What your first 90 days in a senior RevOps role actually look like with Tana Jackson

Speaker A: Foreign. Hey, everyone. I'm Sandy Robinson, your host of Revops Unboxed. And I know it has been a while. I think our last episode published somewhere in June. This is season five, and I'm super, super excited about this episode. Today I have Tana Jackson. Tana is the head of revenue operations at Motorola Solutions, and we have a ton of stuff to talk about today. And you have to listen to the entire episod because we have a little announcement for you, all that you're going to want to hear. So, uh, Tana, thank you so much for joining the show today. Uh, why don't you give an introduction, tell us a little bit about, um, what you're doing here in Revops.

Speaker B: Hi, Sandy. Thanks for having me back. Super excited to be here with you. Oh, my goodness. I don't even know where to start. Kind of starting off the new year in a new role, new company, kicking things off with all the Skos and just continuing to figure out where to start.

Speaker A: Ooh, skos, yes. Those are always the topic of the year, I think. I, um, think a lot of us are in the SKO hangover. Right. January is about over, and, um, you know, there's. There's been a lot, Lots of traveling. Uh, do you have more to do?

Speaker B: Oh, goodness. So I am on going into week four of my new role over at Motorola, so. So, as we know, Motorola is a global company, so my team is global, so I've been able to travel to Florida. I just got back from Portugal and I'm heading to Australia. So then I'll be stateside. But, you know, being able to meet the extended teams and do a little bit of fun traveling is always great, but it is a lot. It is a lot.

Speaker A: I am totally living vicariously through you. So I just want to tell you, um, following you on Instagram as well, seeing all of your, uh, fun pictures, but that's amazing. And just congratulations. I, um, think for lots of folks in Revops and various varying degrees of their career, um, you know, and where you are in your career, I mean, that is a big, big role. Um, so just congratulations. I think you're going to do amazing things over there. Um, you know, it just. It's so inspiring for me. Um, I know you personally have known you for quite a while. I've seen you speak and we've hung out at conferences before and, uh, got in a little trouble before together. Um, but, you know, tell me how you. How did you get into, like, this Rev Op stuff? Right. Like, I came from the sales Side and, you know, uh, I won't even tell you what I was selling. I'm sure people know, but it would make m age me, uh, for sure.

Speaker B: But how did you use the word widgets? Just don't use widgets.

Speaker A: Now. This was yellow pages, so people are like, what the hell is that? Um, but, you know, like, how did. How did you get started in this kind of cool world of revops?

Speaker B: That is a great question. So it's funny when I talk about my timeline and story. I started in healthcare, so I was a nurse. Decided I did not want to be responsible for people's lives. But I really leaned into management, and I was always curious about everything. I wanted to read every chart. I wanted to ask all the questions. I made friends with the doctors, the nurses, the social workers. I wanted to know what every department does, which sounds very familiar with what we do. But that was just my natural curiosity. So kind of, as I moved out of that nursing, it was management leadership, wearing all the hats, running doctor's offices where you have to be the it, the hr, the administrator, the doctor's assistant, the therapist, the recruiter. You have to do everything. So for me, kind of as I grew through that, we didn't have that cool rev ops name. So by the time I made that transition into technology, it was more, you run a department and then you learn what the other departments are doing, and then you end up running that department. And it was kind of like that, that umbrella of chaos until I actually got a revenue operations title. So I always look at, like, if we're helping drive revenue and we're building that ROI with the sales team and we're focused on how can we grow that company. You're sitting in a rev op seat. So I do like the fact that we finally got a really cool name. But again, I mean, we all have that, like, different path of how we got to a rev Ops title. But I always think it's very interesting to kind of see how everybody, Everybody maneuvers through that.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, that's great. And I did not know you were a nurse. That is. That's really cool. So that could come in handy too, particularly at some of those, uh, conference parties. Right? Yeah, unfortunately.

Speaker B: Unfortunately.

Speaker A: For sure. For sure. But I mean, that's. That's amazing. So. But you make a great point that in the revenue opportunity operations space, you're spanning across departments, and it's that skill set that is kind of hard to define. You know, when you're hiring, you're not necessarily looking for one specific thing. You know, we like people that can specialize in certain areas, but really being able to adapt and work with the different departments and understand, you know, different needs, different folks have in different areas of the business, uh, those are just so such valuable, valuable skills you have to learn.

