Olivier L’Abbe:
And guess what? After you hang out with somebody at a club getting a deal done is going to be much, much easier.
Ross Pomerantz (Corporate Bro):
Thank you. Hello. We need budget for clubs. I've been saying that since day one. Take all your prospects to Vegas. You are more than likely going to get a deal done.
*Beyond Quota Intro*
Pouyan Salehi:
Let's kick it off. So, hi everyone, I'm Pouyan from Scratchpad. We've got I'm going to say Corp. Yeah. Corporate Bro here.
Ross:
Yeah. Yeah. Ooo. Cringe. Bro. Yikes. Toxic masculinity. Oh, no, not again!
Pouyan:
Bringing the heat for sure, but really excited for today's conversation with Olivier. Known him for a while and have gotten such great advice over the years on a bunch of stuff but yeah really excited to have you.
Olivier:
Intro, I've been in SAAS World for a while now. I worked at Glassdoor. That was my first tech job, probably like 10-12 years ago and then moved on, went to FlipTop, which is a predictive account scoring company. I ran sales for them for a couple of years until the acquisition. And then I went to a small company called G2 afterwards and I worked there for four years scaling that sales and revenue org, which was really fun. And then towards the end of my time there, I was introduced to this company Metadata. I'm currently president Metadata overseeing go-to-market and was very, very impressed with the capabilities of the platform. And yeah, eventually I made a move over after unsuccessfully trying to acquire the company over six months.
Ross:
You couldn't buy them so you joined them?
Olivier:
Yeah, something like that. I mean, I am very passionate about MarTech. I've been in the space for about eight years and you know, there's a lot of issues with MarTech and for a variety of reasons and there's a lot of technologies in the space. And so, you know, it's really complicated for a lot of B2B marketers to figure out, you know, what should my tech stack look like? At the end of the day, most marketers are having a really hard time getting a lot of MQLs from their target accounts. And that's one of the specialties that we have here, is the ability to do experimentation at scale and drive predictability in your pipeline by using our platform.
Ross:
I like MQLs. If they're real.
Olivier:
SQLs are better, obviously, right? But if you if you're getting MQLs, that means you're likely to get SQLs.
Ross:
But what about the MQLs that are actually SQLs but the M keeps trying to take stuff from the S. You know? Taking credit for stuff the S really did.
Olivier:
Attribution is another big issue, and so I'm not going to dive into it. You know, you got like W-shaped attribution versus large size. Good thing about us is we can customize your attribution. So whatever you guys are, you know, you like if you want to give credit to sales or marketing, we're all for it.
Ross:
Sales, naturally, but we're the ones doing the work.
Pouyan:
They've bring the money, they got the quota.
Olivier:
But I disagree there Corp. But that's all good.
Ross:
That's fine. Traitor.
Pouyan:
So do you. Do you feel like you have a unique appreciation for what marketing does then because you've been a salesperson selling to marketing?
Olivier:
Well, for sure. I mean, it took me a while to get there, to be honest, but over time I've gone to work with it. So I've got the opportunity to work with some really good marketers over the years. And, you know, it's really hard to build demand, right? Specifically to get, you know, prospects interested in engaging with your your product and your brand. And so that is something that's difficult. And, you know, obviously now not everyone's really good at generating demand and also being good at, you know, content creation and brand awareness and all the things that the marketers have to think about. And so it is a hard, hard job to do. But I do know that there is some issues with aligning sales and marketing, right. Oftentimes the leaders on the, you know, sales teams and the leaders of the marketing team are not aligned. And you can easily find that out. And so I've been selling to marketers for about seven or eight years now, and I've learned a lot. And if your marketing team is not aligned with your sales team, you're going to have some issues.
Pouyan:
So I'm curious, like what have you done to better align with your marketing counterparts in the past because you were in it as a sales leader?
