YouSaid · the spoken record

Ben Fiechtner

lines on the record: 70
first: 2024-08-02
most recent: 2024-08-02
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“What's funny is I started my career in General Electric and I remember we had a roundtable and it was the same thing back to the interview questions of like people asking questions like what's the biggest growth level for GE Capital and ML there's 12 of us in the room stop and he's like why isn't one of you ask me like how often do I see my kids and he goes candidly and this was”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, no, I think how many CROs I talk to if they're CEO called, they immediately would be like, Harry, hang on one second. I got to take this. If your wife calls, how many people do I know that do that? Very few in certain high-powered positions. So I think it's one thing of like be honest with yourself of where your priorities are at and actually put the parameters in place to make sure you're prioritizing your spouse, your kids, your partner, whatever it may be. And I think put the same effort into it, the same way where a lot of times like, you know, you're on the road for two straight weeks, you get home Friday night. The first thing you want to do is have a glass of wine and just sink into the couch. You got to show up the same way you did for the client at 8 a.m. as you did for your kids at 6 p.m. And I think that's probably a lesson that I've had in the last five years. It took me a long time to make sure that I was putting as much effort into my personal life as I was my professional life.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Aptitude, attitude, and authenticity. The biggest thing I would say a marriage is be authentically you and share exactly what your feelings are at. I think as I've gotten older, I've spent a lot more time investing in the marriage as much as I have in my career.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Was funny. There was an exec at Salesforce that I think I thought I had to be something I wasn't because the Salesforce model was very, very uniform at the time. And he pulled me aside and just said, dude, be yourself. Like don't get in your thoughts. Don't try to replicate with this person does. Don't be that personality. Like just be yourself, be authentically you. And that was the biggest unlock, I think, for my career of not everybody's the big performer. Not everybody's the gregarious relationship person. Not everyone's the really data driven ROI specific, detail-oriented seller. And I think you have to play to your strengths rather than trying to be something you're not.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think too often they come in with design playbooks or this worked at this company and blah, blah, blah, and I'm going to copy and paste it here instead of coming in with design principles about these are the things that I know and the frameworks that I can apply, but I'm really going to listen to the needs of this individual company or this individual sales team and what they need and design a playbook that works for them. I think a lot of times I talk to CROs that are saying, well, I did it at this company. Why doesn't it work here? And every company is different challenges. Everybody has different unique parts of their maturity journey. And like, you got to be really, really smart about solving the problems that that company has versus bringing your old playbook to the new company.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Might have been an anomaly. That might have been an exception. And in that case, it was holy shit, this is really working. And we got to push all our chips in. And the company rallied around it and did it.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Be extremely intelligent and design your sales team based on product market fit. When I joined UiPath, we were designed in geographies and I had the pleasure of running their key accounts program, which call it their top 100 accounts. I had banking and healthcare clients. So the JPMCs, the HCAs, the Cygnas of the world, we saw an absolute disproportionate amount of opportunity and we hadn't planned our capacity for that. We had peanut butter spread everything geography-wise. And we said, holy cow, even though healthcare and banking are our biggest baselines, it's also our biggest potential opportunity because of how our technology at the time fit in with the problems that they had. And I think as a second line leader at the time, I've made the call to help push all the chips in from my perspective, but build a coalition around me. And it certainly wasn't my own doing. But it was one of those things of like, holy cow, we have a unique product market fit. To your point, don't be scared of verticals. Don't not dip your toe in. And we made the bet in a big, big, big way and it paid off. That was one where there's been plenty of times in my career where I've seen something work, but it's like, oh, that.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not always for my beer budget in champagne tastes, but I mean, Salesforce still sponsors you. There's Formula One and I buy all the looks of it. There's lots of people were near you last weekend having a great time.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Pricing expires at the end of this month or end of this quarter. Use car salesmen of like this deal turns into a pumpkin on October 31st. I think people will call bullshit every time on that.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“By the way, I love him too. I forget he had a blog recently that like six bullets. I shared it with like the greatest career advice. I'm like, holy shit, is he good? Share it with all my leadership team. The question, how do you make sure your hunter doesn't go up against your farmer or up against someone's farmer? I think you have to choose your segments really, really intelligently back to your earlier question about where do you put capacity, where it's going to drive the biggest yield. For us, that was a move to enterprise. And we got very, very specific of our enterprise AEs at 100 accounts in their territory. We're like, that's never going to work. Let's be super smart about the ones we have to win and let's overstaff those. So hopefully if you know your ICP, you know your unique soul that you have for that client base, you're going to put people in the right space. And then you're not going to run into that. But it's going to happen probably in longer tail businesses all the time.