AI to ROI (fka Metrics that Measure Up)

This episode of the AI to ROI podcast, hosted by Ray Rike and Peter Buchanan, explores how leading SaaS companies are surviving the "SaaSpocalypse" - a massive market cap devaluation triggered by the rise of AI. The hosts break down the transition from traditional SaaS to AI-first models, emphasizing that simple "feature bloating" isn't enough; companies must undergo a fundamental "organ replacement" of their architecture, pricing, and culture.The discussion deep-dives into three success stories:Notion: Transformed from a document suite into an agentic execution platform through strategic acquisitions, moving toward autonomous workflows.Canva: Democratized design by making AI features invisible and intuitive, resulting in a 700% increase in AI tool usage and massive revenue growth.ServiceNow: Leveraged its 20-year history in workflow automation to pivot from seat-based pricing to task-based pricing, using AI agents to orchestrate complex enterprise processes.If you are a SaaS company executive looking for great examples of how they transitioned to be AI-first - this episode is full of great examples, strategies, and tactics.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode, our host Ray Rike sits down with Jacco van der Kooij, founde and CEO, Winning by Design, to discuss the real-world deployment of "Jack" - an AI SDR that has spent the last 12 months redefining the front line of Go-To-Market (GTM) strategy. Jacco shares the "AHA" moments and hard truths discovered while moving beyond human constraints like slow response times and inconsistent qualification. Discover how treating an AI SDR (agent) as a "system" rather than a "product" initially led to 2,030 conversations, 100% CRM capture, and a $200,000 deal.Episode SummaryWinning by Design set out to prove that if AI can handle the high-risk, high-empathy role of an SDR, it can work anywhere in GTM. Over the course of a year, their AI agent, Jack was built on a foundation of 1mind logic and Clay enrichment. The agent evolved from a simple chatbot into a trained GTM operator.Key Highlights:Breaking Human Constraints: The project addressed critical issues like burnout, limited global coverage, and poor CRM hygiene that even the best human reps struggle to maintain.The "AHA" Moments: Jacco details how the team realized Jack shouldn't just "chat" but perform industrial-scale qualification while supporting buyers in their buying journey.The Power of Iteration: Initial surprises, such as a low 8% email capture rate, were overcome by designing a better "value exchange" rather than just tweaking prompts.Tangible Results: After refinement, email capture jumped to 20%, MQL conversion rose by 36%, and the system successfully captured nearly 9,000 SPICED answers.The Ultimate Do’s and Don’ts: Success requires anchoring the agent in a GTM system and iterating weekly; failures stem from treating AI like an unstructured chatbot or deploying without clear ownership.The Do'sDesign the value exchange first: Ensure the AI provides something useful to the buyer before asking for informationEarn the next step: Focus on providing enough value to merit the next stage of the conversationAnchor the agent in your GTM system: AI should scale a pre-designed, structured system rather than an improvised process.Start narrow, then expand: Focus on one specific motion and one outcome before attempting to scale.Iterate weekly: Small, frequent changes to the system drive the most significant gains in performance.Focus on the buyer's journey: Design the experience to help the buyer buy, rather than just helping the seller sell.The Don'tsTreat AI like a chatbot: Avoid unstructured "chatting," as it kills conversion rates; focus on industrial-scale qualification instead.Chase volume over quality: Remember that activity is not the same as a healthy pipeline.Hide the AI behind humans: Be transparent about using an AI agent to build trust with the buyer.Deploy without ownership: AI implementation is a Go-to-Market responsibility, not just an IT project.Expect AI to fix a bad process: AI will not fix poor GTM design; it will only expose and amplify existing flaws.Point AI at unstructured data: Do not simply point the AI at a massive folder of research; start with specific, high-quality training materials.If you are considering deploying agentic AI into your Sales organization and process, this episode is full of great insights, experiences, and measurements for your AI investment in Sales.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Are we witnessing a productivity revolution or the greatest labor displacement in history?In this detailed episode of AI to ROI, Peter Buchanan and Ray Rike break down the "Great AI Jobs War," a period of massive upheaval where corporate gleefulness meets workforce anxiety. They move past the "AI washing" to find the real metrics that define success in the age of intelligence.Key Discussion Points:The Historical Context: Ray draws parallels between the AI revolution and past disruptions like the Industrial Revolution, the cotton gin, and the assembly line, noting that AI is moving with a magnitude and speed never seen beforeThe "Mother May I" Productivity Gap: While 47% of S&P 500 companies now discuss AI in earnings calls, only 10% are seeing meaningful ROI, leaving a "staggering" 56% of companies getting "little to nothing" out of their implementationsThe Million-Dollar Employee: A deep dive into Klarna’s radical transformation—reducing headcount from 5,000 to 3,000 through attrition while doubling revenue to reach the "magic number" of $1.1 million in revenue per employeeThe War on Early Careers: Why entry-level IT hires have plummeted from 25% to 7% of all hires, and the "structural problem" of junior roles requiring 2–3 years of experience because AI is now doing the "digital grunt work"Blue-Collar as the "Gold-Collar" Future: Why the CEO of NVIDIA suggests young people skip computer programming for mechanical trades, and how salaries for AI-related construction and electrical roles have doubledCustomer Service Autonomy: How Bank of America's "Erica" handled 2 billion interactions with a 98% resolution rate in under 44 seconds, signaling a massive shift in how businesses handle scaleActionable Insights for Leaders:Measure Revenue Per Employee: This is the ultimate metric for AI productivity.Bake AI Aptitude into Hiring: Every new white-collar job description should require "AI curiosity" and applicable tool skills.Strategic Augmentation: The goal isn't just headcount reduction, but using the "free cash flow" from AI efficiencies to build a war chest for growth and sales.To read more details and subscribe to the AI to ROI Newsletter for more data-driven strategies on turning AI hype into bottom-line results.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In the second episode of AI to ROI: The Big Story, Ray Rike and Peter Buchanan analyze the critical transformation required for traditional SaaS companies to become AI-first organizations. With the SaaS industry generating $273 billion annually, the hosts warn that incumbents are under "two-front" attack: internal refactoring of legacy systems and external disruption from hyper-efficient AI-native startups.Key Highlights of the Episode:The "SaaS to AI" Pivot: Ray compares the current shift to the on-premise-to-SaaS transition of 20 years ago, noting that today’s change requires a fundamental rewrite of an operating culture rather than just adding "AI veils" like prompt enginesThe Rise of AI-Native Efficiency: Peter highlights companies like Lovable and Cursor, which have achieved hundreds of millions (or billions) in valuation in under a year with minimal staff, challenging the traditional SaaS model of linear employee growthThe Shift in Financial Metrics: The hosts discuss the new economic reality: forgetting 80% gross margins in favor of a 50-65% range to account for high token and inference costs. Success will depend on the "COGS to CAC" model, offsetting higher infrastructure costs with dramatically lower customer acquisition costs via AI automationA Roadmap for Success: To fight back, SaaS incumbents must re-architect around outcomes rather than features. This includes leveraging their "crown jewel data" and status as systems of record to build decision intelligence layers that AI-native startups lackThe HubSpot Success Story: Ray details how HubSpot successfully scrapped its 2023 roadmap within weeks of ChatGPT’s launch, shipping AI-native products in under 90 days and moving toward a "Results-as-a-Service" futureAdvice for Leaders and Employees: Ray suggests that CEOs must re-engineer every department to be AI-first, while employees should commit to learning new AI tools every month to remain employable in an increasingly automated landscape.Listen to the full episode for a deep dive into how to avoid becoming an "orphan" SaaS company in the age of Agentic AI.You can read the newsletter edition covering this topic by clicking here.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode of the AI to ROI podcast, host Ray sits down with Drew Laxton, CFO at Outreach, to explore the profound transformation of sales technology and financial metrics in the age of AI. Drew shares the strategic reasoning behind his return to Outreach, driven by a conviction that the company is uniquely positioned to lead the next era of agentic AI and automated revenue workflows.The conversation goes beyond the hype, offering a masterclass in how finance leaders must adapt to a software landscape that is moving from seat-based subscriptions to consumption-driven models. Drew provides an inside look at how Outreach is re-engineering its own financial playbook to account for the high compute costs and non-linear revenue growth associated with AI.Key discussion points include:The "Personal Productivity" vs. "Financial ROI" Debate: Why the initial wave of AI efficiency must eventually translate into higher quotas and lower OpEx to satisfy the board.Maintaining Margins in an AI-Native World: A deep dive into the "triumvirate" of Product, Engineering, and Finance that manages gross margins as compute costs replace traditional SaaS overhead.The Metric Recalibration: Why traditional SaaS snowballs don't work for AI, and how Outreach is using "spend-as-truth" to normalize data for NRR and CAC calculations.Agentic AI in Action: How Outreach's "revenue agents" are replacing manual prospecting with autonomous, data-tuned interactions that learn from previous customer engagement.Some Key Insights and Quotes pulled from the conversation with Drew:On the "Boring" Wins of AI: While many look for revolutionary shifts, Drew emphasizes the value in automating the mundane:"A lot of the AI tools that I’ve seen so far... there's kind of boring outcomes that are very impactful... like our QA process within the coding side has very much streamlined."On the Changing Economics of SaaS: Drew acknowledges that AI-native products fundamentally alter the 80%+ gross margin expectations of the past decade:"We do need to bring gross margin into our understanding of SaaS tools because it's just not the same... You've got to be more efficient on the go-to-market side to make the economics work."On the Rise of Consumption Pricing: The shift to variable pricing means the "snowball" metric of the past is no longer sufficient:"What is your ARR has become a lot more challenging question than it used to be... consumption is not linear on these products. It’s kind of zero, very little, and then a lot."On the Importance of Usage Over Revenue: In a variable world, product utilization becomes the primary indicator of a healthy business:"Product utilization... becomes a core signal to retention. It's not just revenue anymore, it's utilization month by month... spend is truth."Advice for Aspiring CFOs: For those looking to reach the C-suite in the AI era, Drew suggests one primary trait:"Be curious. Just be curious about everything... Ask questions, get time with the CFO or the leaders of the various organizations... wanting to understand their business has only benefited me."