Speaker B: Collaboration, I feel like the biggest part, and I failed at it, you know, trial, trial by fire at this point. So it's kind of when I look back in my early days, like coming in as a leader, being a bull in the china cabinet, wanting to fix it all at once, not being able to pace yourself. How do you work with others? How do others work with you so that everybody can kind of work together and everybody has strengths and weaknesses. Everybody has different perspectives or there are different places in their career. So I feel like as you come into a role like this, you're going to hit some blockers, but then you're also going to be able to learn from those. And as long as you're learning and you're continuing to adapt and get better at, like, the core function of what Revops does, I think that's what sets you up for success going forward.

Speaker A: Great, great advice. I mean, and I think that ties right into taking on a new role. Right. So you are doing that right now. You said you're what, four weeks? Is that what you said?

Speaker B: Four weeks? Yeah, this would be week four.

Speaker A: All right, week four. So a one month. I love it. You're one month anniversary. Right? Uh, so you're a month in. And I think people can relate to this. Everybody has started a new job. I'm in the same role. So I've been in my role for, I think, 13, 14 months. But I have a new, uh, COO now. So I'm now reporting to a COO. I was reporting to CRO and there's been some org changes. So now I have a new coo. So it's almost like I have a new job too. Right. So give, give folks some, you know, how do you, how are you approaching this? How do you step into a role, especially at a large company like Motorola? How do you step into a role and get started?

Speaker B: That's a really great question. So back in my earlier career, um, I had a mentor above me that actually gave me that book, your first 90 days. And that was probably 2000, 18, 19ish. Um, very early in leadership, things like that. But I read that book and some of those things have stuck with me. So when you think about coming into a new role, you're the new person. You know nothing. They know you have experience, which is respected. They're bringing you and they hired you for a reason. But you know nothing pretty much about the company. You don't know the people, you don't know where the bodies are buried, you don't know anything about anything. So you have to come in with a curious attitude and ask questions. And I learned very quickly not to always ask why, because some people get offended because they think you're questioning them. So it's more being very empathetic, but also being friendly. Your first 90 days, your first month is building relationships, building trust, not coming in with the answers, not coming in to fix anything. And as hard as it is, when you get admin access to the CRM, do not go in and change anything. Like just sit and just wait because we know we're gonna find that stuff. Um, exactly. And you know, I'm really good at keeping an Excel tracker. So every single thing that I'm finding, I'm making a note like, found this, see this, recognize this, notice this. Like any of that stuff that you can go back and reference. But your key with the first 90 days, unless you get directive from your leader, here's what your priorities are. It is really just trying to get find your footing. You're drinking from all the fire hoses, people are wanting to talk to you. You're still putting faces and names together. Who are your people? Um, so I feel like relationships is number one. If you don't have the trust in collaboration and build the relationships with people, you will not succeed in a robots role. And that is one of those skills that can't be, it can be taught, but you have to have that attitude of it's not ego. Like you are literally the glue in the middle of everything and you need to bring in everybody and you need to be the non siloed collaborator and all of the things. So the biggest thing that I have focused on honestly, and it's been great starting a new role in January, as much as that sounds terrifying, it's probably been the best thing ever for me. Ramping because I've met the people, I've heard a lot of the issues from the ground floor, you know, the pains, the challenges. I'm seeing what's being trained, I'm seeing what the goals for the year are, you know, so if I can keep all of that together, which I'm doing ChatGPT data dumps out of my brain every day after these meetings. Um, and to keep myself organized, I've just been taking it all in, you know, taking it all in just making sure I'm learning what I need to learn now and then starting to put together the plan. And I think as you get better at where is your place to help you ramp and learn? Because I'm pretty sure you've got your places. When you walk into a new place, you know exactly where you need to go first to figure it out.

