necessarily asking questions?

SPEAKER_00 43:52

There's just this insatiable, socially inappropriate. levels of curiosity and grit like it's if someone asked me how I managed to get a ranger badge on trailhead like what did I do to organize my time to get that like baby you don't got it like the no no study schedule can't for me I it it was this like raw drive like you could have tried to stop me from getting to and like ranger just happened because I I was insatiable like gracious insatiable like I'm outgoing and so I have a lot of friends like I was raised by the by the wolf pack you know like so if if someone is not plugged in or asking about like so how did you study right it's like that's not it at all like trailhead supported what I was trying to do trailhead was not the thing I was doing so I think it's just like this orientation this this hunger for for greatness yeah yeah I love that I will say at least on my side too is I've um not me personally but I've seen companies complain on the RevOps side when they get people in seats when it's just like oh I want to do this go do it and the person doesn't ask questions.

SPEAKER_04 45:47

Okay yep I understand we need to fix this in Salesforce or help spot but why what is that trying to lead us to do you feel like that's also true where it's like you just get a person that follows and implements versus asking questions and then implementing the right thing to do yeah we well I would ask them to go look in the mirror because you hired them so you hired yourself you hired you hired yourself a Salesforce monkey right like I the the CROs who I know will make it like seek out sparring partner it like they don't want their RevOps person to do what they say give them a checkbox when they want that checkbox right that they they respect their little canary in the coal mine right like oh canary actually do you have something to say about this like yeah right uh and it's so tempting uh and that's why I will never go in house again right I you're ruined forever I'm ruined because I will I will say listen it's the revenue engine is calling for this and I'm just its mouthpiece. Exactly um so anything anything that we're deciding to do or spend money on or initiatives that is not directly in line with what this needs it's it's it's a no and you're gonna get a no from me and you're not gonna like that you're gonna want to fire me and it just works out if if you're my client and not and not my holder of health insurance yeah actually that's a really good point I I'd love to get your take on it because obviously now you're a third party you're not necessarily for the company but there's still still RevOps you know people that are within the company is there any way that you found to nicely push back and say no that you know somebody does not want to lose their job but they also don't think it's the right thing to do they don't want to go against our leader whatever the you know the um uh what's the word I'm liking on it the uh they'll come back to me but whatever the relationship is between the leader and the person like how do I nicely push back so that I'm not at risk of losing my job but I also want to make sure that you know this does not fall on me.

SPEAKER_00 48:22

I don't know RV I don't know because and like I think that I'm so passionate about being like RevOps as a service especially to a certain point like you will it'll make sense at a certain point to build your own team but you're moving so fast you you need you need someone to challenge you and and under stress CROs are not going to like sit back and and question they're just like as a we love them yeah we love them and but their personalities are are in service of what they're really good at which is convincing you to see their way and and RevOps as a persona we just want you to be happy I so I personally I think it's doomed. I I I it's like Harry when Harry met Sally it's like men and women can't be friends like sort of like I think it's like one of like yeah I think it's one of those things like unless unless you have no because CROs they get stressed and they're like just do it that's what it comes down to and yeah like I don't blame them. Yeah the entire like the entire company is on their shoulders like if they miss a number they're gone they're gone like are you kidding me these girls now have the shortest 10 tenure in the in the C suite it's not their fault um that is very true it's not their fault yeah but that doesn't mean it needs to be my problem so if you're in-house if you're in house I will say like it unless you're in a financially secure emotionally secure spot in your life like I don't think you have the privilege that I have to say what's to say what I see. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:33

Yeah I agree I think at the end of the day you can always just make your opinion known and if they're gonna end up taking that decision it is what it is and like you said you might not necessarily have the luxury of saying no and moving on but at least you made your opinion known and if they still decide to go against it, you know at least you do your job in that sense.

SPEAKER_00 50:53

Yeah yeah and like even I mean if our clients want something and we're like we advise against this like they're they're the client like we'll yeah right we'll do it. But the difference is that we have 18 other clients yeah and we're not like emotionally like when you're in house like that's your world that's your world and like I it might be that might be a Jackie a Jackie specific problem but I yeah I love that. Jackie is there any other skill set that you think a an a player new Rev ops should have or you know what what is it that they really need to succeed in this sort of positions that we haven't mentioned yet at least yeah I think trust trust your trust yourself um there there is no blessed definition of what ARR is or what NR like there there's no there is no golden crm that we're aiming to have what we do is very much the laundry it is not a project right like it it will never be done um and it's just I think a lot of us especially when we're newer in it is like we need to achieve some standard there is no there is no standard it's what it's what your revenue engine is is is in need of and you're of service to that so trust us you see it like you would not be in RevOps if you weren't sort of like a systems thinker and if you didn't see things you probably wouldn't have the role you have and how you see things is different it is rare it is so needed like nobody else sees it like like sometimes you might be like am I crazy no no you're just a systems thinker so like even if you have to like kind of bend the knee in the situation like don't let that mess with your head um because I think we need we need revops as a profession to really be strengthened and like be here for each other because we are like the sanity whisperers out there. And unfortunately we we can we can become silenced um but don't yeah don't let it mess with your head what you there there there's a reason you're seeing it there's a reason that that that yeah um yeah I think you guys are the ones that keep the CRO sane as much as possible.

SPEAKER_04 53:50

If we don't drive them crazy first. Yeah when you don't drive them crazy they're keeping them sane when you don't drive them crazy yeah yeah yeah I think it's uh one of those things like you hate it when you do it but then when it's done like the CRO's like wow like this is what I was needing why do we have to go through this whole thing next time I'm finding it remind me of this okay you're never gonna know you forget it very quickly. Yeah yeah to buy breakfast tomorrow you're not gonna have any recollection that you just said that but it's okay I love that um thank you so much Jackie this has been a pleasure I think there was so much information here for honestly like if you're listening to this you better have your notes ready or like an AI note taker listening to this because there's so much to take and just start implementing right away. And of course you know when you get stuck make sure to call Jackie and reach out to her which by the way when is where is the best place for people to reach out to you or connect with yeah I'm on LinkedIn um so Jackie Leahy J A C K I L E A H Y I am very much on LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_00 55:07

And if you are in the RevOps like community and you're like wait where are these people where is this wolf pack? Come play with us in RevOps co-op and wizards of ops um I'm not in Rev Genius but Rev Genius is also fantastic. Basically like RevOps people are fantastic so come just hang out with hang out with us.

SPEAKER_04 55:29

Just yeah just we're good. Yeah yeah and we'll also put your LinkedIn on the show notes as well so that way it's easier for people to find it. But thank you again for coming on and just being super transparent about everything and just sharing your insight and taking the time to to be with me here live. For those of you watching live or catching the replay please connect with Jackie again that will also be in the show notes. Feel free to drop questions I still look at them after the show and I still respond to every single one of them and if there's any need for me to tag on Jackie to respond to a question I'll make sure that I do so I'm sure she'll be happy to do that as well. But yeah thank you everybody again and thank you Jackie You know what I still haven't learned how to do that. That's you on yeah I know like so it's so I I still get confused. It's just two fingers at me okay okay okay oh that's an easy way to remember it okay and like be like if you're watching this we're trying to make the or if you're just listening to this we're trying to make the jetsy heart you taught me how to do this love it. Thank you again guys