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In the first episode of the AI to ROI: Big Story podcast, our co-hosts Peter Buchanan and Ray Rike discuss the emerging importance of Context Graphs in AI Software.Why are context graphs suddenly being called a trillion-dollar opportunity in enterprise AI? In this inaugural episode of The Big Story, hosts Ray Rike (CEO of Benchmarkit) and Peter Buchanan (Managing Partner of New Plan) dive into the "glue technology" that fills the missing gap in the AI stack.While traditional knowledge graphs tell you what happened, context graphs reveal the why! Context Graphs capture the decision traces, policy constraints, and precedents that make AI agents truly auditable and trustworthy. From preventing "data breakage" in regulated workflows to revolutionizing supply chain quality control, discover why context is the key to moving AI from experimental pilots to reliable production.Key TakeawaysThe Why Behind the Action: Context graphs provide the connectivity that agentic AI lacks, recording who made a decision and under what specific constraints.A Trillion-Dollar Value Add: Industry leaders believe context is a massive economic value driver for companies in the era of AI.Beyond Knowledge Graphs: Moving from simple data points to decision lineages that explain the "why" behind an event.Real-World Use Cases: Deep dives into data governance at firms like Vanguard and Prudential, and quality control in the automotive supply chain.The Vendor Landscape: Discussion on current players like Atlan, Neo4j, and Writer, and why tech giants like Microsoft and Salesforce are the "lurkers" to watch.Timestamps00:00 Introduction to the AI to ROI podcast series.02:40 Defining Context Graphs: The missing gap in the AI stack.04:15 The Trillion-Dollar Opportunity: Economic value vs. market size.06:30 Knowledge Graphs vs. Context Graphs: Moving from "what" to "why".09:20 Who should care? Roles from the CEO to the Chief Risk Officer.12:45 Use Case 1: Data Governance and preventing "downstream breakage".15:10 Use Case 2: Unifying the Go-To-Market (GTM) stack.18:30 Use Case 3: Supply chain visibility and automotive quality control.21:40 The Market Map: Current leaders and "Lurker" strategies from Big Tech.25:50 Executive Summary: Things every leader must do right now.Context graphs are a key component to turn Agentic AI software vision into Agentic AI explainability!Read the AI to ROI Newsletter on Substack to dive deeper into this week's Big Story!Subscribe at: ai2roi.substack.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to the first episode of AI to ROI, the newly re-imagined evolution of the highly successful Metrics That Measure Up podcast. In this launch episode, our host, Ray Rike sets the stage for a new era of conversations focused on turning artificial intelligence from hype into measurable business outcomes.The inaugural guest is Todd Olson, Founder and CEO of Pendo, who joins the show for an interactive, unscripted discussion on how companies should measure the real impact of AI agents inside modern SaaS and cloud organizations. Together, they explore how AI-driven “digital workers” are reshaping productivity, workflows, and operating models across the enterpriseKey topics include how companies can measure the performance and business impact of AI agents, the emerging metrics that define agent adoption and activation, and why connecting usage data to tangible outcomes like time saved, cost reduction, and revenue impact is critical for ROI. Todd also shares his perspective on outcome-based pricing, why it remains rare in AI-native software today, and what must change for it to scale.The conversation wraps with a forward-looking discussion on SaaS and AI convergence, as agents increasingly appear on org charts and product roadmaps, followed by practical advice on developing AI competencies for the next generation of business leaders.If you care about moving beyond AI experimentation toward measurable economic value, AI to ROI is your new go-to podcast.Subscribe, rate, and follow AI to ROI on your favorite podcast platform.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The world of FP&A is having its day in the spotlight. New pricing models, a new focus on near real-time business planning, the increased focus on balancing revenue growth and profitability, coupled with the dynamic impact that AI is having on the SaaS market, are all making the role of FP&A a more strategic asset. Albert Gozzi, is the founder and CEO of Aleph, a modern FP&A platform and company that recently raised $29M in their Series B financing from Khosla Ventures.During today's episode, our host, Ray Rike is joined by Albert Gozzi, Founder and CEO Aleph, to discuss the strategic future of FP&A including:The vision behind founding AlephThe evolution of AI in FP&AFP&A’s role in developing corporate strategyGrowth strategies being used in a crowded categoryIf you are a finance leader, FP&A professional or fellow B2B SaaS founder with a product purpose built for the Office of Finance, this conversation with Albert Gozzi is full of unique insights, ideas and opportunity to make your Financial Planning and Analysis organization a strategic asset!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Think about the unparalleled growth that OpenAI has experienced since the public introduction of ChatGPT on November 30, 2022. Now, think about being in finance, or being the controller who had to scale their financial processes, including closing the books to keep up with a company that has scaled from less than $100M in revenue to $10B+ in less than 3 years!?!?That was the situation that Sowmya Ranganathan, Former Controller OpenAI and CEO, Lumera found herself facing in the early part of 2023.During today's conversation with Sowmya, our host Ray Rike discusses several important lessons and use cases of AI at OpenAI in the Finance department including:Why there was no existing playbook for scaling Finance in a company like OpenAIChallenges in one of the fastest growing software companies of all timeUnderstanding compute expenses is critical to understanding the financial performance today and tomorrow at an AI companyWhy excel could not work at the scale of OpenAI (1M+ rows)Using OpenAI to enable finance to write the python code to write the statistical model to analyze financial dataWhy historic analysis is not a good place to start for forecasting in a hypergrowth, compute intensive companyLeveraging AI in the Financial close process - leveraging data warehouse information to build a repeatable processTracking GPU costs in real-time throughout the month - not an excel scale requirementHallucinations are a real concern - but once your AI is encapsulated as standard code - the concerns are minimizedHuman review on any stochastic model is a best practice - such as contract data fields from signed contracts to establish billingA long description would not do the conversation justice - so jump in and be ready to pause the audio to capture the highlights.Sowmya has been in financial leaderships at Square and Rippling in addition to OpenAI, so she has a very unique perspective on not scaling finance to meet the unparalleled growth at OpenAI, and two other hyper growth companies. If you are interested in learning about real-life stories of using AI in Finance at the world's largest AI software company - this episode is a must listen!!!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Christina Ross is the founder and CEO of Cube. Prior to founding a SaaS platform purpose built for everyone of those companies still using Excel (majority of companies) for business modeling but want to enhance the collaboration of business budgeting, planning and performance across the company, Christina was a corporate audit executive at GE, financial transformation consultant at Deloitte and a multi-time CFO at companies including Rent the Runway, Criteo and Eyeview.During today's episode, Christina and our host, Ray Rike discuss multiple aspects of the Financial Planning and Analysis role, department and the strategic opportunity for FP&A to materially increase the impact on business strategy and performance. Topics we discussed include:How the experiences at larger companies including GE and Deloitte shaped her view on the strategic role of FP&AThe biggest challenges facing CFOs with the FP&A function todayThe role of FP&A in business strategyThe impact of FP&A on business performanceIf you are a CFO, FP&A leader or even the CEO this episode is full of great insights and ideas on how to increase the business impact of your FP&A function!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Exit Ready Analytics is a concept that any B2B SaaS company CFO and CEO should become familiar with before entering into any potential strategic company sell initiative, deal due diligence and/or data room preparation.During this episode, Will Sullivan, Managing Partner at Predictive Analytics Partners discusses his experiences from over $30 Billion in strategic acquisitions across 20 transactions. Topics discussed include:Exit Ready Analytics - the when, what, and howThe differences between a strategic Chief Revenue Officer and a Head of SalesWhen to hire a CRO and their responsibilitiesHow to bridge the CRO and CFO relationshipIf you are a CEO, CFO or CRO in a B2B SaaS company that is either considering a strategic sell process and/or want to increase the strength of the CFO and CFO relationship - this episode has something for you!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Imagine leading Finance for a company that has made 31 acquisitions over the last six years. Then, imagine the challenges of having near real-time visibility into a recently acquired company to ensure the forecast accuracy that a Private Equity firm expects from their portfolio companies, specifically from their CFO.That is exactly the environment that Josh Schauer, CFO at insightsoftware, operates in every day! During today's episode, we discuss three main topics that are part and parcel to achieving near real-time insight into the data, performance metrics, and trends required to drive financial decisions - quickly. Those topics include:The challenges with fragmented data for financial decision-makingMoving from historic to real-time data for Financial decision-makingDeveloping a process to quickly integrate acquired companies into your financial systemsModifying budgets based on actual performance insightsIf you are considering private equity as a potential exit strategy, or are part of a company that is growing through acquisition, this is a must-listen-to episode!!!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Casey Woo, Founder and CEO of the Operators Guild has a very interesting journey, from being a West Point cadet, a Harvard graduate, an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, a multiple-time CFO and now the founder and CEO of the Operators Guild, and General Partner at Fog Ventures. With this background Casey has been able to experience and identify the critical role of the "scaler" in companies.During the conversation with Casey we cover multiple topics including:The role of the scaler versus specialist in businessThe personality traits of a scalerHow process and performance interact from a scaler's perspectiveHow the Operators Guild became a community of scalersIf you have ever felt that one department, one role and doing the same thing day over day was not fully leveraging your skill set and talents - this conversation is thought provoking and inspirational.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Melissa Howatson is the CFO of Vena Solutions, a $100M+ ARR cloud-based financial planning and analysis (FP&A) platform that helps companies streamline budgeting, forecasting, reporting, and financial modeling, with a strong emphasis on Excel integration.During the episode, we covered multiple topics with Melissa including:Latest trends in B2B SaaS FP&AAI in Finance - the importance of change managementMetrics that Matter at > $100M ARRMeasuring the Impact of a podcastThe 30-minute conversation hit upon multiple key trending topics including: 1) how FP&A is evolving as a strategic business partner to the other key functions; 2) why the CFO needs to lead a culture of experimentation with AI; 3) how EBITDA increases in importance as a company scales and; 4) how to measure the impact of a company sponsored podcast!If you are an aspiring CFO, or a CFO looking to scale your company beyond $100M ARR or are interested in how a world-class CFO came to be this conversation has something for you!!!