Learnings from former salesperson for Enterprise old big tech who moved to Enterprise new big tech. Note to self …
Quarterly and year end focus means that execs are incentivized to move heaven and earth to make year end’s goals. As a result, they often end up doing the right thing for the business in the short term — but also do the wrong thing for the business in the long term. He wished that his former company distributed the timing of their exec’s incentivized goals so that it wasn’t a regular reoccurrence that all of them, all at once, would both help and hurt the business at the same time. So they were essentially “heroes” and also “damage-inflicters” to the business all at once. (Made me think of Heinz ketchup poured from a bottle … and how it plops out all at once.) He went on to say that the resulting need to correct for problems generated by short-term actions always ended up in the organization’s need for “sucking in their tummy” and starving future product improvements. That said, his old big tech company has kept keeping on quite well enough — so you can repeat this cycle for a really, really long time.
Meanwhile with his move to new Big Tech, he said he discovered “product-led” culture. With expansion revenue growth that works because the customers grow with a product that scales and works well Customers aren’t complaining about the thousand things that don’t work right. “In old Big Tech we promised them it would work perfectly but it doesn’t work. And they are unhappy.” That was his former experience–and what he only knew.
Now instead, customers say the product is great. “The product makers are the heroes.” We in sales (retention side) just then focus on making the customers happy. And the business grows. Nobody has a goal at the end of the quarter all at once — to hurt the business. (No Heinz ketchup ker-plop.) “We are delivering all year long because the customers are happy.”
Related: RevOps evolution https://www.salesforce.com/resources/articles/what-is-revenue-operations/
