Chris Strom:
Hey, everyone. Chris Strom here and for today's RevOps Hero podcast, we have something a little different. Last week, I was at HubSpot's Annual INBOUND Conference. It's where marketers and sales leaders from all over the country and all over the world come together. I thought that would be a great opportunity to go do some on the spot interviews with some marketing leaders and hear about how marketing leaders at different companies go about their go-to-market motion.
There are so many different ways that companies go about going to market. Some start with a really heavy online demand generation focus. Some companies have a really heavy in-person event or in-person and virtual event focus for their go-to-market process. Some companies have just really nailed in their target account list and they're doing just a lot of effort in just one-on-one prospecting and outreach to people on that account list. A lot of different ways that companies go about doing it.
So, I wanted to interview some people, hear how they go about it and do some comparing and contrasting. So, I got five different people at five different companies and I'd like to share what we talked about with you. So, let's go into it. I have Tim Phelps from First Orion here. You're the marketing director. Tell us what does First Orion sell and who are you selling it to, first off?
Tim Phelps:
We sell branded calling, which is calling that businesses make to prospects or customer care or whatever they might be doing to mobile devices. And we can brand those calls so that when the call comes in, you can see name, correct name, logo, maybe even the reason for the call on that outbound call.
Chris Strom:
And who are you selling it to?
Tim Phelps:
Really, it's any business that does outbound calls to mobile devices. Think of it in terms of anybody that's doing deliveries, anybody who's calling customers, healthcare organizations that are calling their clients for scheduling and that kind of thing. All of those kinds of varieties. And then in addition to that, sales salespeople doing outbound calls.
Chris Strom:
For verifying their numbers so they're not getting flagged as spam or things like that?
Tim Phelps:
Yeah. So, we have two parts of our business. We do verification, which allows us to tell the networks, all three networks that we believe this person is legitimate. They're making outbound calls that represent a company that's real and all of that, and we can help with scam, spam tagging. And then secondarily, is the branded call business, which we also typically, somebody will progress from not wanting to be tagged to wanting to have the correct information on that caller ID.
Chris Strom:
What's the go-to-market motion for you all to start reaching out to them and connecting with them, first off?
Tim Phelps:
The vast majority of our marketing effort is done through online ads. We have your typical spots. We do display ads. We do all sorts of awareness advertising. We also do search ads and things like that. But then beyond that, we do have some partner programs. We have some events that we go to. We have a variety of other capacities to reach those customers. One of the big ways we get business though is inbound referrals from other providers that need help with this type of thing. Some of the largest phone companies out there send their customers our way when they need help with this.
Chris Strom:
So, a couple of different lead sources, ad campaigns, direct referrals from phone companies themselves.
Tim Phelps:
Right.
Chris Strom:
So then, you're bringing them, say for the ad campaigns, you're bringing them to a landing page which puts them into CRM?
Tim Phelps:
Yeah, it depends on a couple of different variables, but if we can identify the customer and we know that they're a small customer who doesn't make just a ton of calls, think of your local flower shop, your delivery pizza person, whatever it might be, those types, they can go right online and sign up. They don't have to talk to a salesperson. And we have a fully automated process for them to go through the self-service. But if they want to or if they're enterprise level and they're going to make a lot of calls, then they probably want to talk to one of our salespeople. And in that case, we use a web form, they fill it out and we'll get right back to them.
Chris Strom:
So, they fill out a form, they select company size 25 people or smaller, maybe you just redirect them to the self-sign up, say company size 500 people. Then do you flag them as a high-fit lead? And do you have a BDR/SDR team that does the initial meeting setting?
Tim Phelps:
We do.
Chris Strom:
You do?
Tim Phelps:
They answer some of the logistics of it. Some of the ads we do, we already know who they are, so we'll put them on the right path to start out with. We also do some metrics with SixthSense in the data we have about them as they come in, which will allow us to put them down a certain path or another. And then beyond that, we'll give them two options. Are you in this path or this path? And we'll let them take whichever path they want to go on. But then, when they do come in as a web form, then we will put them through SDR process first and then they will set the first meeting and then that will become the next step.
Chris Strom:
The SDR books the meeting for the account exec?
Tim Phelps:
Correct. So, we MQL, we say this is probably good call then. Then the SQL is that SDR call, making sure they set up all the proper expectations and setting a meeting. And then from there, they move forward on that sales process.