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Marcos Rivera is the founder and CEO, Pricing I/O. Marcos has a long career as a B2B Software operating executive and now leverages that experience to help B2B SaaS and AI-Native companies optimize monetization, pricing, and packaging.9 ingredients for a winning pricing strategy9 psychology concepts for pricingDifferences between SaaS and AI pricingThe value of pricing frameworksMarco was the head of pricing and packaging at Vista Equity, one of the top Private Equity firms in the B2B SaaS industry - an incredible foundation to see how leading companies leverage pricing as a strategic growth lever.Marcos started by sharing the key ingredients to developing a winning strategy, explains all nine, and highlighted why he believes the top four are most critical:Knowing the compelling value that our software deliversEstablish a clear market positionPricing that builds trustCase studies and ROI proof Have a pricing point of viewConsistent pricing messagingData-Driven pricing insightsSocial proof and testimonialsOngoing price optimizationAnother key topic discussed was the 9 psychological concepts for pricing, including:Halo effectLoss aversion (FOMO)Social proofConfirmation biasScarcity effectMere exposure effectAnchoring effectAuthority biasGoal gradient effectIf you are responsible for creating, testing, refining, or selling B2B SaaS or AI-Native products - this episode is a great way to understand the "why and how" of pricing - not just the what!!!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Shane Murphy-Reuter, GTM President at Calendly, has been part of multiple B2B SaaS companies during their hypergrowth phase, including Webflow, ZoomInfo, and Intercom. He recently joined Calendly to integrate the Go-to-Market functions and continue to find new opportunities to increase growth and growth efficiency. Shane is responsible for creating a more seamless customer experience across each stage of the Calendly customer journey. During today's episode, the discussion covers a wide variety of topics including:The Primary Role of the GTM Executive in a PLG CompanyThe key inflection points in scaling a PLG companyHow to evolve a brand - from the buyer’s perspective How to build an integrated GTM team in a PLG companyOne of the key aspects of this conversation is that we dive deep into how to leverage and apply B2C best practices in a B2B and PLG environment - at scale. Another key insight here is the importance of becoming a multi-product company and evolving the brand of a primarily self-service, single-product company.If you are evaluating or recently transitioned to an integrated GTM organizational structure that begins and ends with the customer experience in a Product-Led Growth environment - this conversation is for you!!!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Josh Aharonoff, better known as "Your CFO Guy" and the founder of Might Digits, a consultancy specializing in accounting, finance and fractional CFO services. Josh has amassed 450,000+ followers on LinkedIn, which is extremely rare for anyone, especially someone who caters to the corporate finance community!During Josh's appearance on the Metrics that Measure Up Podcast, he and our host, Ray Rike discuss a wide variety of topics including:The Role of the Fractional CFOWhen to consider an internal VP Finance or CFOWhy excel is a CFOs best friend…or NOTBuilding a LinkedIn following of 450K+ - the business case and the processIf you are a small or medium size business CEO, and are interested in when it might be the right time to bring in a VP Finance or CFO, or a finance professional looking to scale-up your personal brand, want to enhance your excel skills or considering starting your own business this conversation with Josh is chalked full of great insights, ideas and best practices!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dan Miller, CFO at RightRev, has been at the center of Usage-Based Pricing, having served as CFO at Fastly and previously as VP of Finance and General Manager at NetSuite. During today's episode, Dan and Ray discuss how Usage-Based Pricing and AI Outcome-Based Pricing are impacting ARR Reporting and Revenue Recognition Management.During today's episode, Dan and Ray cover several emerging trends in SaaS and Native-AI companies including:How variable pricing models impact revenue recognitionHow does the evolution of Outcome-Based pricing impact revenue recognitionHow AI is and will impact the Office of FinanceA few key takeaways from the episode that are worthy of a deeper dive and listen include:Understanding how contract modifications impact revenue recognition policy, process, and reportingBlended offerings including a fixed fee + usage are great for customers - but hard to manage revenue recognitionHow token and credit-based pricing impacts revenue recognition and gross profit calculation and reportingThe strategic impact and tactical challenges of transitioning from pure subscription or hybrid Usage-Based PricingIf you are a CFO or SaaS executive looking to better understand how pricing trends are challenging existing revenue recognition processes, infrastructure, and automation - this episode is a great listen!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

There is a famous saying that goes something like this "Half of my advertising (marketing) investment is wasted, the trouble is I do not know which half". This quote is credited to John Wanamaker over 100 years ago, and many marketers feel the same in 2025!Pranav Piyush is the founder and CEO, Paramark and they are attempting to make this quote not quite as relevant or correct in the future. Paramark is a marketing measurement and optimization platform designed to help businesses understand the true impact of their marketing efforts across various channels. By leveraging advanced statistical methods and machine learning, marketing and finance teams are better enabled to make data-driven decisions with confidence.During today's conversation with Pranav, we cover a wide array of topics including:Aligning Marketing Investment to Outcomes - that matter to a CFOThe concept of incrementalityHow to anticipate and measure channel specific diminishing returnsBrand vs Performance measurementsThe top 3 metrics a CMO should be sharing with their CFOIf you are B2B Marketing leader responsible for budget and delivering an ROI on that budget, or a CFO looking to better understand how to measure the ROI on marketing expenses, this episode is a great listen.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

B2B Marketing and AI Trends are evolving rapidly in 2025, and who better to discuss those trends with than Sydney Sloan, Chief Marketing Officer at G2 - the leader in B2B Software reviews!During today's episode we discuss a wide array of topics with Sydney including:Marketing Budget Allocation for B2B tech companies in 2025Peer reviews and their impact on B2B SaaS purchasesThe growth in AI - as measured by categories and vendors with G2 reviewsThe opportunity to exploit the power of AI for B2B MarketersIf you are in the B2B SaaS industry, a B2B SaaS Marketing executive or a B2B SaaS customer this episode has something for you!!!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Data and Sales Intelligence category includes a list of well known players such as ZoomInfo, Seamless and Apollo, and are now joined by new entrants like Clay and Lusha. But where does a pure play Data (Sales) Intelligence provider like People Data Labs fit - their CEO, Brian Eisenberg who has grown through the ranks at People Data Labs from Data Engineer to CEO provides his insights in how the Sales (People) Intelligence category is evolving.During today's episode, our host Ray Rike discusses multiple topics with Ben including:The top challenges customers are facing with today’s Data Intelligence solutions?How does People Data Labs ensure they remain compliant with the evolving data privacy laws and vendor specific Terms of ServiceHow will next generation Data Intelligence solutions address the current challengesBen’s personal career journey - from Data Engineer to CEO in 7 yearsIf your B2B SaaS or technology company uses Sales Intelligence Data to feed your outbound machine - this conversation is a must listen!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Bill Koefoed is the CFO of OneStream which went public in 2024 after being acquired by KKR in 2021. The CFO journey from being a Private Equity owned company to preparing for an IPO and beyond, while also transitioning from a perpetual license model to a subscription business is a fascinating experience and story.During this episode, Bill and Ray discuss a wide variety of topics and experiences during this CFO journey including:How the role of CFO changes in a Private Equity majority owned B2B SaaS companyThe lessons learned in transitioning from a perpetual license to a B2B SaaS subscription modelThe preparation required to take a B2B SaaS company publicHow technology has changed the Office of Finance and the CFO roleThe journey to becoming a B2B SaaS CFO - the Bill Koefoed pathBill mentioned that he had previously been the CFO of a Private equity-owned company. Once you have the first experience under your belt, your reputation as a Private equity-experienced CFO will be the access ticket to the next CFO position.Bill highlighted the importance that pricing plays when first starting the transition from perpetual to subscription. The cross-over or break-even point was targeted at 5 years, which essentially says that beginning in Year 6 the benefit of operating in a subscription business model materially increase.Bill shared the metrics that he prioritizes, and he started with the 98% Gross Revenue Retention Rate which highlights their priority and focus on customer satisfaction. In addition, Net New ARR, Net Revenue Retention and how much of Net New ARR is coming from "new customers" versus customer expansion. In fact, new logo acquisition is a top focus for 2025, including going from 1,600 customer to 10,000 plus new customers.  New customer ARR contributes about 60% of the total new ARR.What customer acquisition efficiency metric does Bill use - he really likes LTV:CAC Ratio and the CAC Payback Period which they currently stand at 24 months - but that is with a $340K ACV!If you are a CFO in a B2B SaaS company, or are an executive leader looking to evolve into a private equity acquisition or initial public offering - this conversation with Bill Koefoed, Chief Financial Officer at OneStream is an enlightening conversation that covers a broad variety of insights, experiences and inspiration!