Olivier:
Yeah. I mean, I think at the end of the day, one of the things we did, you know, we had some issues at times a G2 and so we would just do happy hours. Get the sales team to go hang out with the marketing team and, you know, get to know each other. Now, from an MQL standpoint, that is, you know, something that marketing team needs to come up with. But an SQL is what the sales team needs to figure out what that is, right? And so the alignment between MQL and SQL is critical. And oftentimes, you know, the marketing team will create a list of target accounts and they might not even go talk to the sales team or the sales team will create a list of target accounts, but it's based on logos they think are cool. It's not based on what your ICP is and how those convert in your pipeline. And so you need to make sure that you're spending a lot of time on it.
Pouyan:
I'm just thinking of that happy hour right now.
Ross:
Me too. What drink is each side drinking?
Pouyan:
You walk in somewhere and there's a sign for marketing and there's a sign for sales. And I can see Ross just standing there being like...
Ross:
I just see marketers being like, I'm so drunkkkk. And they're like, It's kombucha, dude. You can't get drunk on that. Whose job is harder? Let's start with something simple.
Olivier:
I think it all depends on the product. Right? You know, how big is your total addressable market? How good is your product? Is it a product-led-growth motion? And if it is, then marketing's job is harder, right? Because you don't necessarily need salespeople to sell a free trial. They can just basically engage the buyers online. But if your product is complicated, right, or if you're selling a high ACV product, it's costing you $100,000 or $1,000,000 a year. Then I feel like the sales job is harder at that point.
Ross:
So I want to know. Had you been. You're just. What does a president do?
Pouyan:
Thank you for asking that. I was gonna ask the same thing.
Ross:
What does the president do?
Olivier:
Yeah, it depends on the day, I guess. I get a lot of shit from people asking me what I do all day and I try to keep my calendar busy just to make sure that I can keep my job. But at Metadata my role is go-to-market. So I'm overseeing the Sales team, the CS team, we have Operations. I also do a lot of work on the HR front because we don't yet have somebody that's full time on that. Fundraising as well and some finance stuff and so a little bit of everything. But at the end of the day, I own the number, so I got to make sure that we're delivering the revenue.
Ross:
So how has your perspective changed or not? I mean, you've obviously been the leadership VP at that G2 and so forth so people are trying to slang at you there too. But how has your perspective changed as like an IC now at like the top of an organization? From like getting say like on either side really being sold to or as what you would change if you could have talked to yourself as a young IC.
Olivier:
Yeah. Well, when I was a young IC I wanted to have a seat at the table. I wanted to be involved in the decisions about, you know, buying certain software, especially if there was a software that I'd have to start using if we bought it. And then over time now I'm like, I don't want to be involved. So, you know, I'll let my, you know, VPs decide what they want to buy and then they can come to me. And usually when they come to me, they have a business case. We think this is going to do X, Y and Z, so on and so forth. I'm like, Great, but the salesperson on the phone with me and then I give them a run for their money.
Ross:
What a treat that would be.
Olivier:
My VP of Engineering brought me on the call recently and in the end she's like I thought you were going to make him cry. We got a good deal and we bought and like it was at the end of the month. And so he got what he wanted, which was a deal. And I was happy with, you know, that the price that we paid. So everyone is happy.
Ross:
What do you what recommendations would you give to people who sell to marketers, especially when you realize like they kind of work from like 11 to 2 but not like 12 to 1 because that's lunchtime and like not Fridays or Wednesdays. Like, how do you get in touch with them when they're so elusive?
Olivier:
Well, I know a lot of marketers and they work really hard. I mean, if you just look at my marketing team, they don't really have that much work-life balance right now. And I'm hopeful that they will at some point. But, you know,.
Ross:
The pendulum swings back. It's good to hear.
Olivier:
We have a team of three right now but now we're hiring for four more roles. So, you know, we'll see what happens next year. But it's like I said earlier, it's a really hard job. And so how do you want to sell to marketers? You got to know what they're measured on. That's the number one thing you need to ask.
Ross:
Well, it's not revenue.
Olivier:
Well, I hope it is, because if it is -
Ross:
I hope it is too. But it's like share-of-voice and pull-through rate and likes.
