Aligning KPIs Across Departments w/Robin Schweitzer

Brian Dietmire: Foreign. Welcome to another episode of Closed Mode, the Enterprise Sales Show. I'm Brian Dietmire, CEO of Closest Strong, the home of precision guided selling. Today I'm really lucky to be here with Robin Schweitzer. And uh, Robin is a, uh, marketing and sales enablement leader. Uh, she's done stints at Call Source and Patronics. Uh, Robin, welcome to the show.

Robin Schweitzer: Thank you. I'm so honored to be here.

Brian Dietmire: I was intrigued, uh, when we first met on your LinkedIn profile you talked about uniting uh, marketing rev ops and enablement into one operating system, which immediately made some sense to me. Can you give us a high level idea about how you did that?

Robin Schweitzer: Sure. I have this theory that um, a lot of companies look at functions, you know, buy function, the marketing function, the sales name function, the CS function. And we really need to start talking about a, ah, system. Right. Um, M. It's like a revenue system really is a revenue system having each of those departments and if we treat it more like a system where, and I also think of it like a relay race. Each department is a runner in this race for excellence in customer engagement and or product delivery. And when you start looking at it from that perspective, that means there's got to be less friction. You have to have KPI alignment, you have to have the stages that everybody participates in lined up and outlined. So some of the things that I did early was sit in each department to understand what it is they are, what's their KPI, what are they doing? Right. What did they have to do? And by just starting to understand those things was, was like the first foundational piece that I did. So I was aware of what their mantra was for their function and what was the mantra function for sales. So we could be aligned and start mapping to that.

Brian Dietmire: You know, it's interesting Robin, what you make me think of is, uh, I think I may have wrote about this a couple years ago, but uh, I've also done some procurement consulting in my life, sorry salespeople, but I have consulted to the dark side. And as part of that work I ended up doing some research into procurement, made this transition from procurement to supply chain management. And the whole notion of supply chain management, it was in the 80s. I think it was Booze Hamilton who started it. But they were trying to unify the various touch points of the supply chain. Right. Which made total sense. And so what you just said, I started calling it revenue chain management. Will you talk about the system? Like what are all the, how do you unify all the different people touching the Revenue chain for new, for renewals, you know, all the way through. Yeah.

Robin Schweitzer: It's a system and you have to have that relay race from lead generation to reinforcement and retention. You know, it's this constant cycle and the smoother it is, the less friction you have, the more alignment of goals that you have. It's not, you know what I say is revenue doesn't happen in departments, it happens in a system.

Brian Dietmire: Yeah, I agree. So what were a couple kind of high level obstacles you ran into in trying to unify this system?

Robin Schweitzer: Yeah, I will tell you that I ran into this across my career and I think it still goes on today. And it's KPI misalignment. And what do I tell, what do I say about. Let me give you a live example. At one point I was at a company where sales were down and I was uh, still on the enablement side. And it was. Their directive was sell it. Sell at all costs.

Brian Dietmire: Yes.

Robin Schweitzer: We have to get revenue in the door and we're gonna do it. And uh, because of the efficiencies, Operations was told no late orders. No late orders anymore. We're not allowing any late orders. Well, in came one of the largest orders that I've ever uh, been part of.5 million dollar. And operations says, yeah, we're not going to take it. It's because it's late. But yet the KPI for sales was sell it all costs. So now what you had was this internal fight and conflict because they're doing uh, and Operations was doing what their mantra was, which was no late orders. Right. Sales is doing their mantra. And when I broke it down, I went back, I went to a VP meeting and said, Let me show you how the KPIs are misaligned in our buying cycle right now. And that example, I was brave enough to take it to the VP suite because you got really great people doing really great work. Align to what you want them aligned to. And if you misalign that at the top, it causes all kinds of chaos within the system.

Brian Dietmire: Yep. And before you and I are going to transition into sort of more tactical conversation and follow up to how we started a couple of talking a couple weeks ago. But uh, what can you point to a couple sort of key uh, outcomes from this work? Uh, what were the results of, of kind of unifying these systems?