Chris Strom:
So MQL, you qualified them for the SDR?
Tim Phelps:
Yeah.
Chris Strom:
And then when the SDR books the meeting, they set them as an SQL.
Tim Phelps:
Correct.
Chris Strom:
And then after the meeting is over, the first connect meeting, then the AE will create the opportunity record?
Tim Phelps:
Yeah, actually it's done at the SQL time. The opportunity's created for us.
Chris Strom:
Oh, the SQL and opportunity are basically the same stage,
Tim Phelps:
Basically, the same thing. They're hitting that button to say, "I'm setting this meeting" and all that's created right at the same time.
Chris Strom:
Oh, okay. Set up like a Salesforce automation to do that.
Tim Phelps:
Yeah, yeah.
Chris Strom:
And then so they go through a couple stages in the deal process and then what's an enterprise close process? Do they sign a contract?
Tim Phelps:
Yeah. With us, they-
Chris Strom:
Or do they, you just send them a check-out form that they fill out?
Tim Phelps:
Yeah. We today, we still do it the old school way. I would hope we could progress past that, but that's where we're at right now. And the truth is, for a lot of our enterprise customers, there is a lot of back and forth before we can proceed anyway. And once we get all of that established, it's a DocuSign to them and results back. That's the signature process. But to even get there-
Chris Strom:
And then you send it over to, then someone internally will set up and turn on their accounts in your system?
Tim Phelps:
Yeah. And all that now is done completely in Salesforce. Not the management of the customer, but the point of all that transition phase is done in Salesforce.
Chris Strom:
Oh, okay. So, automations and integrations over to your internal user?
Tim Phelps:
Yes. We have our own system internally for all the actual account stuff, but Salesforce does a lot of that handholding for us to get it to that point.
Chris Strom:
So, it sounds like someone on your team has put a lot of time into planning and building out those specific custom automations between the different systems.
Tim Phelps:
Yes, yes. And the hardest part of that is just the planning for it more than anything. Figuring out how the process works to get to the point where you can implement that.
Chris Strom:
Oh, yeah. Planning the process first and talking to all the involved people and getting to buy-in.
Tim Phelps:
Exactly. Yeah, exactly.
Chris Strom:
That's the hardest part sometimes, you think?
Tim Phelps:
Oh, I think so.
Chris Strom:
Oh, yeah. And then the actual coding is the easy part compared to the human part.
Tim Phelps:
It is, for me. I think that what happens with a lot of companies, they'll have somebody that does the day-to-day operations but doesn't have that stuff intact.
Then they will try to do it all of it, and they're not really the right person to be asking the right questions to establish all that's needed to. So that when we get to the end, it's a result that everybody's looking for.
Chris Strom:
Oh, yeah. If you just ask the IT person who's not necessarily talking to the customers every day, they're not going to know, they're not going to build something that's attentive to the needs or experience of the customer.
Tim Phelps:
Exactly, exactly.
Chris Strom:
Yeah.
Tim Phelps:
Not that I've seen that happen a thousand times, but yes,
Chris Strom:
It is a classic thing.
Tim Phelps:
Yeah, it is.
Chris Strom:
But that's where you work a lot with the IT people, I'm assuming, is planning that out.
Tim Phelps:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. We have a sales ops person on that side as well that does a lot of that work.
Chris Strom:
And that's what brings them to the closed one process and then they become a customer from there, it sounds like.
Tim Phelps:
Yeah. And then back to automation. So, once they become closed one, they're immediately an opportunity created for renewal, which is two 12 months later. Yeah.
Chris Strom:
Oh, nice.
Tim Phelps:
And then they get passed to a support person that will be their support person from that point forward, and that's also the person that's going to encourage that.
Chris Strom:
Okay. The support team is in charge of renewals from there, and the account execs just focused on net new people?
Tim Phelps:
Correct.
Chris Strom:
All right, awesome. Cool. Thanks for walking us through that life cycle for First Orion.
Tim Phelps:
Sure. No problem.
Chris Strom:
I have with me Carmen Bodziak from Goodshuffle, and we're going to talk about your good market in motion here. So first, tell us what is Goodshuffle's product and who are you selling it to for context?
