The Revenue Cafe

In this episode of The Revenue Cafe Podcast by Breadcrumbs Hot Takes Live, Alvaro Soto, Director of Product Management and Growth at Procore, discusses the importance of product teams taking ownership of revenue goals. He highlights the need to understand how to achieve revenue targets and convert usage into monetary value. Alvaro addresses the discomfort that product and UX research teams may experience when discussing money and monetization. He explains that in sales-led organizations, there is often a disconnect between product and revenue targets. However, with the introduction of product growth, this mindset needs to change. The session also touches upon the tendency for organizations to rely on third-party vendors for research and the importance of asking unbiased questions. Alvaro emphasizes the significance of accurate customer intent to purchase research and suggests incorporating continuous research practices internally. The session concludes with Alvaro providing his contact information for further engagement.

HIGHLIGHT QUOTES

Owning Revenue Goals: The Key Responsibility of Product Teams - Alvaro Soto: “All right, so the takeaway, the product team needs to own revenue goals. That's the main thing. And when we own revenue goals, then we have to understand how to get to those targets. So not only do we need to understand if are we building something valuable and we're gonna drive engagement, and all of those KPIs that we're used to measuring, but are we actually going to convert that usage into... money. And it just makes sense that the product team owns the research to achieve these goals.”
 

You can find out more about Alvaro in the link below: 

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/varosoto/

HOST: Gary Amaral

GUEST: Alvaro Soto

Breadcrumbs Podcast

In this episode of The Revenue Cafe Podcast, host Gary Amaral is joined by Alvaro Soto, Director of Product Management and Growth at Procore, to share his insights on how UX teams can take the lead in willingness to buy research within an organization. He emphasizes the importance of breaking down the fear around revenue measurement and highlights the significance of product-led growth (PLG) in understanding customer value and conversion. Alvaro also discusses the limitations of external firms' research and the need for internal teams to actively engage in conducting research to determine if products are not only delivering value but also converting customers into paying customers. He presents practical tactics for product teams to partner with UX and effectively evaluate customer willingness to buy.

HIGHLIGHT QUOTES

Shifting the Focus: Building Products Customers Are Willing to Pay For.

"Building something customers need is better or greater than focusing on building something customers are willing to pay for. I'm not... saying that many product teams or UX teams will say that that is a fact, that there's just concern about delivering value and that the money will come in some other way. But I think that's something that we also need to debunk, right? Like, I think building value is not enough. Building products that customers are willing to pay for is what we're here to do." - Alvaro Soto

Empowering Product Teams for Effective Willingness to Buy Research.

"I hope that with this presentation, what I convinced teams is that, hey, if you already have a UX team, that's great. If you just have your product managers and your designers, they can be equipped to asking the right questions and to conduct the type of research that you need to start understanding if the products you're building are not just driving, delivering value to those customers, but that they're actually going to convert those customers into paying customers, which is ultimately what we want." - Alvaro Soto

Fostering Intuition and Collaboration through Huddles. 

“We sit in open huddle channels all day long, so product and marketing will sit in the team kind of huddle and be able to collaborate and again, just like hear the snippets of what's happening... Huddles, I think, are an awesome way to do that.” - Jenny Orser

You can find out more about Alvaro in the link below: 

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/varosoto/

In this episode of The Revenue Cafe Podcast, Armando Biondi is joined by Genny Orser, VP of Marketing at Mappedin, discusses the challenges of communication in remote-first companies. She highlights the importance of daily stand ups and huddles in her company to foster collaboration and intuition. Jenny emphasizes the value of hearing raw facts and snippets of information rather than relying solely on documentation. Armando agrees, noting that documentation is useful for reference but not effective for real-time thinking. The conversation underscores the need for interactive communication in the remote work environment. Learn everything in more detail in this episode of The Revenue Cafe Podcast by Breadcrumbs Hot Takes Live.
 

HIGHLIGHT QUOTES

Challenges of Communication in a Remote-first World. “In the current remote-first world, communication is becoming more and more challenging.” - Armando Biondi

The Value of Real-time Communication. “Documentation. I think it's very good backward. So if you don't remember why you took that decision or if you want to look at something that happened in the past, it's great, but for real time thinking of different teams, not effective at all.” - Armando Biondi

The Power of Daily Standups and Huddles. “All of our teams do daily standups. I don't think this is unique. I think lots of groups do this. But to me, that standup is incredible because product and marketing get to, like, you hear the raw facts about what's going on day to day.” - Jenny Orser

Fostering Intuition and Collaboration through Huddles. “We sit in open huddle channels all day long, so product and marketing will sit in the team kind of huddle and be able to collaborate and again, just like hear the snippets of what's happening... Huddles, I think, are an awesome way to do that.” - Jenny Orser
 

You can find out more about Genny Orser in the link below: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/genny-orser-7a842951/