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think where we've looked at this, and an example from Clary, like we had hunter farmer sellers, and then we moved to a hybrid for the enterprise team, meaning they had both install base and net new logos. I think so often Complans are designed after the fact. I think the only big lesson that I'd have is like, you need to decide your go-to-market strategy. And yes, that's going to have inputs from finance on margin targets, profit targets, growth targets, all of those things. Design your sales alignment. Design your sales motion. And then the comp plan should come after that to reinforce those things. I think too often it's backed into of like, well, this is what we did last year. Let's make a small tweak versus holistically taking a step back and looking at the overall go-to-market strategy, alignment, motion, talent, and what you're trying to drive and use those design principles to design the complaint.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Authenticity, which I think we've talked a little bit about. I think what I found over the time is like I've seen a lot of performative salespeople who think this is what a salesperson should act like and be like, that rarely works to your point. There's money-driven salespeople. There's salespeople you've met that are complete assholes, but they own it. As long as you're authentically yourself, people are going to connect with you more. And if you're vulnerable and open and are who you are, I think it's way easier to connect with others. And I think people want to buy from people like that.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know this, and you probably, I don't know how many times you've interviewed, I've interviewed for jobs. I blatantly didn't always have interest in going after, but that's your brand, even if I didn't want that job, I better show up really, really well so that when they think about me the next time, like I'm there. The same way with recruiters.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I've struggled with the role playing because I think people then overplay the acting part. And a lot of times my own team and myself don't read the prep well enough to be like the person's actually really asking a good enough question. We're just being jerks and not playing the role of the CFO. So I got rid of the role playing. I think the thing that we do is and that we've somewhat perfected is hopefully you come in, you're going to present an account plan or an executive point of view. So we'll pick an account that's in your patch. We'll say come in with us. You're going to act like you're prepping your boss and your boss's boss for an executive meeting. So we're playing ourselves and you're going to help understand A, what the executive point of view is, what their biggest challenges are, how we can uniquely solve them, and how we approach the meeting, which I think you learn a lot about how one salespeople prep, but B, back to the original first question you asked me, can they develop a strong executive point of view that is actually unique and is pointed enough that is going to A, get them the meeting and B, help drive value for that client ultimately?”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I don't know who you interviewed and who said that, but I will make sure I call them later and chastise them as a way to make sure that I'm just kidding and lay into that. No, I think it's totally fair feedback. And I think it's probably the biggest development area that I have is as a sales leader clear as kind. And I think I've gotten that. And I think I now know that like if I'm direct with you, Harry, and I tell you exactly what you need to work on, that's actually the best thing for you. Then if I try to sugarcoat it and be nice and not be intimidated to let you down. And that's a huge thing that I've worked on, I'd say, over the last three to four years.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“About how people think about me, but I think a lot of times it is, I really, really don't want to let people down. I want them leaving with a gray taste in their mouth, regardless of any conversation, interaction, purchase, whatever it may be.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Two things that I think a lot about. I think one earlier on my career was the fear of failure for sure. Like I was very much motivated to say I can't lose at anything and I'm going to outwork, out hustle, do everything within my power to make sure I don't lose. I was talking to someone actually, our CEO the other day about this of like on a bike, if you try to pass me on a bike when I was 30 years ago, I would throw up trying to pass you. I couldn't let it happen. I was that competitive in everything I did or ping pong or silly things. And I think that was a big thing for a while. And there's a motivation there that's like a competitive drive. And then the second piece, I think, is like, I don't want to let people down. I think one that's hopefully made me be a great or decent people leader, I should say, but also like the impact you're going to hopefully have with clients if you think that lens of like, I want to make sure they walk away from this in a healthy spot is another thing that I'm somewhat embarrassed about because I don't want to be like a people pleaser. I don't want to be that person and say that I'm like so insecure that I'm always worried.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My favorite question, and almost every conversation I have is is there anything that I didn't ask you that I should have? And that's a good catch-all for the end of an interview. I think that a lot of times will get me to say, yeah, or no, right? Like it's kind of a soft close before the close. So that's a question I think I ask a lot of clients at the almost the end of every client conversation and I think the same thing for Enterbies too.