Jordan Easley

SaaS companies where you at?! I've got a friend who is at KILLER at product, he's looking for a product leadership role at a growth stage, mission-oriented SaaS company Highlights: --Seasoned Product Leader that has grown organizations' ARR from zero to $5M and from $40M to $80M twice. --Over ten years of digital health experience across the healthcare ecosystem (payers, providers, patients, and pharma) --Experience in other vertical SaaS organizations, including EdTech, Logistics, and FinTech --Typically joins companies that are at an inflection point. They want to tighten product-market fit, scale, expand into adjacent markets, or turn things around. --Experience as a CTO and a P&L leader. --Looking for a product leader role at a series A or later mission-oriented SaaS company. Comment below or DM me if you've got an opening or know someone who does!

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Hot Take: Hating on Signal-led and outbound means you don't get either or don't understand how to build it. We are having the best pipeline month in company history and about to beat our best quarter after going signal led(Q2 '24 results to follow). How did we do it = Stacking Signals!! The key to success here is that each signal is not a solution, you need to stack them together and triage them to get your best strike zone. Here is the list of signal's I captured manually. An OKR for me this quarter is to add more to my repository of signals and I plan on doing this by integrating all these signals into Common Room and further track their activity for unique trigger and conversion events. In an ideal world I plan on "Big Brothering" my leads/signals to see if they become hotter over time and convert. These are some of the signals we are working with currently and you can find the resources of signals from Common Room in some of the links i'll share. 1) CRM signals: Lookalike customers and prospects in your deal committed stage. 2) Social Signals: Community engagement, Dark social conversations. 3) Website Visitors: De-anonymized 4) Product Signals: Sign-up's, lookalike sign-ups and sign-ups engaging with competitors. What's fascinating is that these signal produced leads are converting to qualified opportunities and closed won 37% faster. These are also outperforming our inbound demo's and hand raisers. This is the current workflow and how as a PLG org, stacking the above signals and doing a bit of manual work is a must. I'll stress again - all these signal's without the right enablement and sales talent will fall short. Enter Debdutta Saha 🧘‍♂️ - This is how Deb stack's our signals and build's glorious qualified pipeline. Step 1: Deb tracks all sign-ups on our Tablea dashboard and looks for unique sign-ups. Aka has somebody hit room limits or has somebody invited other internally to sign-up. These events increase the score and turns the sign-up into a signal. Step2: We check de-anonamization took to check visitors on our site and validate who to reach out to. 40% activation failures exist in PLG and this signal combined with the above shows us sign-ups that might be in market and actively evaluating. Step3: Then we look for unique trigger signal to get a better sense of the org - aka do they have open headcount, are they hiring for roles that are end users of my product. Here is a repository of signal's from Common Room that you can use https://lnkd.in/gSC6Px-9 Step4: We prospect and talk to all ic's to learn what could be ATL messaging for the leaders that will help us convert an account to an opportunity. The above is just 1 of many play's we run. The hypothesis is that by integrating all my signals and product data into Common Room, i'll be surfaced more wins to go after. I'll share Q2 results soon - playbook in comments. #sales #khantent #management

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Are your renewals killing your quarter? Here are 10 ways to make sure you have a terrible Q2 10. Don't update them on new features they were asking for 9. Have a complicated renewal process. 8. Having misaligned data in the CRM  7. Mismanage your renewal process by not tracking discounts or giving away free services that weren't budgeted for. 6. Ignore them because usage is high, so "everything is cool" 5. Ignore them because it's auto-renewed 4. Never contact the Champion and just work with the admins 3. Don't have meaningful renewal conversations. 2. Start the renewal process in the same month its due 1. Never articulate the value they are getting from your product How are you going to have better Q2 numbers?