Robin Schweitzer: Yeah, Um, a couple of things. Certainly. I'm going to think of the things that are most important in buckets. So qualified pipeline. There's pipeline and there's qualified pipeline. Right. It's a very different definition. You can get pipeline all day long if it's not qualified pipeline or not the right pipeline. Um, but just getting everybody in line, a qualified pipeline, which then leads to better forecast confidence and then that leads to deals that are going to close faster, which then leads to salespeople being working on opportunities that are energizing and close and then it increases win rates. It's like, you know, it's like a no brainer when you step outside of it. But when there's volume coming at 100 miles an hour, you're not, you can't, you have to remind these, remind yourself of those things that not every deal that comes to you is going to close right away. It doesn't mean. No, it means is it the right thing to work on right now?

Brian Dietmire: Yes.

Robin Schweitzer: Yeah. So, um, I think qualified pipeline, better forecasting win rates, um, and really I think better energy for salespeople to be confident and be, you know, have energy to go do the next deal.

Brian Dietmire: I mean, the thing I love about those results is those are pretty much the usual suspects of things that people struggle with. So if unifying these systems get you there. All right, so, uh, as you and I were just, uh, chatting a couple of weeks ago, we were kind of. One of the things I like to do on this show too is get to like some really tactical, usable stuff. And one of the. We started having a conversation about the evolution of enablement given market shifts. Right. We're buying and selling in a different world today, especially post Covid. And one of the areas we spoke about, which is of great interest to me is sales methodology. And I know you have experience with value selling, medpic, et cetera. And how would you say the traditional rollout of methodologies is out of step with the reality of where people are selling today?

Robin Schweitzer: Yeah. Ah, let me start with sales methodology because that word gets people freaked out in business, especially on the sales side. Um, what sales methodology isn't. It isn't teaching you how to sell Most sales methodology should be or done correctly is a decision making framework. It's about how you assess everything that's coming at you. Like I said earlier, it's opportunity readiness, it's teaching, uh, discovery, I'll use the word of consultative discovery, confirming icp ultimately improving, uh, the energy that in the time that sales are, are doing with the deals that they're working on.

Brian Dietmire: Yeah.

Robin Schweitzer: So it's more of a framework than it is. You know, a lot of times when rep see methodology coming down the bike, like, oh my God, here we go, like Think you know what this is, flavor of the month. But real methodology is really about deal readiness and, and energy spent and reframing all the stuff that's coming at you as a salesperson. That's the first thing I want to say about, uh, sales methodology. To your question about what's out of step. It's like it's one and done, right? We roll it out and everybody's rah, rah. And you know what? I see a spike in participation in the first 30, 45 days and then, right, everybody's clapping and high fiving. But 60 days later, it's right back where it was. Because there isn't, there isn't a continuity of reinforcement. There is an alignment with leadership. Taking that baton from enablement and making sure that that's reinforced in one on ones, reinforced in forecast meetings, reinforced across behavior.

Brian Dietmire: Uh, yeah, I'm sorry, Robin, I have to say to you, it's like uh, what you just said I fundamentally agree with. And it's sort of like the emperor has no clothes thing. Like this is, I think of methodology training as a lever that we have to pull as leaders. You know, one option we have to pull as leaders and we pull this lever a lot. And I had a sales leader say to me once, you know, the great thing about sales training is if people take one or two things away from it, it's worth it. And my argument at the time, I was in the sales training business, just like you just did. You shook your head, I just said no, are you kidding? Like you spent 100 people in your sales team, you spent maybe 100, 150 grand rolling this thing out. Plus you had 200 people days out of market, not selling. And you're saying if they take one or two things away, it's worth it. It's sort of like the bar is so low and everybody's kind of accepted. Sales rollouts really started in the 80s and it's pretty similar today. So let's transition. What do you think is more relevant for today or what's needed if you could design a more relevant solution? What's needed?

Robin Schweitzer: Yeah, you know, um, just in time. Enablement in the deal, in the moment. Enablement that they don't have to go elsewhere, that they could be on the move when they have these micro learnings. An example would be you're having a recorded call. It's being recorded. The customer or the prospect, uh, is talking about their fears or even their needs are, and what's popping up on the side of the screen. Reinforcement of Things that the rep can use, real live data, perhaps case study information that's happening right when it's happening, not afterwards, not something that they have to study. And uh, remember. Um, so it's like really methodology that's in the moment and in the depths.