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Aviv Canaani is the Chief Revenue Officer at Datarails who recently transformed their Go-to-Market motion to be primarily inbound from the traditional outbound motion. During today's episode Aviv and our host, Ray Rike dive deep into multiple GTM strategies and measurements including:Top performance measurements for a B2B SaaS CROThe catalyst for transitioning to an "inbound GTM motion"The ROI for an Inbound vs Outbound GTM motionLeveraging Social Media to build awareness with the Office of FinanceMeasuring ROI in content and media investmentsAviv was initially the head of Marketing and then took overall responsibility for Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success. Soon thereafter, he quickly realized that they needed to increase the efficiency of their Go-to-Market investments and associated processes. But before we dive into the transition from a 90% outbound strategy, we discussed the top metrics for CROs.First, Aviv highlighted that CAC efficiency, as measured by the CAC Payback Period (CPP) where they have decreased the CAC Payback Period by 50% is a TOP metric for CROs. One of the first topics we discussed was the primary "input signals" to decrease the payback period. One of the things Aviv highlighted is that increasing the quality of leads that are provided to AEs was a good first place to start. The ultimate goal was that AEs could spend the majority of their time on selling and closing opportunities, versus doing cold outbound prospecting.Another key tactic was to ensure he had a very predictable way to know for each dollar investment in Go-to-Market, what the expected outcomes as measured by new customer ARR could be generated. Using a "waterfall" methodology, Aviv knows that for every dollar of Marketing spend what are the predictable outcomes as measured by meetings, opportunities, new customers, and the associated new ARR.By having a predictable model, Aviv can go to the CFO and confidently show what the ROI is for every dollar invested in Marketing, they can begin to allocate more to brand building which will have more impact in a few quarters versus just measuring the short-term ROI on Demand investments.Next, we dove into the transition from a primarily outbound GTM motion to primarily an inbound GTM motion. First, in 2022, even though SDRs were hitting their "meeting goals" they were not converting to customers. As a result, they increased the focus on "high intent" leads which increased the efficiency of the GTM investments. One of the primary measurements they used to validate the inbound focus, they found a 3x-4x higher win rate, and a shorter sales cycle all leading to increased GTM efficiency.What is the primary source for 90% of new ARR coming from inbound? First, they brought on a team of B2C Marketing professionals who used paid search, paid media, and social media strategies to drive higher intent inbounds. This even included the use of Instagram and TikTok...to reach the Office of Finance! In addition, they focused on SEO and even a podcast to get their brand and message in front of finance executives. Now that the brand has been enhanced through the media investments will over time also increase the efficiency of the outbound activities.Another strategy was to divide outbound and inbound SDRs, and in fact, a majority of the outbound SDRs are now located in the Philippines which maintained effectiveness and increased efficiency as measured by outputs (New ARR) versus inputs (SDR investments).If you are a B2B SaaS CFO or GTM leader, this conversation with Aviv is full of ideas, insights, and successful experiences in evolving the GTM playbook!!!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode of the “Metrics that Measure Up” Podcast features James D. Wilton, Author of Capturing Value - The Definitive Guide to Transforming SaaS Pricing and Unshackling Growth and Managing Partner, MonevateDuring our conversation we covered four primary topics with James:Actual Value versus Perceived Value - which matters mostPrice Metric Evaluation CriteriaInnovative Monetization StrategiesMeasuring a Customer’s Willingness to PayIf you are considering changing your existing pricing model and/or introducing new pricing for either an existing or new product - like a new AI module, this conversation is loaded with great ideas and insights into the different pricing models being used in the B2B SaaS industry!!!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

SaaS Pricing is evolving to better align the value received to the pricing model. The trend to using new pricing models including Usage-Base Pricing, Value-Based Pricing and Outcome-Based Pricing is evolving quickly and Bill provides his insights into the current trends and future of SaaS and AI pricing.During the episode Bill and Ray discuss several trends including:The top trends in SaaS pricingHow SaaS companies are adapting their pricing modelsThe risks and rewards of changing pricing modelsOverview of the FAST "Pricing Page" FrameworkBill’s crystal ball on where AI pricing is headedIf you are evaluating evolving your SaaS pricing model - this is a highly informative and instructive conversation.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) has been the foundation for larger companies dating back to the introduction of SAP R-3 in the late nineties. Sandeep Chopra, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Everest Systems says that ERP vendors have lost their "customer focus" and believes their is a large opportunity to re-invent ERP in the cloud to help companies run their business more efficiently. Introducing Next Generation ERP to the SaaS industry is the first step.During today's episode our host Ray Rike and Sandeep discuss the next era of ERP includingThe need for a next generation ERP platformAdvantage of leading edge technology to re-engineer business processesWhat stage of company should evaluate ERPOffice of Finance use cases for leveraging AIBenefits of integrating accounting, billing and planning in one platformIf you are currently a Quick Books user and/or are evaluating the benefits of an integrated accounting, billing, revenue management and planning platform this conversation is full of interesting ideas and business reasons to consider this strategy.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Rule of X is a recently published SaaS metric that factors in the relevant importance of growth rate and operating profitability for B2B SaaS companies. Sam Bondy is the co-author of this metric and shares the catalyst for creating the metric, the latest trends and how the Rule of X impacts Enterprise Value to Revenue multiples.Sam joined me as a speaker at the recent SaaS Metrics Palooza to provide the details behind the metric and why it is an important metric that helps to evolve the traditional Rule of 40 metric.This episode is part of the "SaaS Metrics Palooza" re-load series on the Metric that Measure Up podcast.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

SaaS buyers complete ~70% of the buying process before they speak to a vendor's sales organization. As a result more and more SaaS companies are leveraging interactive product demonstrations on their website which is the topic of today's episode. Natalie Marcotullio, Head of Growth at Navattic discusses their recent "State of Interactive Product Demonstrations" with our host Ray Rike where they cover multiple topics including:The State of Interactive Product DemonstrationsTo Gate or Not to Gate - what is the best practiceMeasuring the Impact of “Self-Directed” Interactive DemonstrationsIn 2024, almost 12% of SaaS companies are providing interactive product demonstrations on their website which is an increase from 9.3% in 2023. Surprisingly, 73% of interactive demonstrations are not gated, and one primary reason is that non-gated interactive demonstrations have a 10% higher engagement rate.How do we measure engagement on interactive demonstrations? Natalie highlighted four: 1) Number of users who get past step one of the demo; 2) Number of users who complete the demo; 3) Users who click at least one CTA to an external resource and; 4) time spent on the interactive demonstration.Of course, at the end of the day measuring the outcomes from an investment in an interactive demo is critical, and the top two metrics that Natalie recommends include the number of qualified leads and win rate from those leads and users who engaged with the interactive demonstration.If you are looking for new ways to engage with your target buyers and ensure your product is initially understood and evaluated by potential buyers, this is a great conversation to understand how to introduce and leverage the power of self-guided, interactive demonstrations on your website!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The possibilities of combining AI with the collective intelligence from hundreds of B2B companies to increase their customer acquisition efficiency are limitless. Stephen Messer, Founder and CEO of Collective[I] shares his unique insights into how the potential is becoming a reality for many B2B companies. During today's episode, Stephen and our host, Ray Rike will cover the following topics:The vision behind founding Collective[I] and the Economic Foundation ModelWhy buyer’s historic behavior is more important than a selling processThe challenges and benefits of a “give to get” collective for go-to-market data sharingIf you have ever used Waze to identify the shortest time from where you are to where you need to go, you understand the value of "collective intelligence". When you start to think about being able to understand which companies are most likely to buy your product and/or to understand why a specific customer buys, and who are the key decision makers you need to engage with, the possibilities that come to mind are limitless!Stephen shares how a Neural Network (AI) is being applied to Go-to-Market data to help B2B companies materially increase the ROI on their customer acquisition investments.Stephen shares how his experience founding LinkShare and the concept of affiliate networks is foundational to Collective[I]. Over 10 years ago, Stephen identified that salespeople create a new "roadmap" for every new opportunity. He envisioned building a network where everyone shares their sales process data anonymously so that the collective group can benefit from the collective wisdom generated by the group.The result was building one large neural network and creating an economic foundation model trained on how buyers buy from real-world processes.One of the fundamental premises is that companies cannot build their own neural network and thus not build their own foundational model - as they do not have the insights required into how new target companies actually buy.If you are responsible for leading a B2B Sales team, rely upon a sales team to achieve your financial plan, or are an individual sales professional who would like to know more about how a target customer or existing prospect buys, this conversation is one of the most thought-provoking discussions that we have had on the Metrics that Measure Up podcast.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

SaaS company acquisition velocity will increase in 2025 and the role of marketplaces purpose built for buyer and sellers will become a must visit for both. If you are considering selling or buying a SaaS company, this discussion with Andrew Gazdecki, Founder and CEO at Acquire.com is a must listen. During the episode Andrew and our host, Ray Rike cover the following topics:The catalyst for founding Acquire.comThe trends in B2B SaaS start-up and early stage company acquisitionsTop lessons learned from the insights of hundreds of B2B SaaS acquisitionsSome of the key insights shared during the episode include:The value of preparing for the Confidential Information Memorandum (CIM)The importance of a discovery call with buyers prior to the Letter of Intent (LOI) The role of international buyers for U.S. companiesValuation expectations need to be realistic and reflect the current realityEBITDA is key for companies under $5M - know the current rangesDeal structures are widely varied - be open to different structuresGrowth Rate, Churn and Quality of Revenue are key metrics to highlightIf you are considering selling your SaaS company or a buyer thinking about buying an existing SaaS company, this conversation with Andrew Gazdecki, Founder and CEO of Acqiure.com is a must listen!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

HubSpot was an early mover in building a media asset inside a B2B SaaS company with the purchase of The Hustle in 2021. Rob Litterst is the Head of Growth for the HubSpot Media Network which has expanded far beyond those early days in building out their media network!During today's episode, Rob and Ray discuss many aspects of building, growing and measuring the business impact of a media asset within a B2B SaaS company including:The vision for building a media asset within a B2B SaaS Company Measuring the business impact of an internal media assetLessons learned from growing the HubSpot media networkIf you are a Chief Marketing Officer considering how or if to build a media brand within your B2B SaaS company, or a CFO or CEO considering approving the investment in developing media assets in our SaaS company, this conversation with some who have been involved in doing it at both ProfitWell (acquired by Paddle) and HubSpot provides insights that only come with the experiences of doing it in two of the industry's best examples!!!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