In this episode of The Revenue Cafe Podcast, Armando Biondi is joined by Genny Orser, VP of Marketing at Mappedin, discusses the importance of aligning product and marketing teams for customer-centricity. She highlights how traditional customer teams (customer success, support, and sales) have typically been seen as the primary drivers of customer-centricity. However, Genny believes that product and marketing teams, with their front-row seats, can naturally be more customer-centric and should play a crucial role. She explains that by having both teams work closely together, companies gain a better understanding of the market, customer needs, and how to deliver a clear value proposition. This collaboration leads to improved alignment, stronger communication, and the ability to adapt value propositions and build holistic product roadmaps. Genny concludes by emphasizing the potential benefits of aligning product and marketing teams, regardless of the organizational setup, and invites further exploration of this topic. Learn everything in more detail in this episode of The Revenue Cafe Podcast by Breadcrumbs Hot Takes Live.
 

HIGHLIGHT QUOTES

Product and Marketing Collaboration for Customer Centricity - Genny: “I really come to realize in my current role that, you know, with product and marketing, having a front row seat, I think that there are other teams within your organization that can naturally be more customer centric, and certainly should be.”

The Benefits of Bringing Product and Marketing Together - Genny: “Sitting within one roof and on one team, I think, has encouraged just the most heightened organic communication that could exist between these two groups, between your product and your marketing group.”

You can find out more about Genny Orser in the link below: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/genny-orser-7a842951/

On this episode of Breadcrumbs Hot Takes Live by Revenue Cafe Podcast, we feature Glenn Schmelzle, the founder of Marketing What’s New and the host of the Funnel Reboot Podcast.

Glenn argues that marketing should own the cost of acquiring customers and be able to influence it. By controlling customer acquisition costs and making them a smaller portion of revenue, marketing can increase profitability and become the hero of the story. By feeding information from various platforms into Google Analytics Four, marketers can inform Google Ads and improve targeting without compromising personal data.

You can find out more about Glenn in the link below:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/glennschmelzle/

Check out more Hot Takes on revenue acceleration on our website below!

About Breadcrumbs 

Breadcrumbs – A Revenue Acceleration Platform Starting With Lead Scoring As It Was Meant To Be.

We think lead scoring shouldn’t be a black box – it’s your company and your leads. Your models should change as your strategy does, and black boxes just don’t cut it.

At Breadcrumbs, we think it shouldn’t cost you months and up to several hundreds of thousands of dollars just to hard-code the first iteration in your systems, you should be able to implement it and then iterate on it in minutes, and for free.

Our mission? In two words: revenue acceleration. We want to try and enable 2,000 companies -which at 500 free leads per month will be a cool 1,000,000 leads scored on a monthly basis- to take it to the next level and be the first early adopters of this new modern take of lead scoring.

A 10X better, 10X faster, 10X cheaper lead scoring that doesn’t suck anymore. Welcome to the age of Revenue Acceleration. Can we help you grow faster and more efficiently? Let us know, we’re more than happy to.  

Learn more at https://breadcrumbs.io

On this episode of Breadcrumbs Hot Takes Live by Revenue Cafe Podcast, we feature Glenn Schmelzle, the founder of Marketing What’s New and the host of the Funnel Reboot Podcast.

Glenn argues that marketing should own the cost of acquiring customers and be able to influence it. By controlling customer acquisition costs and making them a smaller portion of revenue, marketing can increase profitability and become the hero of the story. By feeding information from various platforms into Google Analytics Four, marketers can inform Google Ads and improve targeting without compromising personal data.
 

HIGHLIGHT QUOTES
 

Glenn-(0:02:13)

"Marketing should say that they can influence that cost, that they can do it better, and that when new tools come along that may allow marketing to get that cost down that the rest of the business needs to listen to marketing."

Glenn-(0:03:38)

"Marketing is then the hero of the story, and we get to continue to be a valued member in our company's leadership."

Glenn-(0:04:15)

"When marketing is trying to bring in new traffic, but they don't get full visibility into what's happening post click, post conversion with that traffic, how many of those leads became qualified, became opportunities, 

You can find out more about Glenn in the link below:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/glennschmelzle/
   

Check out more Hot Takes on revenue acceleration on our website below!
 

About Breadcrumbs 

Breadcrumbs – A Revenue Acceleration Platform Starting With Lead Scoring As It Was Meant To Be.

We think lead scoring shouldn’t be a black box – it’s your company and your leads. Your models should change as your strategy does, and black boxes just don’t cut it.

At Breadcrumbs, we think it shouldn’t cost you months and up to several hundreds of thousands of dollars just to hard-code the first iteration in your systems, you should be able to implement it and then iterate on it in minutes, and for free.

Our mission? In two words: revenue acceleration. We want to try and enable 2,000 companies -which at 500 free leads per month will be a cool 1,000,000 leads scored on a monthly basis- to take it to the next level and be the first early adopters of this new modern take of lead scoring.