Carmen Bodziak:
Yeah, so my name is Carmen Bodziak. I'm a Senior Revenue Operations manager at Goodshuffle. We have a few different products, but our main focus right now is our vertical SaaS product. So, we sell all-in-one business software to event companies. These are vendors, they're people with inventory. They are the ones who are supplying your wedding, your conference, your gala, your festival with the items that are there. So, tents, tables, chairs, linens, staging, lighting, all of the things. We also do have some service providers. So, think of a DJ or a caterer or a planner. Our main focus right now is to focus with inventory, but either way, people need events, industries, us to manage their businesses, track their inventory, handle their quoting, their contracts, their payments, their accounting, their reporting, manage their team, their finances. So, all of the things within our platform.
Chris Strom:
So that's who you're reaching out to and selling to?
Carmen Bodziak:
Yep.
Chris Strom:
So, can you tell us about the go-to-market life cycle here?
Carmen Bodziak:
Yeah.
Chris Strom:
Starting from marketing, leading into sales, leading into becoming a customer.
Carmen Bodziak:
Yeah, sure. So, something to note about folks in the events industry, a lot of these companies are smaller businesses. We're looking at companies that might have 20, 10 employees. A lot of it is seasonal too, so they'll bring on some part-time staff in the summer or the fall. So, when it's peak weddings season or when it is vice versa, if it's very hot in Houston, Texas, events might be slower, might bring on more folks in the winter time. All that to say seasonal business. So, our go-to-market operation. So, start on the marketing side of things. Our marketing team is wonderful. They put out a lot of Facebook ads, Google Ads, they are wonderful with email marketing, organic social, our ambassador and user referral programs. Lots of folks love Goodshuffle Pro, so we want to empower them to encourage folks in their networks to reach out to us to get a demo and ideally start trial and convert. So, this has been very wonderful.
Chris Strom:
So, the existing users will sign up to refer other people and then get some nice goodie in exchange.
Carmen Bodziak:
Yeah. So we have referral bonuses.
Chris Strom:
So, what do you do with all those contacts coming in then, coming into HubSpot? Is that right?
Carmen Bodziak:
Yep. So, we use HubSpot. As soon as they're in HubSpot, the sales team is alerted if they've submitted a demo form, they have a lead object created. The sales team then handles the lead from there, and they are working to either qualify the lead, which will automatically create a deal or they're looking to disqualify the lead, get them off the calendar or whatever, and focus on actual potential revenue. We have SDRs and sales executives. Our SDRs, their goal is to try to get as much information out of the lead as possible ahead of a demo with a sales executive. They're also trying to get them excited and hype them up, really understand their pain points and tell them why they need to go with good shuffle.
The events industry is very community focused, so it's very, very important to have a human touch, to have someone who asks a lot of questions and really understands their industry. A lot of folks in our company have previous events experience so that they can relate to the lead and really help them realize that we understand their pain point. So, with that, SDRs are working to get them qualified and excited. And then, sales executives are running the demo and working the leads up to get them into trial and then ideally converted. Once a lead is qualified, we have that deal and that's where the sales executive is taking it over from the SDR.
Chris Strom:
So, is a trial one of the stages that you're tracking in your deal funnel?
Carmen Bodziak:
Yes.
Chris Strom:
Like a free trial?
Carmen Bodziak:
Yep, it is.
Chris Strom:
And then to become a customer, do you do a contract signing or do you just send them a checkout link and they input their credit card?
Carmen Bodziak:
They can just sign up for trial on site on our website. So, what we try to do is on the demo, if it goes well and they're ready to sign up, the sales executive will sign them up for trial on that demo. If they need a little bit more time, we'll send them the link and the sales executive will follow up with them and urge them to start their trial as soon as possible.
Chris Strom:
Send them the sign-up link.
Carmen Bodziak:
Yep.
Chris Strom:
And are you running that through Stripe?
Carmen Bodziak:
Yes.
Chris Strom:
And then do you sync that back into HubSpot from there?
Carmen Bodziak:
Yep. So, we sync in our HubSpot or Stripe subscriptions and products into HubSpot through the Stripe data syncs. So those all come in as product selling in HubSpot.
Chris Strom:
Okay, nice. Thanks for walking us through your customer life cycle with us here, Carmen.
Carmen Bodziak:
Yeah, of course. Thank you for having me. This is super cool.