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They check all the other boxes. I have no problem if money is your number one motivation. And I think most sellers try to hide it and there's nothing wrong with that. And as long as you're authentic about what your reasons are, it helps me understand A, how you're going to potentially fit in the culture and B, how I can help you stay motivated.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I did this the other day. I went on ChatGPT and I said one of the most popular questions. And it's amazing to me how many people do the same thing and they ask those questions. So I'm not going to answer that. I think the thing is, is like, you should ask genuinely what you're concerned about and what you authentically care about. Salespeople need to be authentic to connect with the person on the other end of the line. If they're not sharing what they really care about in that interview and they're asking like, what do you think the biggest growth lever is for Clary? Shut up. No one cares at that point, right? Like, let's be honest. If you say, hey, my favorite interview question I ask all the time, like, Carry, what's the one thing you change about your company? Nine times out of 10, you'll catch people flat-footed and they'll share the real opinion about what they care. I think to me, on the intellectual curiosity side, you have to have it on your product. You have to have it on your space. You have to have it on your customer. And you have to be authentic about it is the last A. And if you're not showing up in that interview process saying, like, hey, I really need this amount of, I don't care what the question is. Ask what's authentically you.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, aptitude, I think, is are you intellectually curious? This you can figure out really quickly in an interview too. One, it's amazing how many candidates don't ask questions or they ask, hey, what are the next steps in the process? And they don't come like, this is your one time to interview me too, right? And interview our company and make sure you're pushing there.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You can tell on folks, like, yes, you're boasting about yourself a little bit on an interview, but I think the other piece on that attitude is how curious are they about the company? And nine times out of ten with our company, I'm brutally honest and not a sales pitch, but I'm saying, hey, here's all of our awards. And you'll tell really quickly of like they scared and they want to have a perfect quota and a perfect territory to jump into, or are they looking at it as opportunity and things I can actually change and I can stand out with whatever problems they may have?”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Surprisingly enough, it's probably 60 to 70 percent of the time salespeople will say something that was outside of their control.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think for me how I think about salespeople and another cheesy alliteration I think about it through three lenses attitude, aptitude, and authenticity. And they all kind of mean a little bit of different thing. But I think those are the three things that I care the most about. I care less about experience. I care less about the Rolodex. I care attitude in any sales organization. You're going to have problems and you look at them as opportunities.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's fascinating business concept, by the way, and good investment on you. So, I think a lot of folks that have the dedicated vertical strategies and specifically vertical solutions are the ones that are persevering the best, I should say, with a macroeconomic conditions.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I wouldn't say it's slower, and I'm a violent proponent of verticals. I think folks would just say it's more expensive because I can't take a banking expert and put them into healthcare. And there's not as much abilities that are designated hitters or can play every position on the field. Like your CSM team has to understand it. Your SE team has to understand it. Your AE team has to. So there is an added investment there. Plus, you're specializing your messaging versus if you have a broad-based message that applies to everybody, it's a little bit easier from a product marketing perspective. But I violently agree with you. I think when I look at the CROs I talked to, those that have sound vertical strategies are the ones that are feeling the least amount of pain throughout this macro climate because I think they have it nailed and I think those with vertical approaches are actually winning right now.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is a great debate that I've had many, many times as I verticalize teams. I think unless you have a verticalized product, it does cost money, right? And I remember a Salesforce exec had a sales telling me we started healthcare. He's like, I'm expecting you guys to actually shrink this year and then grow exponentially, but it costs money and it is an investment because it is harder to scale across a bigger geography. So I think you have to be willing to take that if you're a certain size company.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It comes to product marketing and messaging, and I think Salesforce is the absolute master at this. If I talk about bits and bytes and features and functions that aren't relative to your individual problem, like you're going to lose. I think for us, when we talk to med device companies, we show up and talk about forecasting the way of create, convert, close, and churn. And they're like, we're a consumable company. So we had to relearn how to actually talk to med device companies and really understand like, oh, okay, like you're not forecasting in the way that we are in terms of true B2B opportunities. You're actually forecasting in how many syringes or how many whatever they're going to go through on a daily basis. How do we reframe this and help you track that in a more accurate way? So extremely long way of saying talk the language of your client, understand their unique problems and how you can uniquely solve them. And sometimes you can't, right? And I think for earlier stage companies, a little bit is, yeah, it's always fun to go after the JPMCs, the Bagmorigans, the biggest banks of the world, but sometimes you're not a good fit. So play where you fit.