The Distributed Truth

Christopher Dunagan is a highly experienced marketing technology revenue operations professional, with stints at Oracle, Microsoft, Hitachi Consulting and, most recently, Aurora Solar. Chris currently consults with growth-stage companies and helps them scale without the wheels falling off. Find Chris at revopsroad.com.

Chris joins Evan to discuss the shift to focus on go-to-market efficiency, and how customer experience mapping to a data model is vital to a unified sales, marketing, and CS group. Chris dives into how to calculate net revenue retention and why it’s so difficult to pull data from multiple systems. Chris brings seasoned wisdom to what is generally treated as a new function - a global, executive revenue operations function.

TRUTHS OF THE DAY

CHRIS: THE PROBLEM WITH BAD DATA

“When you have bad data, what happens is that a lot of times you end up with kind of a confirmation bias where you don't really know what you don't know, you make a hypothesis based on the data.”

CHRIS: THE IMPORTANCE OF DATA QUALITY

“One of the pre-step or pre-work things that you need to do is really assess the data quality of the systems. So let's just say you've got an alignment, if you don't have a tool like Syncari, frequently, you do have challenges with data quality, and I'd say that kind of just table stakes for any ongoing discussion, you've got to solve for that first.”

Connect with Christopher and learn more about his work:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-dunagan-revops-consultant-0870522/
• RevOps Road: https://revopsroad.com/

Connect with Evan to learn more about Syncari and The Distributed Truth podcast:

• Evan Dunn | Syncari | Syncari.com

Make sure to leave a comment, and subscribe!

Nate Sooter runs Business Analytics, and generally all things data, at Insightly. He began back in Customer Success at Rosetta Stone, then spent time in sales ops and analyst roles at Funko and Merkle, before eventually leading BI Operations at SmartSheet. Nate brings a sharp perspective to the conversation of who owns which aspects of customer data, especially given he works very closely with Sales Operations in his current role.

Nate joins us to share his real-world experience operating as a bridge between data, analytics, and revenue operations. As Nate reports to the CRO in his current role, we tease out the relationship between Go-To-Market and Product organizations regarding customer data programs. Listen for some useful distinctions between operational and analytical data, the importance of data modeling as a fundamental practice, and the tension between growth and data governance, only here in The Distributed Truth.

TRUTHS OF THE DAY

NATE: WHY YOU NEED DATA MODELING

“What you end up with is if you don't have data modeling really figured out, you start putting data in the wrong places.”

NATE: STARTING A CONCEPTUAL MODEL

“I try to start with what the business needs and how the business thinks about, and then from there develop a data model based on the business.”

Connect with Nate and learn more about his work:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathansooter/
• Insightly: https://www.insightly.com/

Connect with Evan to learn more about Syncari and The Distributed Truth podcast:

• Evan Dunn | Syncari | Syncari.com

Make sure to leave a comment, and subscribe!

Welcome to another episode and today, Evan welcomes Bryan Plaster from Intelligage.io.

The buyer journey is a complex process that involves many stages, from the initial awareness of a problem to the final purchase decision. Each stage requires a different approach and understanding of the customer's needs and preferences. 

Intelligage.io is a tool that can help businesses navigate through the entire buyer journey and provide a better customer experience, and Bryan will be walking us through its details, in this latest episode of The Distributed Truth.

TRUTHS OF THE DAY

BRYAN: WHAT IS INTELLIGAGE.IO?

“We're an intelligent engagement cloud, and we focus on real-time coaching for sales and CS teams, real-time predictions based on our intent complemented value, which we'll talk more about, and then running that journey, orchestration with the data.”

BRYAN: CUSTOMER SUCCESS = CONSISTENT EXPERIENCE

“Customer success is starting to expand and grow, and proliferation was great. It's all about how you make sure the customer has a great experience, and well, that has to be a consistent experience, the whole will become greater, and that's why you need technology to really help you define that across your team.”

Connect with Bryan and learn more about his work:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryanplaster/
• Intelligage.io: https://intelligage.io/

Connect with Evan to learn more about Syncari and The Distributed Truth podcast:

• Evan Dunn | Syncari | Syncari.com

Make sure to leave a comment, and subscribe!

James McArthur is the Director of RevOps at Nue.io, and previously ran RevOps at LeafLink and Go Nimbly. Prior to revenue operations, he spent a decade in sales, and he shows his ability to advocate for RevOps as a strategic contributor in this episode.

James joins Evan to discuss how RevOps teams and leaders can develop data ownership and data competency, where he takes us on a wild ride of great analogies. James brings detailed recommendations for how to get started with data models, and mapping the customer journey to the systems, so make sure you stay tuned until the end of this latest episode of The Distributed Truth.