Chris Strom:
Here I have Tanya Littlefield, marketing leader at Amplitude. Tanya, I'm asking people about what their go-to-market motion is at some of their companies. And you were saying you have several, there's enterprise mid-market, self-serve, PLG? Do you want to tell us about the enterprise go-to-market motion?
Tanya Littlefield:
Yeah, sure. So, our enterprise go-to-market is a combination of things. To some degree, we do offline. So, think about field events, getting in person with as many folks as possible. On top of that, we have our digital motions. So, think of your traditional webinars, paid social, paid search, organic, how do we drive the right content to the right user? And in a perfect world, somebody would go through one or many of those different steps, land on our doorstep and be interested in Amplitude and getting to know a little bit more. We would nurture that person through the process over to sales where they would then understand a little bit more about that individual and that company and then decide what plan or what features are the best fit for that particular person and take it from there.
Chris Strom:
That's the perfect world version, right?
Tanya Littlefield:
That's the perfect world version. Yeah. What happens most likely is somebody goes to an event and then they forget about you for six months and then they go to LinkedIn and they grab a piece of content and then they hear from a friend that they're using Amplitude. So then, they go to the website, check it out, maybe leave for a while again, and then come back again. It's a really fragmented customer journey, so you have to be agile and understand that there's a lot of different ways that somebody might be getting to your doorstep. And sometimes you can see in the data and sometimes you can't see it by current memory.
Chris Strom:
Oh, yeah. If they see something on LinkedIn or even comment on LinkedIn, that information probably isn't going back into the CRM or your marketing system either.
Tanya Littlefield:
It might be, but it might not. So, there's just a lot that you can't necessarily see. If a friend sends, forwards you a message and says, "Hey, you should check these guys out," that's not going to show up in any attribution model.
Chris Strom:
Yeah. So then how do you like to go about setting the expectations when reporting to leadership?
Tanya Littlefield:
Yeah, a great question. I think it's about doing as much as you can with the data that you have, right? You're never going to have a perfect attribution model because you're never going to have a perfect customer journey. There's just a lot of murkiness there. So, you decide how do we want to look at attribution as an organization and do the best you can with what you've got. Again, I've yet to see a single organization that does a perfect job at attribution, so you just have to take it for what it is. And especially in 2025 going into 2026 with LLMs and all of that, it's going to get even more complicated. So just work with what you have.
Chris Strom:
That's a relief to hear that there is no perfect solution and no perfect company.
Tanya Littlefield:
No. I don't think-
Chris Strom:
We're all just doing as good as we can get it with the tools we have available.
Tanya Littlefield:
Yeah. So, you do what you can with the data that you have, you test and learn, and maybe you move the needle and it can help you infer something that might be happening behind the scenes that you didn't see yourself, and then you adjust some more. And who knows, the perfect attribution model might get created in the next couple of years, but it doesn't exist today.
Chris Strom:
Oh, yeah. Thanks for sharing.
Tanya Littlefield:
Thank you so much.
Chris Strom:
So, I have Eryn Lueders here with Basis Theory. Tell us what do you sell at Basis Theory and who do you sell it to?
Eryn Lueders:
Yeah, so we are a data security solution. We do payments organization, so we often sell into more of payments roles and we assist companies with their PCI compliance.
Chris Strom:
You're selling to which roles, you said?
Eryn Lueders:
Payments. So, payments professionals. So, people with literally payments in their title. And so, in some instances it's like we're selling into maybe more of a marketplace or a vertical SaaS company or retail or there's quite a few even fintechs that we sell into as well.
Chris Strom:
So, those are who you're trying to reach out to. And then can you tell us about what's the go-to-market motion or life cycle?
Eryn Lueders:
Sure. Yeah. So, we have a few different ways that we generate leads. The first and the one that's most close to me is inbound. And so, we do quite a bit of content marketing. We try to rank quite a bit organically and we've done very well there. And the content marketing that we do is mostly top of funnel. And from there, the primary call to action is really just get people to sign up for our blog and continue learning more, continue hearing more from us. And then we also do quite a bit of paid media. And with the paid media, I would say it's more of middle funnel to bottom funnel. We're driving a lot of people who are in decision looking for maybe PCI compliance solutions or card tokenization or very specific keywords. And then we lead them to a lead generation form. And then we have an SDR team that will reach out to them and try to follow up by them at that point.