Speaker A: Yeah, Yeah. I mean, there's so much to unpack there that. That's great. I love what you said about ask. Don't. You know, don't ask why. Because it is a. It is a defensive question. Uh, a lot of times it comes from a good place of curiosity, but it can be very off putting if you're asking someone, why are you doing that? You know, even if you say, well, why are. Even if you say it in a nice way. But you can literally turn any why question into a what question. So, like, oh, what. What made you. What gave you the idea to do that? Or what problem, you know, were you solving when you put this into place? You know, like, things like that are, uh, you know, what and how questions are great. It gets people talking. Uh, but the why question, even in sales, like, I tell salespeople this all the time. Never ask why. Like, the five whys are great to understand root cause analysis, but if you ask somebody five whys, they're going to like, punch you in the face.

Speaker B: Or like, why didn't you do that? Why were you doing that? Why was that done that way?

Speaker A: It's like, what I asked my kid. I did a shit to my kid.

Speaker B: I. I've literally done that before. And people are like, because that's how we do it. Because m. That's why it was, uh, done. Because, uh. And you're just like, oh, no. I said, so I learned, yeah, not asking the whys, you know, and the biggest part, I don't know. It is very interesting, though, when you do step into a new role, because I. I'll be honest, it was a little overwhelming, obviously. You know, it's a lot, but you just kind of have to just sit there and just take it in and ask questions, you know, ask questions. Because you end up having to figure it out, and eventually you do. And then I feel like once you get to maybe a month, six weeks, it all start making sense. Because right now, you know, there is a lot that does make sense. Uh, and I can tell you where I'm at now, but there is a lot that won't make sense, especially if you're, you know, newer in the career of rev ops and you are starting a newer place and you know, then until you find your groove on, uh, what works for you and ramping and getting onboarded, you know, you kind of do have to just roll with it.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And even if you have the answers, like when you're truly trying to understand what's happening and I have to just shut my mouth sometimes and just because I might know, like, oh, duh, like this is why, this is what you need to do. Because I know, I think I know the answer usually, right. So it's hard to just listen. So it's like ask the question, make sure it's open ended. Don't just be like, oh, hey, you didn't want to add that field, did you? You know, but like, what made you, you know, what problem are you trying to solve? How can I help you? What, why do you, you know? Or actually yes. See it's easy to say why I just did it. So you have to really be careful when you're, when you're working through that. But um, but I love that just, it's, it's these things though that make you successful. So I can assure you you didn't get where you are in your career by sitting around being a know it all to everybody and uh, you know, bringing back choices and solutions, taking in the information and just really understanding the folks that you're collaborating with, uh, especially in a new role. But even if you're not in a new role, like turn over a new lead, start talking to people in different departments, find out what they do even if you don't normally work with them or the person you've only met.

Speaker B: I think that's ah, part of it too. Some. And I have found that in other organizations or other people I've worked with, they kind of just sit in the background and they wait for people to come to them or they just, they're more introverted. Maybe their role doesn't require them to talk to other people. But I'm always like, take the initiative, be proactive and go and just say, hey, I want to throw something on your calendar. I've never talked to you before. What do you do? And I feel like that is the part that has been really good for me is I may never talk to somebody in a company, but I kind of want to know what they do. Because again we're going to use the word holistic because that's what we use for us is like we want to understand the holistic view of a business and that Means what does everything touch? Even though it may not impact revenue where you're focused, it may impact revenue somewhere else. But if you don't understand that end to end of everything that has to do with a customer and its journey, which you talk about the bow tie and all of the stuff with the journey, if you don't understand that, you're only going to be looking at a piece of the whole puzzle. So for me, I'm always like, hey, are, uh, people on my team? I'm like, hey, have you talked to so and so over here? Hey, let me introduce you. Go have a conversation. And to help build those relationships until they figure out, like, it can help you, it can serve you, you know, when other people are there championing you from even places you don't even know.

Speaker A: Yeah, I remember his name's Pooley. Uh, when we did medpic a couple of years ago, he was the ABCs. Instead of always be closing, it's always be connecting. And he says that all the time. And it's internally, externally, with your stakeholders, people that you just, uh, the person, the analyst in finance that just sends you a report once a month, like call them up, uh, hit them on the chat, hit them on the video, make, uh, those relationships because, uh, you'll uncover things that you don't realize that ultimately could impact revenue. And that's again, kind of goes back to our jobs. Um, so I know you're in this new role and you've got, oh, man, I bet you're just like, uh, thinking of all these cool things you want to do, uh, and everything like that. Uh, do you have any initial priorities that you're working on? Uh, you know, besides the SKO traveling queen right now?