AI Monetization Strategies - Balancing Revenue and Adoption with Gary Survis and Ethan DeSilva, Insight Partners was a top rated session at SaaS Metrics Palooza '24 that is a can't miss conversation for anyone in SaaS interested in how B2B SaaS companies are introducing, pricing and monetizing AI functionality.Key points covered during this conversation include:Is it the time to charge existing customers moreAI Scalability Gap from individual tasks to cross-functional workflows is a challengeAdoption before MonetizationAs value increase the monetization strategy will evolveIf you are considering launching new AI functionality in your SaaS product or already have and are rethinking the pricing strategy this episode is a great listenSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Poya Osgouei has been responsible for securing sponsorships for some of the largest B2B events including SaaStr, Lenny's and Friends Summit, Elevate by Plato and shares his insights on the future of B2B tech events.During this episode, Poya and Ray discuss the following topics:The state of B2B tech eventsThe future of B2B tech eventsCommunity, Brand or Revenue - the "why" behind B2B tech eventsThe Power of NetworkingThe ROI of B2B tech eventsIf you are considering hosting a b2b tech event, sponsoring a b2b tech event or attending a b2b tech event, this episode is chalked full of insights, perspectives and the return on investment thesis to consider.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

As SaaS pricing evolves to be more variable in nature, such as in Usage-Based Pricing or Value-Based Pricing the requirements for a more flexible billing platform that also enhances the customer experience and also becomes a foundational component of financial reporting.Apurv Bansal, founder at Zenskar is converting that evolving need into a next generation billing platform. During this conversation with Apurv, our host Ray Rike covers the following topics with Apurv:The evolving nature of Usage-Based pricing and its Impact on Billing Software RequirementsThe role of customer experience in billing -Revenue Management - beyond manual processes and platformsRevenue Operations - The impact of Billing PlatformsRecent benchmarking research indicates that over 50% of B2B SaaS companies are leveraging some level of variable pricing, such as Usage-Based Pricing and Value-Based Pricing. If a company's billing is not based upon a flat-rate subscription model, such as a "seat-based" model, the vendor knows the # users BEFORE the next months or years invoice is being calculated - because it is based upon the contact.In a Usage-Based Pricing model - the number of units required to create the bill/invoice needs to come from both the agreement and the "store of usage". This adds a significant level of nuance and complexity to the next generation of SaaS billing.When monthly invoicing is highly variable and dependent the latest usage - not only is calculating the monthly charges become more complex - the customer now needs a more detailed "customer usage report", which may also may need to be provided by user, by system or by whatever triggers a usage based trigger leading to a charge.If you are currently using or considering introducing a highly variable pricing model, and are considering both the infrastructure and the customer experience resulting from monthly invoices which vary materially based upon usage - this conversation is a highly informative and educational on the evolution of pricing models and the resultant billing technology required.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

As B2B SaaS companies scale beyond $20M the complexity of their internal process, systems and SaaS metrics calculations become much more complex. As companies begin to consider a next round of financing and/or evaluate the strategic acquisition option, being able to quickly and reliably provide potential investors the metrics that matter to them is a key factor in how investors will determine not only the "if they will invest" but also "what the enterprise value" is.During this episode, Ray discusses the below topics with J.T. Cecchini, CEO of LevelUp Finance:SaaS Reporting RoadMap5x5 Reporting MatrixLevelUp Finance Valuation FrameworkA Reporting ScoreCardIf you are a CEO, CFO or Revenue Operations leader who is responsible for ensuring the financial reporting and metrics infrastructure, data and processes are ready to scale and stand up to the scrutiny of potential investors, this episode is a great listen!!!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Godard Abel, CEO of G2 and Chad Gold, CFO at G2 led a session at SaaS Metrics Palooza 24'. This is an audio only version of their fireside chat with Metrics that Measure Up host, Ray Rike.During this episode, Godard, Chad and Ray discuss the following topics:When does a company need to hire a CFOWhat is the partnership dynamics between a CEO and CFOWhat are the investor and board responsibilities for a CEO vs CFO at G2What metrics become more important as a company scales to $100M ARR and aboveIf you are a B2B SaaS company, you already know G2 and this conversation is a great opportunity to learn how they use metrics to lead the company to the next level of success!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Imagine a career journey starting as a software developer at NASA, then a B2C video service developer, moving on to the role of a general manager at game developer Zynga, and next heading to be the Head of Growth at Postmates - an early to food delivery service and now founding an FP&A platform company for the Office of Finance - that is the journey of Siqi Chen, Founder and CEO at Runway!During this conversation, we cover three topics with Siqi including:The catalyst for founding a B2B FP&A software companyThe evolution of the Office of FinanceThe importance of User Experience for B2B SoftwareSiqi highlighted his lack of comfort with company financials as a primary catalyst for founding a Financial Planning and Analysis software company. During Covid, Siqi was required to quickly "re-plan" his company financials to present to his VC investor, Andreessen Horowitz and began to understand the pain of existing financial planning processes and the associated software.One of the primary beliefs that Siqi brings to FP&A is that finance has historically been about reporting, but going into the future will become a strategic function and requires a deeper level of business understanding and the ability to model multiple possible scenarios to develop clarity of the path forward.Siqi highlighted the importance of providing the board a solid forward-looking plan, but also the ability to leverage real-time data across multiple systems to aid the decision-making process.  As a company evolves, the number of business systems increases materially and creates a real challenge in using spreadsheets to model business scenarios that depend upon data from multiple systems.Viewing a model as a "business simulation", using strategies from game development is a unique perspective that Siqi's experience in gaming company Zynga. One of the barriers in moving beyond Excel is that as companies scale, it is not about eliminating the use of Excel, it is about highlighting the existing pains of using Excel for financial modeling including the increasing challenges of ingesting data from multiple systems, collaboration across multiple departments and being able to plan on a segment by segment basis.Another challenge in growing companies is that every department has its own "excel model" to plan its function, which is great for a smaller company, but makes it almost impossible to bring 4 - 5 different department models together into one master "company plan".  Hence the requirement for a company-wide FP&A solution that can facilitate collaboration between every department in building a company-wide plan.Finally, we discussed how the learnings from the B2C world help in running a B2B company. First, Siqi highlighted that "unlearning" is a key trait as some strategies that work for building a consumer product do not easily translate into a B2B business. One of the key insights is the importance of speaking to the target users versus using your intuition. Another key un-learning is that the "users" of B2B software are typically NOT the buyers of the software, so the approach to both user experience and messaging must reflect the needs of the economic buyer and the users.If you care about measurements, care about data and are looking for a better way to manage business modeling and having real-time data available to facilitate decision making - this conversation with Siqi is a great listen!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Bill MaCaitis the former Chief Revenue Officer at Slack, and previously the CMO at Slack, CMO at Zendesk, and SVP of Marketing at Salesforce joins our host Ray Rike to share the Marketing Metrics Framework he developed during his experience as a multiple time Chief Marketing Officer. During today's episode Bill and Ray discuss various topics including:Top lessons learned from Marketing leadership roles at category leadersCatalyst for developing a Marketing metrics framework with six categoriesPrioritizing Marketing metrics that the CEO and CFO care aboutStarting his career in more traditional B2C media brands, Bill learned the importance of brand, advertising, and awareness building; He then leveraged that experience in his first B2B Marketing leadership role at Salesforce which was the foundation for his roles as the Chief Marketing Office at Zendesk, Slack, and ultimately the Chief Revenue Officer at Slack.What were the lessons Bill learned at three leading SaaS companies? He started with a lesson he learned at his first company out of college, and that was learning how to drive efficient growth from day one. One of the first things Bill noticed in his first role in a B2B technology company was that Marketing was viewed primarily as a lead generation function. Bill believed that a great B2B company also needed to think about how to build a unique brand and infuse that brand into the voice of the company and the product. He brought that belief and experience into creating amazing brands at Salesforce, Zendesk, and Slack.One of the questions Bill answered was how to measure ROI for Marketing investments into brand and awareness in a B2B company. Bill stated that CFOs want hard-hitting, ROI measurements that prove the return on Marketing investment. Brand may be harder to measure in the short term, but when you view a brand as impacting long term leads. Shorter term metrics to measure brand include unaided recall, aided recall, share of voice, and even brand sentiment.Bill then shared the six categories of metrics that best-in-class B2B Marketers should measure including:Funnel Metrics Brand Metrics Experience Metrics PLG Metrics (Product-Led Growth) Date-Driven Metrics Stakeholder Value Metrics If you are a B2B Marketing professional and are being asked to provide more details about the Metrics that Matter to the CEO and CFO, this conversation is a great listen!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Brad van Leeuwen, Co-Founder and COO- Cledara has built a business helping 1,000 customers in over 30 countries manage their SaaS expenses. This provides Brad with a very unique insight into the state of the total spend in SaaS and the most recent SaaS purchasing trends.During today's episode, we cover four primary topics with Brad:State of SaaS Spend ManagementThe Impact of AI Native Software on SaaSThe Top AI Native CompaniesThe Impact on AI on Sales and MarketingThe first point Brad shared is that buyers are focused on increasing the relationships with their current vendors and the number of new SaaS solutions purchased has decreased by 50% over the last two years. In addition, existing buyers are looking to renew for longer periods and are looking to extend the agreement term in consideration of lower pricing. Thirdly, buyers are being much more discerning in what products they keep, and which they do not renew which increases the churn rate many SaaS vendors are experiencing.One data point Cledara captures is the SaaS momentum index which measures if companies are spending more or less on SaaS in the current year versus the previous year. For the 1H-24 the Index has stayed level at around 100 which means most buyers are not increasing their spend on SaaS products. This is confirmed by the lower growth guidance that many public SaaS companies are providing to the market.Is SaaS consolidation of point solutions happening in companies? The data says yes, companies are looking to consolidate multiple SaaS solutions into larger platforms, except native AI products which are leaning heavily towards point solutions.Next, we asked Brad how "AI purchasing" trends are evolving. Brad says the headlines are that companies are buying lots of different AI products, but when looking at what teams are really