Chris Strom:
And the call to action there is usually book a meeting, get a demo-
Eryn Lueders:
Yeah, yeah. Exactly.
Chris Strom:
They know what they're signing up for specifically.
Eryn Lueders:
Yep. And then, we do the full round-robin with our SDR team at that point. And then the SDR team is also doing their own outbound as well. So, they do a lot of email outbounds. We've tried some call outbounding, it doesn't work as well, but they are finding prospects, even if we're going to sponsor at an event, they'll go reach out to that list and they'll try to set meetings and try to get people in the pipeline.
Chris Strom:
Cool. So, the SDRs are booking the meetings with the people requesting demos and requesting meetings.
Eryn Lueders:
Yeah.
Chris Strom:
And then, for the top of the funnel people, are you doing any lead scoring and having them prospect out to high scoring top of funnel people?
Eryn Lueders:
Usually at this point, we only have them primarily reaching out to those who have reached out and said they want a meeting. We get enough of those right now that it fills their day.
Chris Strom:
Oh, nice.
Eryn Lueders:
We are still scoring as well. And we do have a certain threshold of score where there's a bucket that people could reach, like the SDR team can pull from that bucket if they want to. We have mixed success there. I think people usually are more willing to have a meeting when they said they want one as opposed to-
Chris Strom:
Oh, certainly
Eryn Lueders:
We try to focus our efforts on what works in us there.
Chris Strom:
Okay. And that's enough by itself to keep them busy.
Eryn Lueders:
Yeah. Obviously, they would probably love way more inbounds than we give them right now, but our focus is on quality first.
Chris Strom:
Yeah. Everyone wants more.
Eryn Lueders:
Focus is on quality first over high quantity because it's just too much work for them to have to parse through all those.
Chris Strom:
So, the SDRs are reaching out to those people and booking the meetings and handing it off to the account executives from there?
Eryn Lueders:
Yep. Yes.
Chris Strom:
And then you said they also create the deal in the pipeline?
Eryn Lueders:
Yes.
Chris Strom:
At that point as well?
Eryn Lueders:
Yep. So, they hand it off to the AEs and the account executives at that point will. So once the meeting is booked, so they create a deal, they hand it off to the AE and the AE takes the meeting and intakes it from there. We do have quite a few stages in our deal flow. One of the most important for us is we call it technical scoping, but it's really just the ability for these leads or prospects at this point to sign up for an account. So, we are a fairly technical product and we have developer documentation and innovations and things that these developers need to work through. It's a really sticky step in our process. So, once they've set up that account, which is free, anyone can do it, they can set up a test account. Once they've set that up, then we find that they have a much higher success in going line with us.
Chris Strom:
So, that's why it's a required step as part of the sales process. Set up the account first before signing.
Eryn Lueders:
Yeah, I would say it's pretty much required for some, especially more of the tinkerers in the bunch, those that are maybe at a two-person shop or someone who is very technical but also motivated, they'll go and set it up themselves. Larger enterprises may take a different approach, but for the most part, it's a pretty pitiful step for us.
Chris Strom:
Oh, yeah. And then you said you're also, when they sign up for an account, the developers built an API integration to-
Eryn Lueders:
That's right.
Chris Strom:
To push all those account contacts into contacts in your HubSpot portal, right?
Eryn Lueders:
Yeah, that's right. So, our engineers internally have set up a sync where when someone does sign up for an account in our platform, then we do get those leads into HubSpot. We have them tagged automatically as that they signed up in our portal. For those that seem higher prospects that we're not already having conversations with, then our SDR team will reach out at that point. And so, I guess that's another vector where people are coming through at times.
Chris Strom:
And then what's the contract signature and close stages look like?
Eryn Lueders:
Yeah, yeah, those are pretty much the next steps for us. Depending on the size of organization, it can be a lengthy process. It could be a few months. Sometimes we have same day close, so it really depends on the motivation. Sometimes there's other meetings involved, sometimes not at all. So, we're working with startups all the way to enterprises, so it can really vary on what that looks like.
Chris Strom:
And then do they sign a contract or do they just sign up on a billing page or a payment page?
Eryn Lueders:
They can't go live without the contract. And so, either way, they are talking to our sales team. The bigger enterprise deals obviously have contracts in place. So yeah, there's the contract signature for pretty much everyone now.
Chris Strom:
And that's the flash step to get them to close one, right?