Brian Dietmire: So there. Yeah, I'm sorry, connected to that. And this is where our conversation wandered into. So you talk about just in time, which I think is awesome and I agree with it. Another kind of accepted practice and a huge frustration is that, you know, maybe we announced a methodology at SKO and then there's a spike like you said, and then nothing happens. I've found a ton of frustration lately with leaders talking about, um, sales strategy and the fact that what happens in a PowerPoint at the management team level isn't translating to the deal level. And sales strategy is a broad statement. So for this question, I'm talking about goals and initiatives that leaders have that fall upon salespeople to execute in the field. So not every aspect of strategy. Right. Needs to be connected to reps and deals, but it could be, hey, we want a multi thread. We're pushing a new product, we're pushing a new solution or commercial terms focus and shifts. So there is an issue with making this. Jim Diggy, one of my mentors and friends, uh, former founder of CSO Insight, said to me once, you know, at sko, we announce a new product over the weekend and then on Monday the reps go back and sell the old product they were selling on Friday and the customers are buying it. Uh, that's kind of almost accepted practice, but also a huge frustration with leaders. Now what do you think drives that disconnect between here's what the leaders want us doing and here's what reps are actually doing?

Robin Schweitzer: Yeah, you know, you hit on it already. Leaders and C suites play at the macro level and they have thoughts. And this is going to be the next best thing at a macro level at sco, at the Monday morning meeting when everybody's on the call, that has to be broken down in increments at the deal level. What does it look like at the deal level? What does uh, I'll give you maybe a med pick thing about the uh, buying, the buying decision cycle in medpic. What does it really mean? We took that and broke it down to you could have a champion, but he might be a champion because he wants it, but it's not a priority for the company. So it's a false champion. Right. Like really giving them ways to break down. How does this, what does it mean to have a buying. You, uh, know, the buying committee. And breaking down the buying committee. You know, we took medpic and made sure that we installed it inside the CRM by level, by highlight of what this looks like. Not only do you have a champion. What is a champion? So there's constantly. It's making sense at the deal level.

Brian Dietmire: Yeah.

Robin Schweitzer: Now that's not easy to do. It's not easy to do. It's a lot of work. And the problem is we want to go super, super fast to get great results. And super, super fast. It takes time for this kind of behavior. Especially when you have been practicing, go to sco, everybody's rah, rah. You come back and you do whatever you want.

Brian Dietmire: Yeah, well, you, you, you. I'm sorry, Robin, you. You spoke a moment ago about like, uh, I. Maybe we'll use different words because I can't remember yours exactly, but like translating the sales strategy into the deal cycle or deal components. And, and I've been. This is an interest of mine. I'm talking to a lot of people about this, and there's some easy examples. Like if you've got, you've got, you know, a new product or a new suite that you want to be selling, it starts with qualifying. Okay, so how do you translate that strategy into actionable, uh, actionable things for the reps? And then as you say, how do you have the just in time enablement to get them there? So it's like when you're qualifying somebody, what do the qualifiers look like to sell the new thing versus the old thing? What does a qualified opportunity look like now? Stakeholder engagement. Who should we be talking to? What new KPIs can we impact with this new thing? You know, what kind of discovery do we need to be doing now to find opportunities to sell the new thing? Uh, how does it change our competitive positioning all the way through to what are we putting in front of the customers? It's actually not, um, too tricky now with, with available technologies, but I think with folks I've been talking to, like, this is a new idea of breaking down strategy into actionable components that track with the deal cycle. How do you make, uh, I just did this with one of our customers the other day. It's literally one step at a time. Okay. If we want this done, how do we qualify? Who do we need to be talking to? But I don't know many folks that are doing it.

Robin Schweitzer: Yeah, I think because it's a little bit time consuming in the beginning to break it down. Right. And it's like we should have product Personas, right? You got buying cycle Personas, you got title, um, Personas. Who is most likely to buy the product in a Persona perspective. Because then you're getting down to the people that are buying it and the behavior that has to happen. Like even frameworking, you know, in this new product, who's most likely going to a company, you got icp. But even in the framework, what's the Persona of value that this person. What, what. Who's going to get the most out of this? And it could be that, you know, who's going to love this the most? The cfo. Because it saves them, um, this much time which equals this. So the CFO is going to be Right. It's really understanding where the value sits and making sure that if there's several Persona values within it, you're hitting those across with your. The sales cycle.