Speaker B: Yeah, actually it was, it was good coming in because I did get, you know, a 90 day plan for what it would look like from my leader, you know, and I, of course I have all of my notes, all of my questions. Um, and actually the last two SKOs I was able to just pick, these are the top two priorities. So coming in, you know, because we need to look at the data. If you're hearing through all of these things, our revenue data is wrong, our forecasting is wrong. That's a huge red flag. So why the question you don't want to ask, but you can ask yourself, you know, you ask yourself, why is this wrong? So you're going to do discovery, you're having conversations, you're seeing this. And in our case, it is a lot of multiple systems, merger and acquisition, multiple products, um, broken in between different systems, different reporting tools, excels. None of it matches. Some of it does, but some of it doesn't. And then you're hamstrung by the only administrator that could do something on something. So again, um, so the data for me was a huge figure this out. So that is my number one priority right now for the next 30 to 60 days is fix the forecasting. Like fix the forecasting because we need that for our weeklies, our monthlies, which we think we have a plan. Number two, which you're going to love is the sales process. So heavy sko medpick training. They were not using Med Pick before. So it is a lot of like, you know, if you're training your sales team to follow a sales process and they can't open your CRM and follow it, they're not going to adopt it.

Speaker A: No. Right.

Speaker B: So the stages don't match the Med Pick. The probability and forecast categories are not being used in the CRM correctly. So it is kind of one of those things. We're going to rebuild the sales process and the CRM so that way when the sales rep opens, Med Pick is there. Um, we did go prior to me signing, but I knew they were coming some new tools which.

Speaker A: Nice.

Speaker B: Again, we already know less is more, but I'm excited about a couple of them. Um, we'll see how it works out. But I think that the biggest part for me is I have two big priorities. I've already got it championed, we've got a project plan put in place. We've already started making some tweaks. So at one month you can still start adding some value once you get your bearings together and you figure out what is going to have the biggest impact. Um, I have and I, and I can't recall it because I don't have it in front of me, but kind of that RevOps framework of like when you're going in to assess things, you want to see what is having the biggest impact on your revenue and the sales team, what is affecting them and creating more friction and what can you fix to, to relieve that for them because again, if they can't sell, you're not going to grow which you're directly impacting that in your role. So that's kind of how I went in to do this analysis on stuff. It's just looking at what is directly going to impact like the new business and expansion business. And obviously this revenue forecasting piece and the pipeline and all of those things are, are pretty much a mess.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I mean there's uh, what's interesting is like this is like every, this is a very common problem for literally any company who's bringing in rev ups or bringing in new rev ups or kind of upgrading. And that's a normal thing. And it's kind of great to hear that small companies and large companies, it's fundamentally the same problems just on different levels of scale. And something you said was really critical was you're starting with the data and it's just such a foundational reminder for everybody who's listening is if your data, it's garbage in, garbage out, right? And that doesn't matter what you're doing. If you're just putting in a basic sales process or you're at the point where you're uh, doing some automation and slapping on some AI on top of stuff, your data is only going to, that's going to be the thing that drives everything. So um, super smart to start there.

Speaker B: That's the key. Like you said, it's the foundational thing to make business decisions. You have to have the right data. If your data is not telling you the revenue that's coming in, the deals that are being created, what you're forecasting and coming through and that is something you report up to multiple levels. Everybody in that chain is failing when it comes to not having the data correct. Because then you don't know, you don't know what you don't know. So that is one of the one when I come into a new role, that is one of the number one places I go. Let me see, let me see the data. Let me see what's going on in the CRM. You know when you talk about coming into something and what are your key places? I'm curious to know yours because I know what mine like an org chart. Mhm. The data, um, I think it's the org chart, the data and the sales process are like the three things that I'm like give these to me immediately.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, 100%. So yeah, start meeting people. So however that is in, in my case when I, when I got to Quavo I just went in our little we use hello teams. So I just went in there and I just literally you can like bring up all the org charts and I start hitting them on chat and introducing myself. So that is a huge place to start. And in my case it was like well what do we currently have in the CRM? And we were using Zoho and there was like barely anything in there and there were like some shared like Excel, Docs with stuff in it. And that was kind of it. So I was like, huh, okay, this is interesting. Uh, we need to build a sales process. Not one with like, I think there were like 12 stages. It was insane. Like you would. It was comical actually. Uh, and, and there was like stage one was nurture. And it was like some of those deals were in there for like, I don't know, like 400 and something days.