Eryn Lueders:
Yeah, pretty much do that. And then of course there's an integration. We're a technical product, and so there's sometimes a lengthier go live process where we have our support team that helps get them out the door, helps the customers engineers as well, get things set up the way they need to. It's a pretty technical product, and it's really important. PCI compliance and being compliant is incredibly important. So many companies will take their time and try to do it right.
Chris Strom:
Oh, yeah. The whole post-sale process is probably a whole separate conversation by itself.
Eryn Lueders:
Oh, yeah, for sure. Yep. Yep.
Chris Strom:
Cool. Thanks for walking us through that marketing to sales process, go to market process here.
Eryn Lueders:
Yeah, happy to. Thanks for chatting.
Chris Strom:
So I'm here with Nathaniel. Nathaniel Frisch.
Nathaniel Frisch:
Yep.
Chris Strom:
So, tell us what's your job and who do you work for?
Nathaniel Frisch:
Yeah. I'm Head of Revenue Operations at United Energy Workers Healthcare. We do in-home healthcare for people in the energy sector, nuclear energy sector.
Chris Strom:
So, tell us what product or service do you offer and who do you offer it to? And then we'll go into how do you go to market. But first, what do you do? Who do you sell it to?
Nathaniel Frisch:
So, we're offering in-home healthcare. We send nurses to individuals' homes who have certain health problems. So, we're targeting specifically people that qualify for a niche program, federal program called EEOICPA Energy Occupational Illness Program for individuals that got chronic beryllium disease or some other radiation-related illness from their time working at federal facilities. For instance, you purify uranium and then they got to some radiation disease and then we come in and can provide them healthcare, and then we bill the US government.
Chris Strom:
Okay. Nice. How do you reach out to these people and what's your go-to-market process from first impression to bringing them in as patients or clients?
Nathaniel Frisch:
So, our two primary ways of finding where they're at are geographic-based, and then Facebook. So geographically, they generally live around the plants that they worked at. So, there's small towns like four corners near Utah, Arizona border. That's where the uranium mines were. So, we'll throw local events there and we'll get people to those events. So, I guess, very top of the funnel, we're starting with mailers and maybe local TV ads, radio stations. There's a lot of those traditional methods as well as Facebook. A lot of our target audience is 70, and so they hang out a lot on Facebook and community groups for other workers like themselves. So, we'll advertise there with paid and organic, getting them to the event.
So, once people are at these local events, that can be anywhere from 10 people to 400 people. We'll walk them through what we do, what benefits they're entitled to. A lot of it is awareness. A lot of times they were like, "Yeah, I worked at uranium mine and now I'm sick because of it." But they don't know that there's a program out there to pay for their healthcare. It's a lot of just getting those people locally into one area, like at an event and then helping them through the claims process. So then, we're handing them off to a third party that we work very closely with to get qualified for the program. So, they're going through a whole year long claims process with the US government. And then once they get approved, then our closers come in and talk to them about why our healthcare is better compared to say, I don't know, some other in-home healthcare companies or an out-of-home healthcare, like going to hospital or anything like that. So that's the process.
Chris Strom:
And then, how do you manage that through your systems?
Nathaniel Frisch:
So, when someone originally reaches out, so say they respond to, they see a mailer, this is one of the most common scenarios. They'll see a mailer and either call in based on that mailer and we'll hook them up with an SDR who's answering that phone call and helping them register for the event. So, the big driver is always attend an event, attend an event. And so, we register them for an event. If they call in or if they submit a form on the website or just registered themselves regardless of their call to action they respond to, we create a lead in HubSpot.
And so, then that lead is a signal to our sales team of our SDR is a reach out, get them moving through the process. So, once they make that initial communication two-way communication with a potential patient, then they convert that lead into a deal and HubSpot. And so then with that deal, then they're walking them through this year long plus approval process to get them qualified for healthcare.
Chris Strom:
Wow, a year-long.
Nathaniel Frisch:
Yeah, there's some big waiting gaps. You're working with the US government, and so they work on their own time schedule.
Chris Strom:
Oh, yeah.
Nathaniel Frisch:
They're like, I think legally limited to a year, but they usually take right up to about a year. It ends up being a long sales process. So, there's a lot of that relationship building. A lot of these people consider as family. And so, you have a lot of people invited into the homes before. We actually have in-home healthcare, which is a good thing if we're trying to send a nurse to their house, we need them to have a trusting relationship with the brand. We can't send someone in that they don't know from a company they don't trust.