Olivier:
No, no, no, no, no. That's that's those are social media marketers and that's like an entry-level position. So at the top, they usually care about revenue. Pipeline. Right? And what's your CAC what's your customer acquisition cost? Because a lot of it will be depending on how much money they're spending to get people to want to take a demo with the sales team. And if you build your company with, you know, this is the first time in my career that I'm a company where 70% of the revenue comes from marketing. It's pretty cool. And we use our own product and so it really works and so that's great. But historically that wasn't the case. Most companies I was at, especially when I started at those companies, it was really outbound motions and trade shows worked really well, and that's a great way to send a bunch of good salespeople to build some relationships, and then you can get access to them after the trade show. You can take them out to dinners, which is something that we've done historically at G-2 and here at Metadata. So we do a customer dinner, we invite a couple of prospects and then, you know, we don't even have to sell the marketers. Marketers don't like to get sold, too, but if you if they you connect them with another marketer who's a big fan of yours and they respect that marketer, whatever that marketer says is going to work way more effectively than, you know, me telling you that you that this project is going to change your life. So I'd rather have somebody else say that. So third party validation. Now, the thing I think is really important, right? You got to get reviews because people don't necessarily trust salespeople.
Ross:
Why?!
Pouyan:
Really?
Olivier:
Because they're trying to get a deal done man!
Ross:
Give me one reason why!
Olivier:
They want to save their job. Because their jobs on the line every month.
Ross:
No.
Olivier:
So they want to, you know, save their ass. And then the second -
Ross:
Customer-first, man. Always! Put me on PIP as long as I do right by my customers. I don't need to make money or eat. I just want to know my customers and prospects respect me.
Olivier:
If you're a salesperson, if you're a salesperson, you get on a call with anybody that you're trying to sell after you know, you do some rapport building and what have you. My first question is like, how are you measured? If you know what KPIs they care about and how they're going to get a promotion, what they need to do. Then you just got the keys to the kingdom.
Ross:
I think that's reasonable and fair and I hate it.
Pouyan:
I know. I feel like we're we don't have any counters to that.
Ross:
Yeah. What am I supposed to say to that?
Pouyan:
No, that's okay. Thank you. Check. Check. Right next to the note I just took.
Ross:
We'll just cut it post.
Pouyan:
Earlier Olivier, you mentioned that you're doing some some crazy stuff in sales. Or have done. I'm curious, like what those are?
Olivier:
Yeah, I don't. I don't think I've done anything crazy. I like to bring value. Right. So that's number one.
Pouyan:
That's a little crazy.
Ross:
That would be rare. That would be rare.
Olivier:
I've also taken out customers. I'm taking one out -
Ross:
Where you guys going? Gold Club? Brunch?
Olivier:
No, no trade shows. If you go to a trade show in Vegas, it's really easy to get some of those executives to want to hang out with you. If you get a table at a club and guess what? After you hang out with somebody at a club, like getting a deal done is going to be much, much easier.
Ross:
Thank you! Hello, we need a budget for clubs! I've been saying that since day one. Take all your prospects to Vegas. You are more than likely going to get a deal done. That's where friends become best friends.
Olivier:
Well, I mean, it has. If your V.P. of finance somehow agrees to this. You got to make sure you get the ROI. Right? Like that deal is going to close within a short amount of time. Otherwise, you will never get budget again to do that type of thing.
Ross:
That's reasonable.
Olivier:
Yeah. You got to get out attribution.
Ross:
I'll frame it as an investment.
Olivier:
Yeah. And you got to get marketing budget, right? Because you're, you know, you're essentially telling the marketer, like, I'm going to make you look good, but I have no budget as a sales rep. But you got budget, so give me your budget. I'll take him out and then close the deal and I'll we'll say attribution wise, you know, that was a marketing qualified lead.
Ross:
I - that is... wow. If I had just traded some and given some MQLs in exchange to go to Vegas, I could've had this all figured out.
Pouyan:
Should we run an experiment?
Ross:
Where I go to Vegas with some marketing budget? See if I can close anything.
Pouyan:
Let's do it. I mean, we could actually do it. This is part of this. I know somebody at our company who knows that, who can control the budget. And maybe we can run an experiment here and try this. I will invite Roy. Yup, yup. And see and see how strong Roy comes back.
Ross:
Roy's coming with!