Speaker B: Like, and your sales cycle is two years.

Speaker A: I know it's like, this is stupid. So I was like, we gotta do something about this. Uh, and then we, you know, made the decision to go to Salesforce. And uh, uh, you know, I get asked consistently for historical data and I have some, I have like wins and losses and stuff. But like I could tell you like what our velocity was, what our average days to close because like I don't know. 467.

Speaker B: No.

Speaker A: So, yeah, so for me it was, it was actually the same. It was starting with the sales and forecasting process. That was the. Well, it was rolling out Salesforce with the sales and forecasting process and getting rigor around that real basic stuff and getting the data aligned in the account structure. So for us like we don't. We have a pretty defined market so we don't allow reps to add accounts. They hate it. But it is what it is. We're pretty small shops. So if someone has something legitimate that they need to add, they can just ask and we will add it for them. And you know, those are the types of things that establishing that governance and what the account structure looks like, where that data is coming from and those kind of things. Was first step. Well, I mean, I guess it was second ish step. It happened in tandem because we had to load ops and we had to load accounts, but we had, we then had to get structure around the accounts once the initial load was in there. So there was a little cleanup after we did a dump because we just had to get the pipeline in there. But um, but yeah, and then we. Then we focused on uh, the third and fourth quarter on like the marketing op stuff. So. But I mean literally got to build it from the ground. So that was super fun uh, in doing it and it' still is because like we're totally not there yet. We've got so much to do.

Speaker B: So how do you pace yourself? I know we. I was going to talk about this, but I'm going to reverse the question to you. So knowing when you have a lot of things that you're seeing, how do you Decide what that priority is and then pace yourself because we know we want to fix it all at once, but we can't. So what is your.

Speaker A: That's good. So, uh, because, yeah, we want to boil the ocean and we're like, no, we can do all this stuff, blah, blah, blah. And you know, I wanted to tackle the client, like our account, like uh, uh, existing account records and we have some basic stuff in there and I thought we could get it done in the fourth quarter and that, that shifted. So that's like a now thing, a Q1, Q2 thing. Uh, but it's hard because you have to say no to stuff. I only had a contractor part time for the year, so I was doing a lot of it myself. And um, you know, I'm, I'm not really a great Salesforce admin. Like I get by on some basic things, but I'm not, I'm. I, no, I'm not building out.

Speaker B: Keep saying that.

Speaker A: I mean, I hire people that are better than me that do. Because I'm. Yeah, I mean I know enough to be dangerous. Um, so I had a great, ah, great contractor. Um, but it's easy to be overly ambitious, especially when you know the art of the possible. You know, your vision. Like, I know what I want it to be. And so prioritizing for us, we use eos and we have very clear cut rocks each quarter. And you like, you do no more than three rocks and they're aligned and they track up to the company goals. So uh, you know, it's, it's hard sometimes when priorities change to stick to those, but trying to have some rigor around that and not, you know, so like that's your 80% and then 20% is like all the other random stuff that comes into the world. Like that's the ideal. But we know that doesn't always happen because.

Speaker B: Absolutely.

Speaker A: Because then board meetings happen and that's not, it's not a rock. That's just a whole week of hell or more.