TRUTHS OF THE DAY

JAMES: UNDERSTAND YOUR CUSTOMERS

“Anytime you go into a company, I don't care if the company is 3 people in a room or 8000 people across the world. So the first thing is to understand how your customers get in the door, how your prospects get in the door, and how your customers leave the door.”

JAMES: DATA MODEL X CUSTOMER LIFECYCLE

“The data model and the customer lifecycle are entwined because otherwise, insights are impossible. We always talk about garbage in, garbage out but the other side of this is, if you don't have structure, even if you've got gold, the gold is in the closet, and you're out in the yard, take it like the reality is you may already have it, and you just don't have access to the data.”

Connect with James and learn more about his work:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jrmcarthur/
• Nue.io: https://www.nue.io/

Connect with Evan to learn more about Syncari and The Distributed Truth podcast:

• Evan Dunn | Syncari | Syncari.com

Make sure to leave a comment, and subscribe!

In this episode of The Distributed Truth, Evan welcomes Michael Boyd, who is the Head of Customer Success at Vanta. Previously, Michael ran Customer Success at SecurityScorecard, Tanium, and Pythian. Michael has spent over 20 years in enterprise B2B post-sales delivery roles.

This week Michael Boyd brings a concise, useful perspective into how Customer Success teams can truly become central to their organizations’ performance. “Time-to-first-value” as a metric can deliver a unifying momentum, and reflect real adoption among a customer base so the entire company can celebrate meaningful success. 

Evan and Michael discuss rising interest in CS operations, particularly around data, thanks to product-led growth and the focus on efficient revenue creation, particularly via interest from VCs in net dollar retention.

TRUTHS OF THE DAY

MICHAEL: CS IS THE CENTRAL GEAR

“I always feel customer success is the central gear in the bigger engine we want and for our companies to go fast, and it has got to go fast. If the engine is going to go fast, that means CS has to be there driving it. I know my product friends don't like that they think product’s the biggest gear, education, they think they're an important gear but CS touches everybody.”

MICHAEL: IMPORTANCE OF DATA IN CUSTOMER SUCCESS

“You can't measure what you can't see for our tools that help you see all those cybersecurity risks that could pose a threat to you. And it's almost the same analogy in customer success. We can't grow what we can't see.”

MICHAEL: START WITH WHAT YOU HAVE

“Start with what you have and iterate. I always tell my team that, yes, we will never have perfect data from the product, from the financial side, from any of it. Let's start with what we have, and then we can incrementally build on that, as we both try and manage our groups better, grow our teams better, and ultimately tell our story, both internally and eventually externally a lot better.”

Connect with Michael and learn more about his work:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mjboydcitp/
• Vanta website: https://www.vanta.com/

Connect with Evan to learn more about Syncari and The Distributed Truth podcast:

• Evan Dunn | Syncari | Syncari.com

Make sure to leave a comment, and subscribe!

Evan Dunn welcomes Joe Reis today, as they talk about the role of a data scientist and data teams. Joe is the CEO of Ternary Data and Best Selling Co-author of Fundamentals of Data Engineering. He will be sharing his personal experience working with data teams and will be discussing really in-depth details such as what a data scientist is, its value in marketing, the problems and challenges with data teams, and many more, in this latest episode of The Distributed Truth podcast.

TRUTHS OF THE DAY

JOE: DASHBOARD USEFULNESS AND DASHBOARD FATIGUE

“The dashboard is there more to show the status quo, and then you would, in order to get value from a dashboard, it's like you would have to be prone to making a different decision in order for the dashboard to be useful to you. That's the only thing that would trigger a new type of analysis is when you have a different question, which makes sense on the surface.”

JOE: BEST OUTCOMES OF DATA

“The best outcomes for data are always those are attached to things that are just driving outcomes, and hopefully, in a way that we're the feedback loop is really short so you can iterate. Again, data is all about hypothesis, testing, reevaluating your assumptions, and so forth.”

Connect with Joe and learn more about his work:

• Joe Reis | Ternary Data

Connect with Evan to learn more about Syncari and The Distributed Truth podcast:

• Evan Dunn | Syncari | Syncari.com

Make sure to leave a comment, and subscribe!

Welcome to another episode of The Distributed Truth. Today, Evan welcomes Richard Makara, CEO and Co-Founder of reconfigured.io, a data product that helps people edit SQL for improved data models and better data quality. 

In this episode, Richard articulates a crucial concept for understanding why so many software teams struggle with customer data issues: the gap in objectives and knowledge between product teams, who usually own data teams and tech, and Go-To-Market (GTM) teams. One is tasked with engagement and has room for deep, even esoteric, analysis, while the other is tasked with revenue and must execute rapidly at all costs. The alignment issues that arise from this disjointed mechanism are devastating to efficiency and growth.