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Dear CEO - when we started building our software product, we learned that hiring experienced developers was best. Recent college grads not so much... Now that we're building our Outbound Process, I'd argue that hiring experienced RevOps, SalesDev and SDR Leaders will be best. Recent college grads not so much... If we're not aligned, please go follow Tito 🚀 Bohrt - Sales Mad Scientist so you can understand that #SDRsMatter. Similarly to building a bad product in the early days, the cost of it is not the $30K you sink into your CTO who just graduated from the local community college. The real cost is the 6 months it took you to realize you should do it right. If we're not willing to invest in hiring a world-class team, we will not get revenue, and therefore I would need to decline the job offer as CRO at {{company}}. Respectfully, {{sender.first-name}} ^^ Now copy this email and save it in your draft because the next time you get a CRO position and your CEO is asking you to cut corners, you should stop wasting your time (life) and just find a better team. #NuffSaid #SDRsMatter Also, tag a colleague who "gets it" and share this with someone who you think is a future CRO. I'll go first. I think Jill Bruno will eventually take a role like this. Who you got?

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"I hate LinkedIn." -Tech Seller Yesterday at pickleball I struck up a convo with a guy. Turns out he's in sales. Sells software for one of the big B2B tech firms. One I know well (a client in a previous life). I dug in a little bit to learn more about his role. And what products/industry he was focused on. He then asked me about my business. Told him I'm endeavoring to build a SaaS business. He asked what it is. And I replied, "Are you familiar with tools to create personalized videos?" I find this question helps to provide context so I can explain what Popr.ai is. But, that's where the conversation took a turn. His response? "I hate tools like that." "I'd never use something like that." "Our enablement team is always trying to push new tools down our throats." "I just pick up the phone and talk to people." "Or send a really short email." My reply? "Sure, if you have something that's working for you, stick with it". I didn't try further to explain Popr. No point. I did, however, ask him if he's active on LinkedIn. He fired back quickly. "I hate LinkedIn." "I hate all social media." And, that was basically the end of our conversation on the topic. My takeaway? Maybe he's a highly effective seller. Doing things the way he's always done them. Or, maybe, he's a dinosaur. Or, maybe a little of both. For me, I choose to try to stay current. To not be afraid to try new things. So even though this guy and me have had similar careers. We may not have a lot in common. Except of course for pickleball lol. --------------------------- What's your take on this? Do you think someone like this can be successful in sales today? Why or why not?

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F*** is my favorite four-letter F-word. F*** = Free...obviously. 😏 Speaking of free, here's something I'm really excited about. Over at RevOps Co-op, we've got not one, but TWO complimentary RevOpsAF conference passes to give away courtesy of our friends at Enlyft. 🎁 Maybe you're a revenue operator in between gigs who wants to expand your network? 🤝 Or an employed RevOps pro who wants to attend #RevOpsAF 2024 in San Diego but your company isn't able to sponsor you? If this sounds like you then throw the 🙋 emoji in the comments and DM me to toss your name in the literal raffle hat. Sound like someone you know? Tag 'em on this post and have them do the same! Big shout out to Michael Schultz and Phil Gray from Enlyft for making this happen. ❤️ PS - learn more about RevOpsAF 2024 at revopsaf(dot)com #revops #revenueoperations #salesops #salesoperations #marketingops #marketingoperations #mops

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Fun question Friday for my #payments friends. When (if ever) should a vertical B2B saas company consider becoming a payfac? No “it depends” answers. 😜 Can we come up with a simple rule of thumb for vertical saas founders/leaders on when they should start thinking about it? Example: When you’re processing $XM/yr in payments, it’s time to explore. Or maybe the answer is never? What ya got LinkedIn? #payments #verticalsaas #entrepeneur #fintech

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Most of you won’t know till it’s too late H1 just wrapped up and companies are going to continue to do layoffs like it’s a trend on Tak Tak CEOs doing a stupid dance while they send out their press release stating the difficulty in the decision Every company I’ve worked for in the Saas space has now done a round or more of layoffs ultimately affecting people I’m close with Each person saying they’re going to take some time before looking again They got a decent severance and they’re going to use it to rest and recover My one piece of advice to anyone thinking the same thing DON’T WAIT Listen up… Applications and resumes don’t mean shit anymore There’s AI platforms people develop to apply at mass, clogging the application well Which results in screening apps making it nearly impossible to move from a blind application to the intro call Timeline…get ready for the long haul Average time it takes for people to land there next role, 4-5 months With a single process taking an average 2-3 months to go through every round And that’s if they don’t decide to push it Show up and show off Competition is crazier than ever and if you’re not willing to go the extra mile, but your ass someone else will If you aren’t networking like a sales person at a SaaS convention, here’s your sign 💢 80% of my interviews came from referrals or intros from connections I’ve made on here 💢 19% came from previous customers or prospects that I built rapport with 💢 1% came from applications I submitted directly…and I applied like it was going out of style No one has ever said “I wish I didn’t connect with so many people” Build now and thank yourself later #layoffs