Chris Strom:
And you said, because the process is so long, not only do you have the different deal stages to track, but then you have substages within those stages for everything that's happening over those 16 months too, right?
Nathaniel Frisch:
Yes. Yeah. Because we had this black hole. There's one stage where people would sit for over a year and you didn't know if it was a deal gone stale or if it was just the federal government doing their thing. So now, we have substages, just a custom property. So, the sales reps really aren't touching stages, they're just touching those steps. And in our initial stage there's three steps, but on another stage, I think seven or so as the claims process and everything. We have some rep internally that's holding the hand of this potential patient through the whole year long process. And they are updating that step as updates come through.
Chris Strom:
Oh, yeah. So, the deal stages themselves, the top-level stages are using the native deal stages and then the substages stuff that's not the native deal stages don't handle that. So then, you created custom properties to track all those.
Nathaniel Frisch:
Yeah. So, we have custom dates tracking when they entered each of those steps. A lot like the default HubSpot ones for a date entered X stage. And so, we basically just have that. But for our custom-made substages, so we end up with 20 some date fields that we've custom properties you've built out, and then workflows that update them accordingly. And so, every time our rep changes our custom dropdown property, that's our substage, it automatically, the workflow updates the corresponding date. So, we can see how someone's progressing through each step.
Chris Strom:
So, they just have to update the checkbox property for such and such step, and then the workflow runs to tag the date stamp of the time it was set.
Nathaniel Frisch:
Yep.
Chris Strom:
Okay. That helps always.
Nathaniel Frisch:
Yeah, definitely. Because initially we had, or in a previous system, we had reps entering their own dates and it just turned into-
Chris Strom:
It dropped off pretty quick after three days.
Nathaniel Frisch:
Uh-huh. And then, you also have erroneous data of people misunderstanding what it's for. And you think telling someone to just enter today's date is easy, but ends up getting complicated when you have all these edge cases of what if I just found out, but the thing actually happened a week ago? There are all these little edge cases, the workflows just remove it out of human's hands and make sure we get a consistent result every time.
Chris Strom:
Yeah, consistency is better. It's the most important thing.
Nathaniel Frisch:
Yeah, 100%.
Chris Strom:
Yeah. Cool. And then lastly, what are some of the main KPIs you're tracking through this whole process? Top three or four.
Nathaniel Frisch:
So, marketing MQL, so the number of new lead records that are created. So, we're using that lead object in HubSpot. And so, it's how many of those lead records can they create? And those are created, I was mentioning earlier about form fills calls. Honestly, those are our two biggest or event attendance. Those are our three biggest call to actions that trigger the creation of a lead. And we're using lead scoring to capture that behavior and turn that into a lead. And then we also have, there's two internal ones, or I guess one internal one on the deal, a midway point. So, since it takes a year and a half or a year to go through the whole process. There's a midway when we first send someone over to the US government saying, "Hey, this is a potential patient. See if they qualify for our care." The US government is, "That's one bonusable event." So that's one of the two major KPIs, excuse me, for outreach, for sales. And so, which one was it again?
Chris Strom:
Something with the US government?
Nathaniel Frisch:
Yeah, we call it AR referral. It's really-
Chris Strom:
AR referral.
Nathaniel Frisch:
Yeah, it's an internal thing. It's purely like we found someone that would probably qualify based on the illnesses we've just found in discovery calls and on their work history. So internally, we think they'll qualify for our healthcare, but we have to still send it to the government to make the real determination.
Chris Strom:
Oh, yeah.
Nathaniel Frisch:
So, at that point, when we send it to the government, at that point, we call it partially good and we give some credit to the sales rep at that point.
Chris Strom:
Oh, yeah. So that's our handoff to the government is one down.
Nathaniel Frisch:
Yeah. Because that one we have a lot of control over. It's a quick sales process, and then it's once we handed the government, it can sit for a year.
Chris Strom:
Oh, yeah.
Nathaniel Frisch:
It's our immediate success of internally, we think they're qualified, so we're going to show some good faith to our reps. And then, the second piece is our closed one deal, and that's when someone actually first meets with a nurse. So, when we first send a nurse to their house and we actually have some, we've provided some care, that's when the deal becomes closed one when the rep gets their final bonus and all that.