buying it starts with Marketing which is allocating 5% of their software purchases to AI. Sales is allocating about 1.3% of their budget to AI tools, but this is increasing quickly having increased from .3% in January 2024.Who is the primary decision maker when buying AI products? Based upon a survey of over 300 company CFOs, AI software is viewed as experimentation, and no tangible ROI has been delivered yet. At the same time, Cledara data shows that user adoption is increasing dramatically being primarily driven by individual contributors which is not seen by the CFO.What are some of the most popular native AI solutions being purchased in 2024? Brad highlighted that Cledara customers are adopting 30-40 new vendors per month across their 1,000+ customers. Once the first customer adopts a particular AI native solution, Brad sees the virality happening very quickly across the customer base...but the issue is churn is happening almost as fast as new solution adoption.AI spend now comprises about 3.5% - 4% of total software spend to AI point solutions, which includes ChatGPT/OpenAI.What is the primary benefit of AI solutions? Brad highlighted that many of the tools bring everyone in a department up to the same level of capabilities. The challenge is when users are forced to increase their productivity/effectiveness beyond the baseline created by everyone using similar tools.Brad highlighted how he used ChatGPT to write an article on the top 100 AI solutions in less than 60 minutes, on a task that would have traditionally taken days. Finally, we asked Brad his perspective on how AI solutions can decrease the staff required to produce the same level of output. Brad believes that the increase in productivity delivered by using AI tools will not primarily lead to a decrease in the amount of employees - rather it will result in more output from the current staff leading to faster revenue growth or growth efficiency.If you are interested in how total SaaS spend is being impacted by the emergence of AI point solutions and/or how AI will impact productivity as measured by increased efficiency and effectiveness - this episode is a great listen!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Kris Rudeegraap, co-founder and co-CEO at Sendoso viewed the emergence of Sales Engagement Platform technology as the beginning of the end for email based outbound demand generation for B2B Sales professionals. This catalyzed him to take the leap to cfound Sendoso, a next-generation direct mail and corporate gifting platform. In today's conversation, we will discuss the history and business impact of Sendoso and corporate gifting including:The catalyst for founding SendosoThe current State of Pipeline GenerationThe impact of corporate gifting on Pipeline GenerationThe impact of corporate gifting on Customer RetentionThe first question we discussed was the most surprising learning Kris has had as a first-time founder and CEO. Kris highlighted that even after 8 years he is still as passionate about the business and vision as ever, and he found that his background in Sales has been extremely valuable in both recruiting employees and raising over $150M in Venture Capital funding. Kris highlighted that there were several similarities between conducting a fundraising effort and enterprise-class sales. One of the advantages Kris felt he had due to his background in sales and that his "founder-led sales" efforts became direct inputs to the product roadmap.Next we pivoted to the reality of today's pipeline generation. First, Kris highlighted that with so many email sequencing tools and now AI tools to send emails that buyers are becoming numb to demand generation emails, as their inboxes become saturated.A common recommendation that Kris provided to any B2B Sales professional is to make every outreach, be it email or a corporate gift to ensure it is personalized to the target buyer. One advantage of corporate gifting is due to it being more expensive than sending an email, the majority of organizations and sales professionals are much more targeted and personalized when sending a "physical gift" to a target prospect.Kris shared that they use the power of AI to determine what type of physical gift would most resonate with different buyer types based upon function and/or title. Next we move onto the performance metrics behind the use of corporate gifting as a key component of pipeline generation programs.Kris shared that corporate gifting programs increase pipeline generation programs as measured by the following benchmarks from research by HockeyStack:3x increase in meeting rates6x increase in second-call rates1.84x increased win rates13% larger deals29% faster sales cycle lengthIf you are responsible for generating pipeline in your company, or for managing the budget allocation to grow revenue profitably, this conversation with Kris provides a lot of great insight into the Return on Investment of integrating corporate gifting into your new customer acquisition and customer retention programs.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

How have product demonstrations evolved in today's buyer self-directed buying process? Andrea Wunderlich leads the product and customer marketing function at Maxio and recently introduced their virtual product tour. In today's self-directed buyer journey, it's good to break down how virtual product tours can be leveraged to serve the buyer, when and where they prefer.During this episode, several topics regarding launching a virtual product tour center include:The Genesis of the Maxio Virtual Tour CenterOvercoming concerns of competitors knowing about your product feature/functionThe opportunities and challenges of leveraging “open source” demonstration venues and channelsMeasuring the impact of buyer self-directed solution toursWhen should a product demonstration be used in a considered B2B selling environment? Andrea highlighted the commonly used process of first doing a discovery call and then moving into a demonstration call. Over the past two years, corporate buyers have wanted a more "B2C" buying experience and the sooner the better is the time to show the basics of the software and then move into a more tailored demonstration once the vendor better understands the unique requirements of a specific customer. If 65% - 70% of the buyer's journey is completed before they speak to a salesperson - why not ensure the potential buyers can understand the basic feature/function of your software?The genesis of the Maxio Virtual Tour Center was introduced by a new marketing hire who highlighted the trend for B2B SaaS companies to offer a virtual product tour to ensure potential buyers do not "self-qualify out" before they see the details of the product's capability. Using video is an expensive option, and in addition as products evolve quickly the entire video often needs to be recorded again and again. A virtual product tour platform primarily uses product screen shots and if a feature evolves, only one screenshot needs to be updated, and it is automatically inserted into the existing virtual product tour.  A KEY criteria to make the virtual product tour successful was having a champion who was passionate about making the virtual environment a reality.Gated or non-gated virtual product tours? Andrea strongly believes that removing all friction to get potential buyers to engage early in the buying process is critical to ensure that many companies can understand the product's features and function. Experiencing the Maxio solution without having to engage with sales was a key criterion to providing a low-friction, non gated approach to the virtual product experience.One of the interesting findings was the product tour center is used more in the middle of the funnel, versus a top of funnel first-time experience. Maxio has found that the tour center is used and then shared more by potential customers after a first sales call. With the target buyers of both the CFO and the product leader thinking about how to monetize (bill) their product, the virtual tour center was a better way to get the majority of the buying committee members to understand the capabilities of the product.How to measure the business impact and value of a virtual product tour center? One of the hard things about trying something new is the long tail aspect of the virtual product tour. Andrea highlighted that expectations were set that this would be at least a six-month timeframe before the ROI could be validated and that with the virtual product tour being a lower-cost initiative, the longer term ROI was acceptable. Initially, the engagement rate was the primary measurement, and then over time (6+ months), they could look into their attribution tool to see how the virtual product tour users were converting into qualified pipeline and new ARR.If you have a SaaS product and you are looking for new, innovative ways to get the potential target buyers to understand how your product aligns with their unique requirements - this is a great conversation to hear!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Greg Galant, Founder and CEO at Muck Rack created the industry's first Public Relations (PR) marketplace for journalists looking for great articles and for the companies producing those topics interesting to a target audience.The catalyst for creating Muck RackOvercoming Friction between Marketing, PR Agencies, and the PressWhat role does the Press play in a Content Marketing Strategy The future of PR in the “AI” eraGreg's journey started in 2005 when he launched the Venture Voice podcast with amazing guests including Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), Yelp Founder, and many more including Ed Williams, Founder Odeo - a first-generation podcast directory. The catalyst for starting a podcast was Greg's experience at CNN.com as an associate producer where he was looking for ways to download news stories from CNN onto his iPod.  In fact, the term podcast emanated from Apple and the iPod using RSS feeds to link to an audio clip.The above experience at CNN.com was the catalyst for creating his own podcast to highlight the stories of successful entrepreneurs. Venture Voice continued 2005 -2010 and Greg discontinued producing new episodes until Covid hit in 2020, and the additional free time created by being locked into his apartment stimulated Greg to restart the podcast with the first new episode guest - Mark Cuban!This experience highlighted the need for a website that could amplify those social media influencers that people should be following and an associated event named "The Shorty Awards".In 2009, Greg and his co-founder launched Muck Rack to help journalists find interesting founders and topics that would be great for their publications. At the same time, businesses started to use Muck Rack to identify those journalists they could pitch for an article that supported their business and increased their brand awareness.Today, Fortune 500 companies, publications, and journalists alike use Muck Rack as a match-making platform for public relations-centric content.If you are a fellow entrepreneur and love learning about other founders' journey to creating a new company or media asset, this conversation with Greg is a great listen!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