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, I think you can. And sorry, what I meant is if you're shifting your capacity to enterprise, you better be very, very sure of it. Even the biggest tech companies in the world, when they're calling on the other biggest tech companies in the world, like you're going to have different requirements. They are special Snowflake. You're going to have to invest R&D dollars, which most startups and most earlier stage companies don't have the capacity to do on the development side. So I think to her point, it's a great one. If you test it with, hey, I'm going to go after name big company X, Y, or Z. And if it requires a huge shift in my roadmap, you're going to have to give up stuff that you were planning on developing, which I think is the hardest part for earlier stage companies.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it's a big bet, right? And at Clary, we looked at enterprise versus commercial, and I think we said, hey, we have the most sophisticated forecasting tool. So we should move more capacity into the enterprise. But it was a big strategic decision at the board level. I think a lot of folks go to enterprise because they say, hey, there's more money there. And that's always true, but I think you have to find your product niche. And the unique problems your customers have and how your product solves it is where I would spend and put my chips. And I've found her friends that are saying like, we want to be Gen AI for very small startups. We don't want to deal with the biggest companies in the world because we can't build the capacity that they have. And I think that's a very intelligent decision.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Same office, you probably all talk a thousand times a day, you probably go to breakfast, lunch, and dinner together. I don't think you need formal sales enablement at that point. You just need really, really, really strong sales leaders that think about accountability and enablement as part of their job.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think if you hire the right sales team, sales enablement, not that it becomes an afterthought, but I think a lot of folks think about, and I get asked this question, a lot of sales enablement, I'm like, I read something the other day that was physicians stop listening after 18 seconds, and that's not a knock on doctors. It's just like, if you talk for more than 18 seconds, people are likely turning out. So when you do these enablement webinars and you're saying, hey, it's a mandatory two hour session every Friday. We're going to talk about product, sales process, you fall asleep. If I am a good FLM and if I am empowered and accountable to drive all of the micromoments and we say, Harry, we just got off this call. Here's the three things you could do better. Help me understand what I could have done better. And actually create more of a culture of accountability and feedback. I have found that drives a hell of a lot more enablement in those micro moments than like the big overall SKOs, the weekly webinars. You have to do some of that. But I think it's really, really, really be measured about it. And specifically for a startup, you're probably all in.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Size of like we make decisions based on where we think there is the most propensity to buy and there is the biggest opportunity, but stuff changes and things happen and you got to be willing to iterate and move folks around like without causing too much disruption.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's totally fair. And I think what I meant is more the motion. So I think hopefully I'm doing a solution selling motion. I'm understanding the client's problems. I'm providing my point of view. I'm showing them how I uniquely solve it. I'm doing creative deal construction. That's a win-win. If I'm in enterprise or commercial, of course, there's the complete long tail that hopefully you can set up some type of self-serve because cost of sale and all those fun things. But 100%, like given the complexity of the internal stakeholders, the external stakeholders, you're going to need more people and more capacity and more yield on the biggest companies in the world, which I think is pretty common for most places. I was going to say, how do you think about it? Like it is trial and error. I've seen so many times, like, your favorite salesperson or the loudest squeaky wheel right or whatever is going to ask for the most amount of resources. And sometimes you trust it, sometimes you don't. I think there's a million different thoughts about how we actually resource these things correctly. And it's a lot of it is trial and error and never being too scared to be iterative of we got to change, especially the company.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I think I was fortunate enough, I started my career actually at Salesforce as a commercial AE. And then I got fortunate enough to move to the enterprise team and become a global account manager. Honestly, I looked at actually the move from commercial to enterprise, and it was funny. I sat down with my ABP at the time. He said, Ben, you got to treat this account like 80 little accounts. It's a big global conglomerate. They have multiple different P&Ls. They have multiple different regions. And if you just treat them all like little commercial accounts and do the homework for each and solve each of their problems, it'll bubble up one day and eventually you'll drive a big enterprise license agreement. So long-winded way to think for me is like, it's the same game. It is just different stakes in terms of the number of internal stakeholders and folks that you have to have your back and help you to get things done. And then obviously external stakeholders, it's a lot more complex to sell to a $300,000 person company than a 300 person company. But I think that the process and the motion should be the same for the best companies in the world.