Speaker B: Yeah, I like that point that you said is like pacing yourselves and have your clear priorities. Because I feel like even in my case right now, there are so many things that I want to go do. So I'm like, no, I need to focus on two. And then there's other things in the background. You know, you can still be doing things depending upon your team and your bandwidth and who can do what, but focus on the two main or two or three main things. Because I feel like also sticking with the theme of coming into somewhere new or doing something New, like you want to feel good about what you're doing and get some quick wins. So if it is stuff that you can go in and be like, hey, you hired me for a reason and now you're providing the roi and you could say, hey, I did this, check it off. Um, one, it's going to make you feel better, but it also kind of builds your credibility of like you actually know what you're talking about. Because until you start doing changes, you're kind of just there until you actually start proving that you can do it. And you know, that's the stuff behind the scenes that you think I think about at least of like hey, I want to be successful, I want to show you I could do this. But it might not happen. You know, week one, week, uh, two, it might take you a good two, three months before you can actually prove it. But then when you prove it, you're, you're golden at uh, that point.

Speaker A: So yeah, that's when you, you have to get that low, those low hanging fruit wins right out of the gate. Right? So finding something that is an easy fix that everybody's going to like, that the execs are going to see value. Uh, and like you're working on a um, real basic tweak to a sales process or forecast process. I mean that's if it's a win for everybody, if it makes it easier for people to get their forecasts in and their submission, they're not farting around with spreadsheets and all this other stuff and then you have a clear vision for the exec team. Those are just really quick wins that show value. And uh, when you've been doing it a long time like yourself, it's like that's kind of like 101 Revop stuff, right?

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. And I feel like that's part of it too, is of coming in and seeing it and being able to see it fast, you know, because that is the one part like I'll say, and sometimes I always hate it when people say you just got those chops, you've got those rev ops chops. But I feel like you and I, we've got that. And when you come into something, you see it so fat, you don't need long explanations, you don't need 50 discovery sessions, you just need some to be like, hey, here's the problem, here is the data, here's what we're seeing. And then you root cause analysis back so much quicker and it's just like, okay, great, that's, that's Our focus. I mean, I'm on week four and I have a project plan and we're already starting to like put it together. That is kind of just the experience and all of that stuff that as you grow your career, you will be able to step into roles. No matter. I'll go my sentence back because people were asking me before of, you know, going to different places. How do you catch on so quick? But if you think about companies run foundationally the same.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: Foundationally. They are the same. It's the same stuff, the same goals. They want to grow, they want to sell, they want to do all the. Yeah, but the industry may be different, the product may be different. The way that they do it did. It may be different. So it is kind of. As you've gained all of that momentum, you can kind of walk into things and be like, okay, I've seen this before, seen it before. And they laughed at me because no lie, I'll probably have a T shirt at some point that says it's fixable because they tried to tell me all the things and scare me off. They're like, oh, and I've gone in now and like nothing that you're showing me isn't something I have not seen before. And it's fixable. The good news is it's fixable. It may not be within now, but it is all fixable. So.

Speaker A: Right. It's not so broken that it can't be tweaked or fixed and has to be, you know, like, like a rip and replace and things like that. And I think that's a great point. Um, for people that are starting out in revops, it doesn't mean that like, use your intuition. If you're a data person, then find where, where's the data breaking? Where are the data gaps? If you're a process person or even if you're an. More from the admin side, like, I encourage folks, and this is, you know, I may be going on a tangent here, but I work with a lot of admins in the past and some are very just, okay, this is, uh, you know, the technical way that we do this in Salesforce or HubSpot or whatever their tool is, but I encourage you to really look at the business aspect of it. Like what, when you're being asked to make this change, what is the impact to the business? Don't just blindly make the change. Even if your job title is Salesforce Admin, you should still think about that because then you're going to be able to see the problems from the business side and bring recommendations to the people that you work for and say, hey, I know you want me to make this change, uh, in this workflow, but have you thought about doing this rather than blindly doing it? Because you can do it technically, uh, but giving that impact and that really kind of helps, I think even in all these varying degrees of different roles. Understand that holistic chaos management of Rev Ops.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: And like.

Speaker B: And it's the why.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Understand why they asked you to make this change. And you and I have both probably experienced don't just make the change without knowing what the change is going to impact.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: Like understand it may be a sales leader telling you hey, go do this. And then you break something for cs. So it's part of still if you are in that space of you're having any impact to the sales team, engine, CRM, anything that touches money, understand why you are doing something or just ask more questions. And it's not to be, make a decision, I mean, but it would be good to be like, oh, do you know if I make this, this is going to happen. Because sometimes the people that are asking you to change things, they don't even understand what they're gonna, they're gonna break or fix. So.