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GTM & RevOps teams should marry. They need a commitment device. No, darling, I am not talking about a ring. I mean SLAs. Wait what....? Service Level Agreements (SLAs) don't need to be boring documents that guarantee 99.95% uptime and that only Jeff from IT cares about. SLAs can create accountability for alignment. Alignment is what we keep talking about in RevOps. Let's look at 4 SLA examples: Marketing <> Sales “Every Month Marketing will deliver 40 marketing-qualified leads to sales. And Sales will contact each lead within 12 business hours of receiving each lead.” CS <> Product "Customer Success will invite the product team to __ customer calls every month to gather product feedback. And Product will attend all those customer calls." Sales <> Finance “Sales will submit all contract and pricing details to Finance within 16 business hours of closing a deal. Finance will review and approve the contract within 24 business hours to ensure timely invoicing and revenue recognition.” RevOps <> GTM Teams “RevOps will conduct a monthly performance review meeting with representatives from Sales, Marketing, Customer Success, and Product. Each team will present their key metrics and progress against SLAs. RevOps will facilitate the discussion to identify and resolve any misalignments or roadblocks." They are the vows of RevOps and GTM. May the live happily ever after, Till bankruptcy do us apart. But in all seriousness, SLA can have a huge impact. Just writing them down creates commitment. Signing them makes them stick. This makes it official and impacts behaviour even more. I have seen great results in businesses adopting SLAs. They create the desired change. P.S. Do you have vows, ehh SLAs, in your company?

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How do you define an MQL? And how does this compare to what other companies do? 🤔 Someone asked this question in the ROC Slack group recently, here's how the RevOps Co-op responded 👇 1️⃣ 2 out of 4 BANT criteria met Consensus here was BANT is the responsibility of the sales team, not the marketing team, so shouldn't be used. 2️⃣ Exceeds lead score threshold based on demographic and behavior data This was a popular choice. Lots of folks said an MQL should be a hand-raiser that meets some sort of grade / score threshold. 3️⃣ Based on account and title fit with ICP This can be the basis of a lead score or grade mentioned in number 2 above. ☝️ 4️⃣ Based on Minimum Viable Customer Profile (MVCP) This is basically a twist on number 2 and 3 above, but I thought it was intriguing. It's basically a more broad version of your ICP using secondary criteria. For example, if your ICP is a Fortune 500 account, your MVCP may be any company with > $50M revenue. Or if your ICP is HQ in the US, your MVCP could be HQ in the US, Canada, UK and Australia. What do you think - anything missing here for different ways to define an MQL? PS - thanks to Malorie Packard, Colby Ricker, Colin Illar, Jeff Ignacio, Jacqueline Freedman 🦋, Rex Biberston, and others for participating in this 🧵 #revenueoperations #revops #marketingops #marketingoperations #mops #GTMOps #alltheops #MQL

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👀👀 NYC women in SaaS, I'm looking at you! 👀👀 I've said it before and I'll say it again: many executives will never even celebrate a two-year anniversary in their roles. More often than not, the "why" behind that reality comes down to either 1) a failure to embrace a "First Team" leadership mentality or 2) lack of P&L fluency/command - an ability to tie the their work back to the company's top/bottom lines. Last fall we launched the Primary Venture Partners "On the Business" mastery series for senior women in SaaS to help them level up their thinking in both areas. Today the median $50MM+ ARR company has just 30% of their "leadership" positions filled by women (and that is a BS statistic because it includes the director ranks - would be much lower if only VP+). But it's not just about getting more women into those seats, it's about getting them to EXCEL in their leadership roles once they're there. We're proud of the programs we've developed to help. For our next NYC event, we'll be doing a deeper dive into the concept of "First Team" leadership over a breakfast session at Primary HQ this coming Tuesday, July 9 at 8:30am. Our February event featured a fireside chat with Kristine Kern, leadership coach extraordinaire (I would know because I've worked with her for 10 years and she was the one to school me on the importance of First Team), and Rebecca Price; to say that session was ELECTRIC would be a true understatement, so we're excited to host a dedicated event for this important topic. We'll cover a variety of spicy topics and will also offer structured breakout groups for deeper dive discussions and networking: 🏊‍♀️ Avoiding the age old "swim lane trap" in the board room 🧠 Differences between smart and healthy organizations 🤼 Managing a mix of personality sets on the leadership team 🤝 Tips and tricks for ensuring leadership team clarity and alignment 👩‍💼 Leadership team meeting hygiene, cadences, etc. Rest assured that this will be a fun one. This event is limited to VP-level and C-Suite women in SaaS who can join us live in NYC. If you fit that bill, RSVP here to join us: https://lu.ma/4a45dqcp