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To your earlier question a lot of it has to do with selling the right way. So if you're selling the right way and looking at the deal construction, looking at when someone wants to be live, truly understanding the process rather than just saying, here's a sexy widget, buy it, but you've mapped out their journey based on business impact and complexity to implement. You understand upfront in pre-sales what they're going to do and what they need to do. It's a hell of a lot easier to hand that blueprint over to customer success and have them pick it up like they've been along for the ride the whole time than if it is, hey, Harry, I have this great product that's going to solve all these issues, but we don't actually do a thorough sale. That's never going to work in general regardless of how great your CS team is. Like you have to have a very thorough and outcome-based sale, I guess, from the beginning to make sure that your customer success team is set up for success.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Candidly, as you don't understand the client's buying process. And why I say that is usually the deals that don't close are the deals that are commit that are the ones that are most painful, where, hey, we're 75% likely to be chosen. We're the vendor of choice, whatever it may be. Like then it really is just a process problem that you didn't truly understand what that person had to do internally. But I think specifically for me, the most painful ones are the commit, which is, I think coming back to not understanding the buyer's internal processes to get things done.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Hopefully, at that point, you've gone through like who's the decision maker? What is their decision criteria? What was the compelling event? Is this budget and funded? The traditional med pick questions, and you'll know pretty quick digging into one quick one-on-one with a seller if they actually did their homework or if they just trusted their champion and they do have a great relationship, but they didn't actually help them sell internally. I think there's a reason all these sales methodologies exist. It's because if you do the homework nine times out of 10, it does work. And I think a lot of it is just doing the right research and asking the right questions.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I think it's really hard to get a team to work together well in a deal that isn't a good team to begin with. And this may be too ethereal, but I think about it more of like, hopefully you've built great cross-functional relationships. And my job as a CRO to be tight with product, tight with marketing, tight with the CEO, and have those open and honest relationships. So it isn't, hey, this is what I need specifically for this deal for Harry. It is more a natural thing that always happens of, hey, this one might need a product roadmap. This one might need some marketing love. This one might need whatever. Like if you don't have that trust in that foundation set up up front, it's really hard and it's really obvious. And there's the jokes we've all made of when certain sales teams show up with 16 people in the room. It's because they don't work as a freaking team, right? And those that do can show up with three and say, yeah, we got each other's backs and we can interchange roles. So I think I take it back a step further of like, I think my job as a CRO is to kind of be the glue for the company, for the customer facing efforts, to make sure we are one unified front.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Clarity for me is a forecasting platform. As a CRO, you have a gun to your head every day. You don't have enough hours in the time. And as a founder, you feel the same way. So all I need is give me the signal to where the gap in my business is. And a lot of times it's on the convert side to your point. So if I then go into the convert, I can look at call recordings. I can look at sales engagement. I can look at med pick questions. I can dig into the deal review to say, hey, these ones are stalled or at risk because hopefully Kill it. Clary's saying, look, these are the five that are not going to close. And then I know where to go. And then your job as a sales leader is pretty natural, I think, for most people to help understand where that deal is at, how you can help, and then move on from there. So that's one, the tooling to the process to just make sure stuff doesn't fall through the gaps, but ultimately it's just to try to focus your time for the signal to noise.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, one, you have all the stats to say where are deals stalled, and some of that can be CRM hygiene. Hopefully that's what it is. And it's not lack of operational rigor. I think where we see a lot of this is one, we use med pick internally and making sure we're asking the right questions on a forecast call. And the interesting thing we deployed is actually all my leaders now record their forecast calls. I listen to the smart summary Sunday night. So instead of going to the forecast call to say, hey, we still good on that deal. It's, I know my enterprise sales leader has risk on three of her five top deals. I know her number. I'm going to dig in specifically on the three areas that those deals are.