A 10X better, 10X faster, 10X cheaper lead scoring that doesn’t suck anymore. Welcome to the age of Revenue Acceleration. Can we help you grow faster and more efficiently? Let us know, we’re more than happy to. 

Learn more at https://breadcrumbs.io

In this session of Hot Takes Live by Breadcrumbs, Ian Shields, the Director of Marketing Ops Demand Generation at EcoVadis, emphasizes the importance of focusing on three key metrics to simplify and streamline business operations. Ian shares a quote by Steven Levitt, an economist and co-author of a book on economics, highlighting the need to make things less complicated. Additionally, he introduces a framework for customer lifecycle and campaign engagement to bring alignment and improve efficiency in the go-to-market strategy. The session emphasizes the storytelling element in data presentation to inspire action across stakeholders. The importance of branding and reputation is discussed, acknowledging their intangible yet significant impact on business success. Armando and Ian also mention the need to consider dimensions like product line, geography, and acquisition source when analyzing core numbers.

HIGHLIGHT QUOTES

Simplify and Align with Three Key Metrics - Ian: “When you focus on these three key metrics, it helps make the world less complicated. I love this quote by Steven Levitt, economist and co-author of the book for economics: 'simplify, make things less complicated with these three key metrics.”

The Power of Storytelling in Data Presentation and Action-Driven Insights - Ian: “Absolutely. Storytelling element is essential to not just explore the data, but to inspire action across all stakeholders. People won't necessarily remember the numbers as you present them, but if you can bring in a story element, they'll remember that, and that will inspire them.”

You can find out more about Ian in the link below: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iancshields/

In this episode, Ian Shield, the Director of Marketing Ops Demand Generation at EcoVadis, discusses the three metrics that matter in the customer journey. With a shift from growth at all costs to efficient growth, organizations are now focused on being accountable for their dollars. Ian emphasizes the need to measure progress towards revenue goals and correlate marketing and sales activities with revenue. He presents a scalable and robust approach, highlighting the importance of identifying milestones and measuring quantity, conversion rate, and velocity between them. Ian also emphasizes the role of storytelling and analyzing customer experiences to improve efficiency. While discussing the three metrics, he acknowledges the ongoing need to build brand reputation, awareness, and trust. Learn everything in more detail in this episode of Breadcrumbs Hot Takes Live by Revenue Cafe podcast.

HIGHLIGHT QUOTES

Building Brand Reputation, Awareness, and Trust in the Customer Journey - Ian: "So think on how you can look at those customer experiences. That would decrease the velocity or increase the conversion rate. And the last thing is these are definitely three metrics that really matter in your customer journey. But don't discount a need to continue to build brand reputation, awareness, and trust. Those are things that are harder to measure. Not always visible, but they definitely can have a contributing factor to your full customer life cycle."
 

You can find out more about Ian in the link below: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iancshields/

In this episode, Irena Soriano, VP of Enablement at Seismic, delves into the "improve" phase of the enablement strategy. Joe and Irina emphasize the importance of using collected data to enhance skills and improve enablement programs. Collaboration with managers, coaching, and driving accountability are key factors in achieving success. The field activation team plays a crucial role in providing feedback and identifying gaps for program improvement. Measuring the impact on business metrics and demonstrating value to executives are essential. Specific metrics tracked in different phases of enablement are discussed, highlighting the integration of technology in the process. The significance of having a plan and program for repeatable enablement success is emphasized, along with the need to track data, enable engagement, and measure outcomes. Learn everything in more detail in this episode of Breadcrumbs Hot Takes Live by Revenue Cafe podcast.

HIGHLIGHT QUOTES

Coaching Managers to Optimize Program Effectiveness and Accountability - Irina: "So here's really where we work with the managers to coach them to help us reinforce whatever enablement program we're driving for the year. And then also help us drive accountability with the teams where there is low enablement engagement because that happens, as we all know."

You can find out more about Irina in the link below: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/irina-soriano/

In this episode, Irina Soriano, VP of Enablement at Seismic, discusses sales enablement by the numbers. She shares a four-step strategy that emphasizes outcome-based enablement and showcases the value and ROI behind enablement efforts. The strategy includes planning, enabling, engaging, and improving. Irina explains the importance of aligning enablement with business outcomes, designing effective enablement programs, and tracking engagement and behavior changes. The goal is to enable sellers to deliver outstanding customer experiences and increase role proficiency and effectiveness. Learn everything in more detail in this episode of Breadcrumbs Hot Takes Live by Revenue Cafe podcast.

HIGHLIGHT QUOTES

Outcome-driven Enablement Consultant - Irina: "So we have a four step strategy in place, and I will walk through each of these steps. So the first step is for us to plan. We then move into enable, we then move into engage, and ultimately we look at improve. And that's all with the purpose of driving better outcomes and really play the numbers game with enablement."

You can find out more about Irina in the link below: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/irina-soriano/