TRUTHS OF THE DAY

RICHARD: PUT SOME THOUGHT INTO THE INTEGRATION

“The integrations exist because they have to, but HubSpot doesn't care about Salesforce being, you know, populate it properly, and Salesforce doesn't care about HubSpot. So the integration is there to move data. But it's not there to move context, and context, again, is what makes these tools so powerful. It's not like you spin up a Salesforce instance. And then it's magically great. You actually have to put some thought design into it, you have to figure out how the automation works, which parts are automated, which aren't.”

RICHARD: THOUGHTS ON DATA QUALITY

"At the end of the day, data quality isn't an issue of a piece of a tool or software, it's, it's predominantly an issue of those who build the data, design it and then use it. So when we have humans involved, and when things are changing, you're always going to have data quality issues. We are unpredictable beings. And we can never expect every single person to behave in the same way. "

Connect with Richard and learn more about his work:

• Richard Makara | reconfigured | reconfigured.io

Connect with Evan to learn more about Syncari and The Distributed Truth podcast:

• Evan Dunn | Syncari | Syncari.com

Make sure to leave a comment, and subscribe!

As a 2X exited CRO, Toni Hohlbein has what it takes to talk about RevOps in today’s episode. He is a Co-Founder and the CEO of Growblocks. Toni and Evan discuss the growing RevOps job title and the increasing popularity of RevOps. Toni believes that RevOps has been gaining popularity due to the focus on efficiency in business operations, and the truth of whether it truly brings efficiency to the table or not. Toni will also be delving into the evolutions of sales, planning & forecasting of revenue, what efficiencies are created in RevOps, and a whole lot more in this latest episode of The Distributed Truth.

TRUTHS OF THE DAY

TONI: WIN BY UNDERSTANDING THE WORLD THROUGH DATA

“The kind of people that try and understand the world through data and through scientific kind of approaches and through the lens that we are advocating for, I think they will win by the way and I think that's kind of the new wave that we are basically enabling right now for revenue operators to go to market and just Just crush it.”

TONI: IT ALL STARTS WITH BENCHMARKING

"Try external benchmarking, try internal benchmarking against your baseline against your plan, and then try to add to your revenue engine customer acquisition costs to see inefficiencies and try and realize those, and if you make all of that stuff available to your commercial decision makers, I am very sure that someone there is going to come up with ideas to improve your engine that is efficiency based and not let's hire another headcount base."

Connect with Toni and learn more about his work:

• Toni Hohlbein | Growblocks | Growblocks.com

Connect with Evan to learn more about Syncari and The Distributed Truth Podcast:

• Evan Dunn | Syncari | Syncari.com

Welcome to another episode and today, we welcome Andy Mowat, CEO and Co-Founder of Gated, a new approach to solving email overload. Before this, Andy ran business operations and GTM operations at Upwork, Box, and CultureAmp. In this episode, we dig deep into the rising tide of RevOps, and how RevOps leaders can take ownership of the customer data layer beneath their Go-To-Market stack. Learn more about Andy in this latest episode of The Distributed Truth.

TRUTHS OF THE DAY

ANDY: WHAT GATED IS BUILT FOR

“We are not building a tool for sales and marketing. We're building a tool for the people that sales and marketing hits. And we think in the process, we can make the world better for everyone.”

ANDY: ON HOW TO GET ACCESS TO CUSTOMER DATA

"The world should not have to learn SQL to be good at data."

Connect with Andy and learn more about his work:

• Andy Mowat | Gated

Connect with Evan to learn more about Syncari and The Distributed Truth podcast:

• Evan Dunn | Syncari | Syncari.com

It’s another episode and today, Evan welcomes Pedram Navid, formerly the Head of Data at Hightouch. Pedram talks about how he got in the industry and shares his insights and advice about the importance of understanding the business to have more effective data analytics that drives it with value. Find out more in this latest episode of The Distributed Truth podcast.

TRUTHS OF THE DAY

PEDRAM: UNDERSTAND THE BUSINESS AND ITS GOALS

“You have to understand your business. It's not about the data, it's not about the tools. That's not why you were hired. Nobody cares if you're using snowflake or BigQuery. At the end of the day, what they care about, is the health of the company. Do you understand how the company makes money? Do you understand how the company sells your product? To understand how the company builds their product? If not, you need to know all of those things.”

PEDRAM: ALIGN WITH THE LEADERS OF THE BUSINESS

“You need to understand if you're going to be a leader in a company, what the leaders of the company care about, and then once you have that, then I think the rest of it becomes really easy. But without that, you're just a data analyst. At the end of the day, you're not really a data leader.”

Connect with Pedram and learn more about his work:

• Pedram Navid | Learn Pedram’s offerings

Connect with Evan to learn more about Syncari and The Distributed Truth podcast:

• Evan Dunn | Syncari | Syncari.com

Make sure to leave a comment, and subscribe!