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Same time last quarter last year, those types of things where you're really trying to understand the health of your business, I think convert week six, I'm looking at stalled pipe. I'm looking at pipe that's been in a certain stage for a certain amount of dates. I'm looking at all those things of like wearing the medpit questions do I have holes. Close, right, of course, is the last three weeks of like just making sure what deals are in commit that haven't talked about budget don't have MSA signed, have an exchange files, aren't at the right level from the key stakeholders or shareholders, whatever it may be. And then churn is the dreaded C where you're looking at throughout the time in software. You can't do unnatural acts typically to get you to renew in less than call it three to six months. So you're always looking Q plus one plus two and looking further out depending on the week and when you have more time to be really really smart about seeing around corners.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Me, we chunk it into four chunks. So, what we did is actually, and my SVP of RevOps, he helped kind of document all this. And we realized it was to tighten up our own forecast cadence. And then we were like, holy cow, we're on to something. And clients should be able to have access to this too. So a lot of times we're giving it to them or we're just mapping back based on their individual business needs or revenue objectives. The way I think about it is based on the individual week and there's different widgets or different pieces of the dashboard, but it's you're looking at four different aspects of the business. So one, and I will use a cheesy alliteration to make it easier to follow, but we think about it as like, and depending on the week, you're going deeper or less deep into each of them. So you can imagine in week one, like we just talked about, create is kind of the most important piece of this of looking at pipe gen efforts. Do I have enough pipe coverage? All the things we talked about, but like the last piece of it is, what's my pipe coverage? What's my historical pipe coverage? What's my historical pipe by stage? Same time last quarter.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Couple weeks, of course, it's just purely execution of are we doing the right things to make sure we're moving the needle in as short a timeframe as possible.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think you're understanding the risk in week one for us. Yes, eventually you're likely swarming around it, but I think for me, it's as simple as, hey, let me look a quarter ahead. Do we have any glaring mistakes? And it's probably 5% of the forecast call. But holy cow, it's a new quarter. Let's start a new. Let's get a sprint call related to this or a big deal review or whatever you want to call it to get the team on the horn because one of our top 10 renewals is at risk. And let's deal with it now instead of 90 days from now. So that's probably the step on that. And then step four is basic of like let me look at my overall pipe coverage and you're looking at that based on historical conversion rates from various stages. And that's where I think for us our tooling comes in more to say, hey, the predictive forecasting, the ML is going to tell you you're going to land at this based on where the pipeline sits today across early stage, mid stage, late stage. And once you have those four things, like that's week one, and we can go through the whole thing, but it later just turns into more of like, how do you then look at conversion of pipeline? And then in the last.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, for us, the way you look at it, and depending on the business, right, you probably have telemetry on your adoption and usage data. You, of course, have the contract amount when it's coming up for renewal, and you're cross-referencing those two things to say, hey, if this person is bad, telemetry or bad, and adoption usage, and a big contract, I'm going to prioritize those discussions.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Number three in week one for us actually is we actually look at renewals a quarter out. So we found we need roughly three to six months to move the needle significantly on a renewal on either retention, churn, or upsell. So we actually are looking at that in week one on our dashboard as well.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think the best leaders don't believe the stories that they tell. Every QBR I've ever been to, every AE puts up a slide that says, here's me finishing at 120% plant. Every time it's magical. Now, do 100% of AEs finish at 120% plant? Never. The best sales leaders I've been around, the people that I've learned the most from is, yes, you push them to tell more, but you really realistic and honest on the state of the business. And that requires kind of the 13-week process to make sure that you're checking and understanding where the holes in your business are.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, you push for more. I think it's week one, though, right? So it's still early. You haven't done QBRs, you haven't done those things. I want that number at least to tie out. I, of course, want to reverse waterfall where the deal back walk up is higher than the commit and the total pipe gen, the most likely all those fun things are better than the most likely. And then the total pipeline is killing it for the best case. Of course, you want to reverse waterfall. But I think in week one, I'm pretty realistic about it because a lot of times they don't have the commit deals to actually back into the pencil in a lot of the organizations I've been.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, most companies are going to say, hey, leader, put in your pencil or your forecast number of what you're going to hit this quarter. What I do with this and what our best practice is is you're looking at the actual pencil number and then you're building the commit deal back walk up, we would say. So if I'm committing a million dollars, I better have a million dollars in commit deals. One, you're counting a number, but two, you're also calling your shot on which deals are the furthest along.”
2024-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20Sales: 12-Week Step-by-Step Framework to Crush Every Sales Quarter | Moving from SMB to Enterprise: How and When | Verticalised Sales Teams: Why They are a Gamechanger and How to Build Them with Ben Fiechtner, CRO @ Clari · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source