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Does outbound still work? It’s funny, two of my fastest growing investments sell to SMBs. 1-2 call closes, low ACVs. One has mostly abandoned outbound. Doesn’t move the needle and was a big distraction. The other has doubled down here and seen it grow to 30%+ of new customers. Different industries, different teams.  But most importantly, perhaps, different CROs. Different DNA. We can all agree the old “break up email” sequences run by kids straight out of school has very limited effectiveness today. It doesn’t mean outbound is dead though I think what’s most important in 2024 is that outbound truly adds value to the prospect. The break-up email chain never did. Email remains a magical thing. If the email is strong, and importantly, the value strong — it will get opened and it will get read. That’s something right there

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Seems like every day at this point: Prospect: "Is the pricing on-demand?" Me: "Yes" Prospect: "And on-demand can mean literally zero?" Me: "Yes!" Prospect: "Finally! Where do I sign?" Free advice to our competitors, 423rd edition: If you advertise on-demand pricing, and then make them buy at least n=1 concurrency at all times, the customer will (rightly!) feel cheated. Yes, this means some overhead cost for you. It's worth it for the customer love. Trust me.

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There's *not* a lot of great content out there about hiring a great SDR Manager, which is a shame. This person's performance could significantly impact the direction of a business. Too many companies fill this role too quickly, hire a bunch of SDRs, and if it doesn't work out as expected, give up on the whole sales development program. 🤦‍♂️ This hire matters. Don't be cheap. Don't move too quickly. What should you look for when making this hire? First off, this job is hard. It's not like other sales management roles. They generally are dealing with less experienced reps, they are training constantly, their performance is measured in days, not months or quarters, and finally, they have to make a lot of hard resourcing decisions. Here's where I'd start: - How well do I understand a high performing SDR program? - Can this candidate maintain a high bar for their team? How well do I understand a high performing SDR program? A lot of what you optimize for will vary based on your answer here. Also, maybe a little controversial, but in my opinion, a surprising number of Head of Sales do not know what a good program looks like. No reason to be embarrassed about it, but be aware of it (DM me if you are curious). If your answer is that you have a strong understanding of an SDR program, you have a bit of flexibility. You know how to qualify a candidate. You know how to coach them when needed, etc. You only need to figure out if they can manage a high performing team. If your answer is that you have a okay to poor understanding of an SDR program, you need to be a bit more strategic. I would start by personally recruiting AE's or SDR's from companies with well known programs in your industry. If that doesn't work, recruit from companies with known good programs (e.g. Zoominfo, Yelp, etc.). Someone will bite if you put in the right work. The key when you make the hire is that you get out of their way. Ask what worked at their previous company and help them implement it. *Despite what you think, I promise your buyer isn't that much different.* Can this candidate maintain a high bar for their team? When you have the right candidate, the second filter is to understand if they can manage. Most of these candidates likely will have zero managing experience! Totally fine. The question you want to answer about this person is can they hold a team accountable? Being an SDR is hard. If it's not, the job isn't being done right. You need someone who can set this bar. Identifying this in an interview can be tricky, but it is important. How have they managed teams in the past? Why? If they have no managing experience, what were their personal goals in the past? How did they hold themselves accountable? What happened when they didn't hit them? Hope this info is helpful. A bit of mind dump from this week. Last thing. Setting a high bar doesn't mean the SDR function isn't fun! In fact, I think it makes everything more fun. 🤷‍♂️