Chris Strom:
So, it's not paperwork signed doesn't equal closed one, but it's actually they have to show up and have their first appointment.
Nathaniel Frisch:
Exactly. Yep. It used to be paperwork signed. That KPI has been phased out over the last six months to a year.
Chris Strom:
Because people weren't following through on taking advantage of it afterwards?
Nathaniel Frisch:
Yes. You had a lot of people that, not a huge amount, but it's up to a 10% drop off if you sign the paperwork and then you send a nurse into their home and they're like, '"Actually, I'm not really, I don't really want healthcare right now." So instead, we wait until you actually have a nurse in the home providing healthcare, and that's when it's closed one.
Chris Strom:
Oh, yeah. Wow. And at least some of the compensation for the salespeople is tied on that?
Nathaniel Frisch:
Yeah.
Chris Strom:
So, they have to wait that long for at least some of their commission?
Nathaniel Frisch:
When we first send it to the government, they get a small piece, and then when they come back and actually get on care, then they get the big piece.
Chris Strom:
Oh, wow.
Nathaniel Frisch:
So, it is retention tool. It's like all the work you're doing this year is really going to land next year.
Chris Strom:
Oh, yeah. At least you know they're not going to be quitting then.
Nathaniel Frisch:
Yeah. Uh-huh.
Chris Strom:
Half their income is coming 12 months from now.
Nathaniel Frisch:
Yep.
Chris Strom:
Are new salespeople turned off by that initially? Do they say, "Oh, that's just too long. I don't want to wait that long."
Nathaniel Frisch:
Our on-target earnings are good without that piece. And there's always the potential of about one in five of our new patients already went through the claims process with the government before they came to us. So, there's a subset of people who are already qualified before we ever talk to them, and so they don't have to wait a year.
Chris Strom:
Oh, yeah.
Nathaniel Frisch:
So, it really just gives incentive for new sales reps to go out and find those people that already know about the program are already qualified. They don't have to go through this year-long process.
Chris Strom:
Oh, yeah.
Nathaniel Frisch:
So, there's still potential there. It's just those are harder to find. It's about one in every five of our new patients come from that.
Chris Strom:
But it helps close the gap for them, for your salespeople a little bit at least.
Nathaniel Frisch:
Yeah, 100%.
Chris Strom:
All right. Awesome. This is a really interesting, very more unique case. I'm glad we could talk through that here.
Nathaniel Frisch:
Yeah. Thanks for asking me.
Chris Strom:
Thanks for talking me through it.
Nathaniel Frisch:
Nice.
Chris Strom:
All right. What a great group of people we were able to interview here. So, to recap, we talked to five different people at five different companies. First person was Tim Phelps from First Orion. He talked about how they have a big demand gen advertising focus as well as a partner program for their company. Next, we talked to Carmen Bodziak from Goodshuffle. One of the things she talked about was how, since they're selling to event managers, they focus a lot on making sure they're hiring people with event management experience for their sales development team. We talked to Tanya Littlefield from Amplitude. She talked a lot about setting the correct expectations in attribution nowadays when people are just moving between so many different things, different social media platforms, YouTube, AI tools, just talking to each other in person websites and so on, understanding and setting the correct expectations for the attribution data that you'll get given that fragmented way that you're interacting with people.
We also talked with Eryn Lueders from Basis Theory. She talked about how they focus a lot on content marketing and inbound leads from the content that they do, as well as paid media and some direct prospecting as well, directing to meeting bookings with their SDR team. And we talked with Nathaniel Frisch from United Energy Workers Healthcare. He talked about how they do a lot of print mail, TV ads, and also Facebook ads with a call-to-action directing people to various local in-person events, which then lead from there into talking with people on their sales team about becoming patients, served with them.
A lot of different viewpoints here and a lot of different ways of going about it. So, I got to talk to all of them, and I'd love to hear from you about how you do your go-to-market motion at your company and what's something interesting or unique about the people you're trying to sell to that changes how you go about trying to reach them. I'd love to hear that. So, post what you do in the comments on this episode. Thanks for watching. And if you haven't yet, be sure to subscribe to the RevOps Hero podcast. We love making these episodes and we'd love to get you notified when we make more of them. So hit that subscribe button and then you won't miss out on any episodes going forward.