Speaker A: Yeah. And what's interesting is and it kind of sometimes goes outside of just like RevOps or your organizational structure.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Like who you report to. So I'll give you a quick little story. In my current role when I first started and I can tell this story because we just joked about it at the revenue rally. We call ours a revenue rally. I don't know, I think we're changing the name.

Speaker B: That's a good name.

Speaker A: No it's not. It does not roll off the tongue like we hate it. We're changing it to I think we're going to go with RKO next year. But anyway, um, when I first started that was like my first thing was doing the revenue rally. And when I got here everybody was using Zoom. But we're a teams shop, like we're at Microsoft shop and everybody was using Zoom. And our clients prospects, 90% of them use teams because they're banks and credit unions and that's just what they do. So it's not even like a preference like most people use Zoom. And so I was like this is, this doesn't make any sense because then people are getting in Zoom chats and then there's teams chats and there's data here, data there and I can't make sense of it. And I can't pull it into the right places. And I was like, I went to the execs and I was like, hey, look, like, we can consolidate. We can save all this money. And, you know, they're like, great, no problem. Like, first of all, like, why are you doing that? They're like, why do you care about this? I'm like, just because this impacts how we deal with our prospects and our clients. Like, dude, um, uh. And so then they're like, okay, yeah, yeah, fine, Sandy. And I was the first VP hire at the company. Right now we have, like, eight. And they're like, yeah, whatever, Sandy. This new girl wants to just make stuff corporate y or whatever. So they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, do what you want. But I'm still using Zoom, but you can feel free to do what you want. I'm like, fine, whatever. So I did this. This whole thing. And, you know, it was funny because there was the only reason everybody. Anybody wanted to keep it was because that, like, they liked Zoom. And supposedly teams couldn't do all the things Zoom could. And I'm like, actually, it can. And now you have Copilot baked in. And so I work with our IS department to launch Copilot within it and all this stuff. And, um, now it's kind of like a big joke. There's. There's, like, still, I think, a handful of Zoom licenses, but we even, like, are moving past the myth of sales needing Zoom because, like, it's just a myth. Like, people, there's all kinds of meeting types out there now. And like, you know, our. Our ICP generally is going to be using teams, so why not use teams? You know, like, logic. But these are the kind of things

Speaker B: that my opinion on teams.

Speaker A: And people hate teams. People love teams. But at the end of the day, it's like, Coke, Pepsi, whatever.

Speaker B: We're in Google. So I. I thought all opinions all over the place on.

Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Then there's like, yeah, browser. Yeah. When I meet with my Salesforce rep, we go to Google, right? Because they use Google. But it goes to show, like, they use Google. We don't, but I have to use it to meet with them. So, like, you could do what you want at your company, right?

Speaker B: Like, it's.

Speaker A: At the end of the day, it's not going to deter you from doing business. It's just people have emotions and opinions about stuff. And at the end of the day, like, from a rev ops perspective, it was putting data in silos because of the chats that were getting siloed up in Zoom and we use our chats and teams. And so I was like, we gotta fix this and everyone needs to get over yourselves. And so now I know them very well and I just basically told them like, guys, like, what the hell?

Speaker B: Uh, but, you know, comfort zone thing, let's be real. That was just a comfort zone. That's what they were comfortable with. That's what it was always the way that it was. Change is hard.

Speaker A: Yeah, but yes, it's. But that's, that's revops. But it's, you know, from their perspective, they're like, why the hell are you doing this, Sandy? And I'm like, it is a, it's a problem. And it slows deals, it slows deals, it slows decisions on customers, you know, and those kind of things. It's, it's indirectly impacting our world. And so it's like, cut out, you know. And by the way, we're going to save some money. We're going to save some money too, on top of it, you know.

Speaker B: Yes, yes, yes. No, that's a good one.

Speaker A: Yeah. So is there anything, uh, you'd like to, you know, words of wisdom, tana isms, things that you like to just operate by that you, you want to leave people with?

Speaker B: Now you're putting me on the spot.

Speaker A: Yes, that's the fun part.