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Live demo days - have seen a lot of these pop up lately, and just gotta say...I don't get it and have no plans to do this at RevOps Co-op. Here's why 👇🏻 1️⃣ Misleading value prop for attendees Watch demos without jumping into a sales cycle. That's the pitch with these live demo days. But when you sign up, your information gets shared with the companies showcasing their products. So you then get dropped into a sales sequence. Which is no different than if you booked a live demo yourself. And this will happen multiple times, With every company that participates in the live demo day, So the outcome is actually the complete opposite of what was pitched, Because instead of not getting put into any sales cycle, You get dropped into multiple. 2️⃣ Misleading value prop for participating companies Get in front of 300 people, convert just 1% of them and that's 3 new customers. Easy to calculate ROI, right? Wrong. The buying journey isn't linear, And the decision to buy is never based on one, single event...like a live demo day. It's based on a series of things like 👇🏻 Research the prospect has done. LinkedIn posts the prospect has seen. Questions they've asked in communities like RevOps Co-op. Free trials they've taken advantage of. Even watching un-gated recorded product demos. So while I get the appeal of the "easy ROI math", The truth is there are no shortcuts, and this is no different. Here's the kicker though 👇🏻 As a company, you should absolutely 100% be participating in these live demo days, But approach them differently and focus on educating the market on your product, Which should tie to all of the other initiatives and campaigns you do. Because collectively, that's how you generate pipeline. Let me be clear - I've got nothing against companies doing these live demo days. And like I've said above, if you're a software company you should be participating in these. But I've been asked multiple times why we aren't doing them at RevOps Co-op, and that's why. Shields up. 🛡️ Happy Thursday y'all ✌🏻 #revops #revenueoperations #salesops #salesoperations #marketingops #marketingoperations #mops #sops #cxops #csops #gtmops #alltheops

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Founder of a $17M company peaked in revenue Investors wanted to help They introduced me as the founder didn’t know what to do I review: - people - process - systems - enablement - performance - strategy - recruiting/hiring I present my audit findings with recommendations via a presentation The findings are nice, but recommendations how fix them are what they really want After the presentation, I give 24+ hours for it all to digest Then we get back together, prioritize and get to work One thing always comes up Change management It’s rare to get brought in to help and no personnel changes happen Why does it need to happen: the system needs a jolt Something needs to happen in order for awareness to grow & behavior to change If everything was going well, I would not get called Habits are built over time and are hard to break The jolt gives those habits a little stir and wake up call The jolt flushes out who is out of gas, in the wrong role, no longer a fit, and who is ready for a promotion, who is ready to take on more, who are the right fits After making some needed changes + communication and training, this founder started to see the progress and shift he had always wanted His comment to me: “that jolt is what this company needed” Takeaways: 1. Change management provides a jolt to a company that can change the trajectory of your company 2. A sales audit will identify what changes are needed (and where to double down)

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Had a fantastic conversation with Aaron Evans on the Rev-Up Sales Podcast all about organizational sales health. We discussed the changed sales environment and how the way we've been selling doesn't work anymore. Buyers expect more and sellers need to step up! Aaron Evans is one of the top sales enablement thought leaders out there and the co-founder of Flow State. He's guy's been revolutionizing B2B sales for over a decade, helping everyone from scrappy startups to global giants! Tune into the full epiosde, link in the comments section and connect with Aaron who puts out a tonne of valuable content!

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Lead Qualification from inbound listing sources is a massive time sink and struggle for already busy leasing teams. That is why we created QuickCasa. QuickCasa doesn’t just sift through data, it engages in meaningful conversations. Here’s an example of QuickCasa's notes from an interaction: ‘[PROSPECT] mentioned their move-in timeline (as soon as possible), budget (can afford the apartment), preferences (closet space, natural light), availability for a walkthrough, and name (PROSPECT'S NAME). The only missing piece is contact information, which is essential for follow-up. I will ask them for this so we can move forward with booking a walkthrough.’ This level of detail and understanding ensures that property managers receive highly qualified leads. Our goal is to create never-before-seen operational efficiency in residential property management. #AI #PropTech #RealEstate #CustomerExperience #Innovation"

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