Brian Dietmire: Yeah, it's interesting too. Like, we've been referring to this as the execution level. Right. We have like sales methodology, which I like your idea that it helps reps make better decisions. I would add to that that it also helps them guide buyer decisions, if it's done properly. Um, absolutely. Yeah. This changes the role of reps, uh, to one of selling things to executing company strategy, which is kind of cool. You talked about motivating reps. Like this is. We just did some of this work a week ago. Like, hey, this is your job. And when you create that conversation between management and reps about strategy, there's some pushback. Like we've seen recently, some pushback from the reps going, hey, you told us we're trying to conserve capital. I need to throw a million dollars at this renewal to get them to double the size of their thing. You know, is that realistic? Because your strategy is conserving capital right now. And what's cool is creating that conversation where reps in bite sized, uh, pieces have access to strategy execution. I'm seeing that they actually really like that role.

Robin Schweitzer: Well, yeah, I think it's time for what's next with salespeople. Right. I think we've been in this cycle for a very long time and I think we're also doing a disservice because I think a lot of our sales folks are very smart and want to do the right thing and, uh, they need what's next. They really do need what's next. And, and the goalpost has to stop changing at the top as well. There's a lot of that going on where one minute you're focusing on this, the next minute you're focusing on that.

Brian Dietmire: But, but it's funny you say that because that, that was just in my head that the other reality I'm hearing from folks is that I had a VP of sales. Uh, she said to me that, you know, the equivalent of annual planning is now happening quarterly because our value competitors, value customer needs geopolitical stuff. Like, stuff's changing so quickly. But, uh, I think the reality is we've got to have a system in place to accept real time changes and then just in time get it in front of the rep.

Robin Schweitzer: Absolutely. And that means we even need more of that breakdown because change happens so fast that you could be focusing on one change one month and then the next month we're switching. So in order for the reps to grab what's changing, you need to break it down into what's the value, what's the pieces, feed them. Um, exactly what. And I think, you know, enablement is about value proposition, need assessment, also about really, really putting your hat on as a customer. Like you, like you're, like you're working for the client you're talking to.

Brian Dietmire: Yes, right.

Robin Schweitzer: And getting deeper than the sale. The example I use is like one of the things that we also developed. I uh, took discovery and broke it into three pieces of discovery for medpic because I realized just from, from listening to calls and it's a really complex sale. So there's one, there's the actual technology discovery you have to do, there's the pain point discovery that you have to do and then there. Where does this pain sit at the CEO level of the client you're talking at? Yeah, right. Uh, and what was happening is that we, we have, they were great at going in and asking the technology questions. What CRM are you on? What tech stack do you have? And. But they really fell down on a little bit better on pain point because that's pretty obvious. It's the prioritization of where it sits in the company is where we got better.

Brian Dietmire: Yes.

Robin Schweitzer: Yeah, we got really better at that because I isolated it as something separate because I'm like, listen guys, there's three things I want you to do. Really great. And even had different questions and different things that they could assess at the time of discovery. On all three of those, instead of one big discovery, it's breaking them down to micro things that have to be identified.

Brian Dietmire: Uh, yes, I completely agree and I feel like for enablement and revenue leads, the job or the focus has been how do we sell. And I would say it's now, how do we sell in alignment with strategy, especially when that strategy is shifting and that. And I believe there's kind of a lack of focus on that. And again, we're pulling levers that we've maybe always pulled and the world is different. This could be. We could spend a good hour on this one easily. But, yeah, I love teeing it up and I love you, uh, been super generous with your time and your ideas prepping for this. And, uh, I thank you. I think about Closed Mode is kind of a body of knowledge for those of us who do the work. And I would encourage anyone to go to Closed Mode Media and look for a subject you're wrestling with and find your peers who are talking about how do you align these various functions into systems or where's enablement going? Um, this is, uh, we try to make this really tangible stuff. And you've done that today. I super appreciate your time and your energy. Thank you.

Robin Schweitzer: Thank you. Thank you so much. You have a great day. And I looked at Clover today and it was awesome. I subscribed immediately.

Brian Dietmire: Thank you so much.

Robin Schweitzer: Okay, thank you.