Speaker B: I probably do have tanaisms and I would. Funny story. I just got done working with somebody that literally had an analogy for everything. And so I think my taninisms and analogies have like, quotes have gone out the door. But I think for me, most of it is, is actually always be learning. Always be learning. You know, it's like we both jumped on that learning anything possible on AI, right? Anything that we can learn, anything that we can keep growing because nothing stays the same. And that goes to talk about also in our role, we are champions of change agents. You have to be the champion of change and get people to go along with what you're doing or you will not be successful. So and in order to do that, you have to keep learning because what worked two years ago, five years ago, 10 years ago is not going to work a year from now. So I think that's my biggest part, is never stop learning. Never stop asking questions, never stop like investing in yourself, investing in your growth. Because where you stop learning is where you will stop growing in your career.

Speaker A: M. That is so powerful. Always be learning that. I mean, I couldn't, uh, double down on that. People listening, like, dive in, especially like you said, with AI and everything, and it changes literally by the day. And I don't know about you, but when I started in my role, like, I. I'm not going to the same old tools I've always used. Exactly.

Speaker B: There's so many other things out there now.

Speaker A: Yeah. And there's some legacy tools that it's like, they're so freaking expensive now, and they're not flexible either. And there's cool, sexy stuff out there that's flexible. So why would I use the old way that I've always. Just because, okay, I'm comfortable. I know how it plugs in. I know how it looks in Salesforce, all this stuff. But, like, there's a better way, you know?

Speaker B: Um, yes.

Speaker A: And I, you know, I get it. Like, but especially for people like us who've been doing it a long time, it's easy to get in that trap. So you have to consciously, intentionally learn new and then look for what is new, what is coming, what's happening with AI and everything like that. And I think that's a really good segue. So I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast that we have a little bit of an announcement, and I've been, um, super crazy busy with, um, kid, life, work, Life, job. And I'm working on a new project, and that is around AI and my learning journey. And so, um, I talked to Tana. It says Tana and I, you know, we've known each other a long time, and I think she is, uh, pretty much one of the biggest badasses in the revenue operation space. Badass women. And, uh, I asked Tana to take over as host for Revops Unboxed. So Tana is going to be the new host as of right now. Uh, Tana is going to be the new host of Revops Unboxed. I'm still doing a lot of work with the alliance and will work with Tana, and you'll see me out there. I'm just working on a new project, um, a new podcast, uh, that's really focused more on AI just for my own personal, selfish learning journey. And I just can't do all these things. And I think Tana is going to be amazing at this. Um, you're an amazing speaker. You, uh, have so much credibility in the industry. And I've, you know, I just know you personally. I think you've just. You're just really good people. So I'm so excited that you're going to be the new host.

Speaker B: Thank you so much. I'm honestly, when you asked me, it was very Humbling. So it was very humbling. I am very grateful. I think that, you know, looking at you and watching what you've done and what you've built and stuff like that inspired me to do it because I think that you are my first podcast that I was ever on. So kind of one of those things as we've been able to kind of grow through this journey. And I've really leaned on you a lot with the space and, you know, as we've grown and built a friendship and all the friends that we've met through working with the Rev Ops alliance and speaking and the events and all of this stuff that I am so excited. So I'm graciously going to accept doing this and see what fun we can bring. So I think I will implore anybody who's listening. If you have ideas, suggestions, you want to be a guest, send me a message on LinkedIn. Happy to connect with you. Figure out what we can do and we'll see what we can spin up with the new podcast to come and the new seasons and episodes and I don't know, there's a lot of great ideas that we've already discussed with the RevOps alliance also maybe some on site podcast at events, maybe some other, you know, different formats or different ways that we want to do it. So open to new ideas. It's kind of a new year, new season. I mean, what new year of the horse? So we're just kind of, kind of like shed it all and like move forward. So I am super, super excited.

Speaker A: Well, awesome. Well, I couldn't think of a better person. So with that, let's sign out. This is my last episode of Rev Revops Unbox. It has been a blast. It's been fun. Thanks so much for joining me today, Tana, and thanks for listening, everybody. Peace out.

Speaker B: Thanks, everybody.

Speaker A: This has been another episode of Revops Unboxed in partnership with the Revenue Operations Alliance. Until next time, keep unboxing.