How to create a "metrics-centric" business culture - a topic that Jay Topper, Chief Customer Officer at Fabric, and Ray our host cover in great detail on this episode of the Metrics that Measure Up podcast. During this episode, Jay and Ray discuss the following topics in detail:How to build a metrics cultureValue of enterprise education and uplifting on metricsHow to maximize the business impact of metricsThree key metrics pillars including Accuracy, Relevancy and PresentationJay started his career in the military and then became a Chief Information Officer in multiple retail businesses. He then launched the third stage of his career as the Chief Customer Officer at Fabric, a leading Omni Channel e-commerce optimization platform.The first thing Jay shared was the need to fully immerse himself in the corporate world after leaving the military. His experience in helping to deploy an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system forced him to learn the basics of business processes from the ground up. This experience created his passion for learning, and seeking out ways to learn something new about business every day.What are the top challenges when companies begin their metrics journey? First, you need to know what to measure and why you need to measure it. These might be the top 2 or 3 measurements that are most important to your company, and then begin to drill down into how those metrics are impacted by each level of the business. A common theme is to keep the metrics simple to avoid the complexity and noise of too many measurements, especially if they are not connected to each other.Another best practice is to socialize the priority across the company to gain cross-department buy-in which leads to every organization having a common understanding and commitment to the same performance measurements.How to create a "metrics-centric" culture? It starts with ensuring the entire company knows why a metric is important - not only internally but also for the customers you are serving! One step further can even be understanding what is important to your customers customers. In retail and eCommerce this is extremely important as the value you are adding to your "corporate customer" is to enhance and improve how they are treating/serving their retail customers.The more people in your company who can articulate and understand the top measurements (metrics) for the company and the company's customers will inherently lead to a better-performing company as measured by revenue, profitability, and customer satisfaction.Another key is to ensure that Finance and the Go-to-Market functions such as Marketing, Sales and Customer Success define, calculate, and discuss every metric using a commonly defined calculation foundation.How to communicate your understanding or even assumptions of your customer's business and measurements of success? The number one trait is the ability to "listen" to your customers, especially in understanding the business process and measurements they are trying to improve. Though you may have your own perspectives and templates on the business process your solution automates and enhances - the value proposition should include the customer's priorities, measurements, and goals for their business...and the buyer's personal objectives.If you are involved with how your company uses metrics or a senior leader trying to create a metrics-centric culture, this episode is a great listen!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Niclas Lilja, Founder and CEO at Younium recently joined our host, Ray Rike on the Metrics that Measure Up podcast to discuss his decision to re-locate from Sweden to the United States to better understand the U.S. buyer's market for recurring revenue billing solutions. During this fast-moving 30-minute conversation, Nic and Ray discuss the following topics:The Evolution of SaaS Pricing (yesterday, today and tomorrow)Global Expansion - The Cultural ChallengesHow Usage-Based or Hybrid Pricing Impacts SaaS Metrics CalculationTop 3 learnings as a European Founder and CEO entering the U.S. MarketWhy is there an opportunity for another SaaS billing and revenue management solution? The story begins with the evolution of SaaS pricing and where it is heading? Niclas highlighted the evolution to more complex product-led growth and usage-based pricing models, especially in AI solutions is creating a more flexible billing solution that can handle the nuances of every pricing model. Moreover, the ability to "experiment" with new pricing models will be critical for companies to test and identify the best pricing model for this solution and their target market(s).Why do companies evaluate a new or different billing solution? Though the evolution of hybrid pricing is one good catalyst, having billing software that can manage the revenue recognition process to compress the time to close the financial books is also an important variable. Though it is hard to believe, many SaaS companies do not have a robust billing and revenue management infrastructure leading to time-consuming manual mistakes and the associated time required to close the books. Another catalyst is when companies evolve into different markets with different pricing, a more comprehensive and flexible billing and revenue management reporting capability is required.Younium has a very focused Go-to-Market strategy, including a decision to focus primarily on the recurring revenue technology industry.  This dedicated Ideal Customer Profile focus required entering the U.S. Market if they can achieve their dream of being a $100M ARR company.What are some of the differences between selling to U.S. companies and selling to European companies? The first thing Niclas highlighted is that U.S. companies are quicker to adopt new trends and technologies. At the same time, U.S. companies are more focused on "what are" the benefits of a new technology versus in Europe, it's more about "how do we achieve" those benefits including a road map on how to move from the current state to the future state the software enables.If you are a B2B SaaS company evaluating how to increase the pace of pricing experimentation, shorten the financial close process, enhance revenue management and reporting, or are an international SaaS company considering entering the U.S. market this conversation is full of great insights, experience, and ideas.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Michelle Valentine, Founder and CEO of Anrok is taking on the Sales Tax compliance challenges for B2B SaaS companies. Global Sales Tax compliance is a critical obstacle to successfully deploying a global Product-Led Growth strategy.Michelle's conversation with our host, Ray Rike covers a wide array of topics including:Evolution of Sales Tax and Compliance in SaaSChallenges of Global Sales Tax ComplianceDynamic Nature of SaaS Sales TaxEvolution from Investment Banking to Venture Capital to B2B SaaS Founder/CEOWhat was the catalyst for Michelle to found Anrok? Michelle's experience as a SaaS investor was on a run with a founder along the Embarcadero in San Francisco, and she was sharing their company's challenge with tax compliance which sparked the idea. Thinking back to the early days of Amazon, most states did not initially tax e-commerce sales - but that has changed dramatically over the last 10+ years and Michelle saw the same change to B2B SaaS in the future!Michelle provided the history of State sales tax in the 1920s, which was introduced on physical retail store sales as a revenue source for States. In 2018, a similar concept began to be deployed by States on cloud-delivered software (SaaS) - though it is to be noted that California never charged for software sold in the state. Stimulated by COVID-19, a new reality was introduced - if you had an employee, even a remote employee in a state, you had to charge Sales Tax in that state. Based upon a Supreme Court case in 2018 (South Dakota vs Wayfair), there is also a "revenue threshold" that requires companies to collect sales taxes in the state of the customer that bought software/SaaS from the company. Think about the challenge of staying on top of each state's Sales Tax laws, and then how much more difficult that becomes when expanding globally.Many countries worldwide will require sales tax on even the first sales in that country.  VAT ID validation is one approach to determine if a specific transaction requires sales tax collection - but each country does have different local thresholds.Why is now the time for next-generation sales tax compliance software? The majority of sales tax compliance software was built for consumer companies, and was not developed to understand global sales tax compliance, was not built with recurring revenue in mind and thus did not have the data model flexibility to expand and adapt to a rapidly changing regulatory environment. Even cities like Chicago are now requiring software purchased and/or used in their jurisdiction to be taxed.If you lead a B2B SaaS company that is selling your solution to companies in states outside of where your company is headquartered, and especially if you are considering selling to companies around the globe, this conversation with Michelle is full of amazing Sales Tax compliance insights that make for an insightful listen!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Henry Schuck, Founder and CEO has been leading ZoomInfo since he first founded the company in his law school dorm room through multiple funding rounds leading to an IPO in 2020. Henry shares his journey and his leadership evolution which continues today as he maneuvers the industry's choppy waters of 2023 and 2024!The journey from founding DiscoverOrg to the ZoomInfo IPO…and beyondData-driven processes and decisions - how they are used at ZoomInfoLessons learned from leading a public company during an industry correctionHenry founded ZoomInfo 17 years ago in his law school dorm when he was 23 years old.  The goal was and continues to be to provide Sales and Marketing professionals with the most up-to-date data to inform them who their prospects are who their buyers are and if they are in the market for their category of solutions.The journey started as a boot-strapped business with two first-time founders including $50,000 of personal credit card funding! TA Associates was the first outside capital brought into the company when the company hit $30M Run Rate revenue, which allowed for investing into the business including acquisitions and scaling Go-to-Market.In 2017 they acquired RainKing and then acquired ZoomInfo in 2019 and that was when the original company - DiscoverOrg became ZoomInfo. The primary market had traditionally been the B2B Technology industry, and the ZoomInfo acquisition enabled a more horizontal focus across additional industries focused on B2B Selling.On June 4, 2020 ZoomInfo went public - how did that change Henry's role as the CEO? The first statement was you do not want being in a public company to change you as a leader much, but at the same time, there are new responsibilities including a new set of investors. Moreover, as a public company, you are constantly fundraising as you need to meet the institutional investors regularly and the public stakeholders are more transient, and building trust with them is critical.Staying focused on what is most important in running the business and executing is still an important role of the CEO, which does not change dramatically as a CEO. One of the things that does change materially as a company scales is to hire people who can take on the majority of day-to-day execution of the strategy. At the same time, the CEO focuses more on setting the strategy and hiring great executive leaders. The acquisition of RainKing required Henry to build the skills of integrating a competitive company and its employees into the company, and then the acquisition of ZoomInfo made the company much larger which requires an additional skill set of leading a larger workforce.Henry shared how does a CEO know if an executive can scale to the next level of the company's growth.  One, they need to learn quickly and simultaneously they need to build a great team underneath them to help scale their function. A great team allows the department head to take additional time to learn the skills required at that stage of the company's evolution. Without a great team, that learning process is compressed and may not afford the department executive the time to grow on the job without negatively impacting the business.One of the most important parts of the executive leadership team's role is to be very aligned with the CEO to intimately understand the vision and then to ensure you are executing the priorities that align with the vision.How does the role of the CEO of a public company change during a period of economic uncertainty (post ZIRP) and decreasing growth? The difference in leadership when growth decelerates is you can not spend as much, so the need to build the muscle to determine the best way to prioritize investments increases.  Another key change is the need for "transparency" increases as growth decelerates, including providing the narrative so it is not developed out of thin air.  Things like here is where we are succeeding, here is where we are struggling, and then monthly updates on how the company is performing as measured against the priorities, the strengths, and the threats.Henry says that in 2024 they have their best people ever, and the best level of engagement which he credits to having a higher level of transparency.Henry shared the importance data plays in their decision-making. Henry highlighted one area is if there is a data source that identifies prospects that will convert into customers at a higher rate and with an increased velocity. One example was to identify prospects that did not show up to a scheduled meeting and then take a systemic, data-driven approach to follow up with those no-shows and get them back into an active sales cycle. This "play" became a material source of new customer ARR every month!If you are a founder, a CEO, or a Go-to-Market executive this conversation with Henry is full of great insights and ideas on how to scale a company and increase GTM efficacy in today's changing purchasing

