SaaStr Annual 2024: What to Really Expect From Your CRO / VP Sales In The First 90 Days, Lessons from 1Worldsync, Skilljar and Sage with Zensai's CRO

SaaStr Annual 2024: What to Really Expect From Your CRO / VP Sales In The First 90 Days, Lessons from 1Worldsync, Skilljar and Sage with Zensai's CRO

1. What to Really Expect from your CRO/VP Sales in the First 90 Days K athy Lord CRO Zensai

2. Agenda What CEO/Founders want What CROs can really accomplish How to bridge the reality gap Three actionable takeaways

3. What CEOs/Founders want

4. What CROs/VP Sales can really accomplish

5. The first 90 days… Strong understanding of the business and the market Deep discussions with all directs, skip level 1:1s with revenue team and cross-functional leadership Built relationships with cross-functional leaders Meetings with customers, partners and prospects Strong understanding of pipeline & forecast Engagement in deals to provide executive sponsorship Initial assessment of funnel metrics and friction points Assessment of People, Process, Systems & Culture & required changes Revenue/sales operating model that defines ways of working Multi-quarter prioritized action plan Cross-functional alignment to ensure resources available as needed Strong understanding of the business and the market Deep discussions with all directs, skip level 1:1s with revenue team and cross-functional leadership Built relationships with cross-functional leaders Meetings with customers, partners and prospects Strong understanding of pipeline & forecast Engagement in deals to provide executive sponsorship Defined revenue cadence and inspection points Actively in the trenches and engaged in majority of key deals Assessment of team and process with an action plan to create more pipeline & win more deals CRO VP Sales

6. Example revenue operating model

7. Example 3 qtr action plan

8. How to bridge the reality gap

9. How to bridge the reality gap What does your organization need TODAY vs TOMORROW? Role: Leader, coach, player/coach Purpose: Enable scale, build new rev streams, coach reps Priorities: Transformation, scalable revenue model, grow revenues, find PMF Find a strong candidate with the pattern recognition for your next stage of growth! GAIN CLARITY

10. How to bridge the reality gap Tight cross-functional alignment is critical to get to the next stage: GTM – marketing, sales, services Operational – HR, IT, Finance Product – product marketing, product management, engineering, dev ops Every exec needs to be aligned on top 3 short term wins for your new revenue leader! ENSURE ALIGNMENT

11. How to bridge the reality gap Empower your new revenue leader to make the necessary changes to reach the next level of scale. No sacred people, processes or systems Do not be the bottle neck for all decisions Know there will be mistakes – fail fast, learn fast. Minimize the recovery gap. EMPOWER!

12. Key takeaways

13. Clarity on what your organization needs today Alignment across the exec team on purpose and priorities Empower your revenue leader to make the necessary changes #1. #2. #3.

14. UP NEXT: Transitioning from Sales-Led to Product-Led Growth and Scaling to $100M ARR Tim Zheng CEO & Founder Apollo.io