Pouyan:
Roy comes with and then we can actually do another pod and just be like, okay, this was the experiment. This conversation with Olivier triggered the call or triggered the Vegas trip.
Ross:
These are the drugs I took.
Pouyan:
This is what we did. This is the budget that we spent. And now we're going to do a recap of how it worked and whether Roy showed up or Roy didn't show up.
Ross:
Yeah, and then we just show how it scales and should be done.
Olivier:
You just need to make sure that whoever shows up on the customer front has the keys to the budget.
Ross:
True.
Olivier:
And if they don't, you're wasting your money.
Pouyan:
So it's not just me and Ross going to Vegas then?
Olivier:
No, well I mean, who's your ICP? Who's your personas that you're selling to?
Pouyan:
Fair enough. Fair enough.
Olivier:
VPs of sales I'm sure would be down for it. And they have the budget.
Ross:
They do.
Olivier:
Right? They'd probably be fun too. So, you know, you could try it out.
Ross:
How was the ROI of SaaSTr? How do we think about that? Metadata was there. I saw you. We met.
Olivier:
Metadata was there because I just showed up. I bought a ticket for the one that got canceled last year and I showed up. So from an ROI perspective, I think it was great because I, you know, engaged with a bunch of prospects and customers.
Ross:
Paid for itself.
Olivier:
I did not buy a booth. What they had though, that was cool was there slushies. And after 4:00, they would put vodka in your slushies. Those were really good.
Ross:
I did not see that. I was lied to.
Pouyan:
Yeah, I missed that too.
Olivier:
It's hard to do ROI from a trade show though because it depends on how you're measuring ROI. Are you going to measure it from pipeline? Because in some cases, tracers are great for brand awareness, right? And as long as your ICP or your personas that you want to sell to are there so it's great, but sometimes they're not at the trade show. So it really depends on the trade show. Historically, SAASTR has had really good quality of executives that show up, but if you can't get in front of them it's going to be really hard.
Ross:
They just can't seem to pick the right speaker. If only they had someone to just bring it all together. I don't know. Probably somebody like engaging and funny, charismatic, smart and all those things. Doesn't exist though, you know, there isn't anyone out there that can possibly fill the void!
Pouyan:
That knows a little about marketing, a little bit about sales, maybe has done some of them before.
Ross:
I don't know, maybe been a booth babe himself or herself. You know, I'm just saying.
Pouyan:
I think I think we're coming up on on time here. Olivier, we like to end with two simple questions. And one of those is what's your hype song?
Olivier:
Oh man.
Pouyan:
You're going to that dinner in Vegas before the club. The ICPs are all there. What's hyping you up to go be like you need to buy. You need to buy. You need to buy.
Olivier:
Oh, man, I'm having a brainfart - It's by Awol Nation... Golly what's the name of that song? Sail!
Ross:
I was gonna say is it sale?
Olivier:
Yeah, yeah. That gets me pumped.
Ross:
That is a banger.
Olivier:
Yeah.
Ross:
They just scream SALES every like 45 seconds.
Pouyan:
Okay, now let's do the opposite. You come out of the club. And they said no. You've dropped $250,000 at the club. On three bottles. And there was a "no."
Ross:
And you're thinking about your conversation with your CFO. You've got to talk to them.
Pouyan:
Yeah. What is your recovery song?
Olivier:
Oh, man. I know I do like some Celine Dion. She's Canadian and she comes from my hometown.
Ross:
Just sobbing to Celine Dion. Alright.
Olivier:
No, I'm kidding. I mean, that's a hard question. I wasn't ready for this. I wish I would listen to more of your podcast so I could get ready for it.
Pouyan:
That's okay.
Olivier:
I like mellow. Yeah, mellow. Electronic music is probably what I'd listen to.
Pouyan:
Just to take the edge off a little bit.
Olivier:
Yeah, well, I know you're still, like, feeling the, you know, the beats. You know, your ears are still drumming. So it's a it's a good one to listen to.
Ross:
Plus, you're like more in the last couple of days of your employment, likely. You know?
Pouyan:
Roy did not show up.
Ross:
Roy did not show up. Sweet Roy.