Matthew Blumberg, author of the Start-Up CEO Field Guide and founder of Bolster provides his insights and highlights from his series of books for start-up executives. Our host, Ray Rike, and Matthew discuss many of the main topics in the Start-Up CEO and directly from Matthew's experience as a multiple-time founder and CEO including:Lessons from being the founder & CEO at the same company for ~ 20 yearsImportance of Authentic Leadership in Changing TimesMoving beyond Storytelling to Execution to Selling your companyEach book in the "Start-Up" series was written specifically to help founders and CEOs use each book as a guide along their journey as a founder and as a CEO.What are the unique experiences gained from founding and running the company for almost 20 years? Learning how to pace yourself for the long term is key. Moreover, if you want an organization that is engaged and vibrant it starts with YOU...keeping yourself engaged and vibrant is served well by viewing each day, month, and year as a new opportunity to learn grow, and evolve as a leader. This is especially important as each stage of growth requires a different skill set than what got you there.One of the challenges of leading a company for an extended period is keeping those employees who have also been around for a long time to keep them fresh and get good at rotating people into different departments. One of the advantages of this approach is that they already have tribal knowledge and share the company's values.The Start-Up CEO is broken into six sections, and one is "Managing yourself so you can manage others". Why was this an important topic to Matthew? One was his journey to learning how to receive feedback gracefully, which is hard for everyone, and took Matthew a while to become good at receiving feedback. One of the key lessons Matthew learned was the need to "act upon" the input to make sure the person sharing the feedback is assured it was heard and accepted.Another learning was that Matthew's orientation to "think by talking" and "manage by walking around" could be a double-edged sword. Sometimes employees will take a conversation that the CEO thinks is an idea vetting opportunity that can be viewed as a "decision" versus "discussion", especially with people lower in the organization.Another example of needing to be careful of your natural orientation is being a "pacesetter", who is more focused on getting stuff done versus building long-term relationship capital.Why did Matt write a second edition of the "Start-Up CEO"? It was because he had recently sold Return Path, and he wanted to finish the book including his company being sold, and he also wanted to capture many of the social learnings from leading a company during COVID and the resultant change in the workforce that evolved during the remote work era.One of the final topics Matthew and Ray discussed was the value of collecting data from both internal resources and external sources, especially customers. Matthew highlighted his use of "active eavesdropping" to hear how employees communicated the company messaging to prospects and customers, and also hear what customers were saying to the rank and file that may not be shared with the CEO.If you are a first-time CEO or preparing for the next phase of growth in leading your company, this episode and conversation is a great listen!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Julio Martinez, Founder and CEO of Abacum has been involved in Finance for most of his career. He then transitioned into the technology industry and was responsible for launching products for 4 years before founding Abacum.During this episode, we will cover 4 primary topics with Julio:The vision behind founding AbacumThree common FP&A mistakesFP&A’s role in developing corporate strategyUnique challenges of a start-up in a crowded categoryWhat was the catalyst for founding Abacum? After 20 years working with Finance teams across hundreds of companies, Julio saw and felt his client's pain of managing the financial planning and modeling process which was an area that Julio had seen challenges repeating again and again for his clients.What are the most common challenges facing the FP&A leader in 2024? The most important one is that FP&A teams need near real-time access to financial and operational data to deliver near real-time insights based on the metrics that matter to the senior leadership team. Today, it is a very manual process for most FP&A teams.The above need suggested that FP&A is being asked to go beyond period-specific modeling, planning, and budgeting and be able to have insights on near real-time performance, at least every week, and highlight the metrics trends quickly to the executive decision-makers.Over the last 10 years, FP&A's role has been elevated to a more strategic function that is involved in analyzing performance trends and metrics "in-period" to accelerate how their insights are factored into the next period's operating decisions and priorities.One of the recent posts that Julio made on LinkedIn focused on the most common mistakes that FP&A organizations make. A classic first mistake under indexing the importance of partnering and building strong relationships with other departments and their leadership. This "relationship capital" will result in gaining additional insights into the issues impacting the financial performance trends. A second challenge is the FP&A professional is great at modeling and using analytical tools, but often does not understand the business well enough to gain a seat at the executive table to go beyond reporting on performance trends, but also on what to do about the challenges facing the business.Many finance teams are spending 60% - 80% of their time gathering and modeling financial performance trends, and if they could flip that time to 60% - 80% of their time being spent on the analysis and then solution ideation specific to what the financial operations reports are surfacing.Next, we discussed the unique challenges of introducing a new product into a function and process that has been using technology and mature vendors for many years and even decades in certain industries. Julio says it starts with diving deep into your target market's and prospects' business to answer how your product meets their highest priority pain points and the challenges that are specific to their environment. Secondly, Julio highlighted having a "strong opinion" and "innovation" into how technology can address business processes and challenges that still exist even after using alternative technologies or approaches. Another key factor is to ensure that some of the key customer-facing resources are "domain experts" who have served in the role of their buyers and users and can quickly develop shared experience and trust-based relationships with both the customers and the internal product team.If you are responsible for leading an FP&A team, or use the outputs of the FP&A team to plan, manage, and improve your operational function this conversation with Julio Martinez, Founder and CEO Abacum is a great listen!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sean Brophy, the Head of Global Sales at Pigment joins our host, Ray Rike to discuss selling the Return on Investment of Financial Planning, Modeling, and Forecasting Software to both the Chief Financial Officer and the Chief Revenue Officer.Topics discussed during the conversation include:The challenges of selling to the CFO & CRO as economic buyersHow the business perspective on the value of planning, modeling, and forecasting has evolvedProving value and ROI to the CFO as the economic buyerTop Sales Performance MetricsSean has spent 20+ years on helping companies turn data into information that empowers more informed decisions. The first topic we covered was the unique challenge of selling to finance and revenue executive decision-makers. Pigment started solving problems for the office of Finance, and learned that integrated planning impacts not only finance but also the other functions, including Sales, Human Resources, and Supply chain to name a few. This requires the sales hires to be business-focused first and have the ability to effectively move across functions during the sales process.Top-down or bottom-up sales to the office of Finance? Sean prefers the initial entry point being with the CFO anchoring upon the unique value that aligns with their top objectives and biggest challenges. CFOs are typically looking for at least a 2x - 3x return on investment, which requires a hypothesis aligned to the metrics the CFO is targeting for improvement.Next, we discussed the rising importance of FP&A, and where we are in this department's maturity? Sean highlighted that more FP&A teams are acknowledging the fact that the current FP&A tool set is not meeting today's business requirements. FP&A today goes beyond reporting and is being asked to iterate financial plans in real-time using the latest data and then modeling different scenarios to be able to adjust the financial plan based on the latest data and trends.Then I asked Sean if FP&A has a seat and strategic role at the executive leadership table? Sean said FP&A is more strategic than ever, and a big part of that is their role of being able to leverage the most recent data and provide insights and recommendations on the latest financial trends - not those from multiple quarters ago.CFOs are prioritizing solutions that drive increased efficiency and more profitable revenue. This includes helping executive sales leaders build better revenue plans that increase productivity and increases revenue growth efficiency. This begs the question of selling value, which Sean says should be part of every Sales 101 model. Sean suggests that every sales process begins with asking what is the business value to the potential customer, and what metrics they will use to measure the return on investment of any new technology solution. Beyond selling, Value engineering will create a "value hypothesis" that is conservative and then shared to be validated by the buyer's champions who will typically start collaborating on the value hypothesis which is often increased from the initial "conservative" ROI presented.What the are primary metrics Sean uses to measure Sales Productivity and he presents to his CFO and CEO? Sean highlighted top line ARR growth as the top metric, but also Customer Acquisition Cost efficiency including the average Cost per Acquired Customer to ensure efficient growth trends. Sales Productivity as measured by the cost of the seller measured against quota delivered is the other TOP efficiency metrics Sean uses.If you are responsible for marketing and/or selling solutions to the CFO and/or CRO, this conversation with Sean Brophy, Head of Global Sales at Pigment is a great listen!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sally Duby, Chief Sales Officer at The Bridge Group shares the latest SaaS Account Executive Benchmark Report based upon their research which they have been conducting since 2007.During the episode we cover a wide array of topics and benchmarks from the report including:Account Executive Compensation Trends (OTE, Base Salary and Commissions)AE Quota Trends - By Annual Contract ValueAE Quota Achievement TrendsWin Rate TrendsExpansion and Renewal ResponsibilitiesThe full report is available by clicking here.If you are responsible for hiring, managing. modeling AE comp plans or have Account Executives in your company, this conversation and report is full of new insights and trends on the state of B2B SaaS Account Executive metrics trends and benchmarks!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.