The Transaction

Craig Rosenberg: [00:00:00] are you excited?

Right always excited. I'm excited? Are you I know, but like, we're, we're launching a new show and you drove to Santa Barbara, bro. That's old school.

Matt Amundson: Yeah, I drove. I, I

Craig Rosenberg: TJ trips on the night before finals down at UCLA,

Matt Amundson: I know, but I went down for an incredible meal at a restaurant called Barbarino. I did plus, plus one, plus a thousand men. Just like you got to go there is incredible Spanish food, but with a California theme, just a plus, they did all these re imaginings of different food items that were created in Santa Barbara.

We had, uh, their take on an egg McMuffin. We had their take on the avocado, which is the first like, The first successful growing avocado trees were in Santa Barbara. Who knew they had a chicken and ranch. And I mean, ranch dressing because ranch dressing was created in Santa Barbara. It was like a history lesson slash culinary delight.

Craig Rosenberg: But just to be clear, as we kick off the show, Matt lives up here in the Bay Area and drove to Santa Barbara for this incredible [00:01:00] meal and then drove back.

Matt Amundson: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: My man.

Matt Amundson: Yeah. I mean the things we do for customers, baby.

Craig Rosenberg: I mean, that is the most amazing thing. I, I love that. So speaking of which, so, uh, how about. Our new show. So we're going to kick off today. And, um, we're both really excited. I mean, look, format wise for everyone who's been listening, you know, we've done a podcast now.

We've learned a lot. Uh, it'll be, um, Matt and I and a guest, typically, we're going to kick off the show with a bit of the old format. We're just going to lay that out here. Matt and I just want to talk for [00:02:00] a minute and then the interview will be with me. And, Kelly Wright, who was,

Matt Amundson: A legend.

Craig Rosenberg: president, the legend, uh, presidency of, uh, Gong and, uh, CRO, I believe, of, um, Tableau, and now has this idea called Culture Driven Sales.

It was like the guest that you and I wanted to kick off with. And so, um, we're going to do that in a minute. But before we do that, any thoughts on the new show? I mean, like, this is going to be amazing.

Matt Amundson: I'm excited. We've got an awesome team behind us. at Ringmaster is incredible. We get to work with our favorite dude, Sam, each week, which is awesome. And our guy, Casey. But we've got already a full slate of awesome guests. I'm super excited. Some people that you know, some people that you don't know.

But we're focused on what's new, we're focused on how to do it. giving people actionable steps to go do new things each week. And, and evidence and proof points of how effective they are. So I'm super excited. it's Craig and [00:03:00] I, and then a smart person.

you'll be learning a lot. We promise.

Craig Rosenberg: couple of things you said that I think are really important. So one is like when Matt and I were talking about like what works on a show and what doesn't. Like people need new ideas. And so like to the extent that we can have guests famous or not, as you said, like the most important thing for us is can we have an amazing engaging conversation and can we get some new ideas?

Cause FYI, this is really Matt and I having fun and actually giving you insight into us learning. As well, just sharing it. So like, uh, you know, some of the guests we've already had just been awesome in terms of like, just getting really great ideas and then, um, examples, right. And ideas. Uh, so an idea backed up with an example of how someone did it.

That's the kind of stuff that we want to do. We still want to have a ton of fun and like, you know, as we put together things that just, as you were sort of giving shout outs, obviously to Sam and Casey, and then, um, the name of the show. the [00:04:00] transaction

Matt Amundson: the transaction

Craig Rosenberg: I mean, it's so gangster, man. I'm so down with this.

I just, I, you know, it's hard when you do it, right? You kind of got to wear it a little bit to feel good. And it passed through the wear test.

Matt Amundson: feels good. I'm not sure it feels gangster, but it feels good, right? Because, uh, B2B business pod. Yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: they don't like gangster. Okay. Well, there's just really a, you know, you never know. Um, So, and then, uh, the cover art, I mean, everything, it's just, I'm, I'm really excited, you know, when we, uh, when Matt and I first came up with the idea, probably a year and a half ago, just hanging out in the scale venture partner's office, we would just be like talking B2B, go to market.

And it was hilarious. We're like, we should just do a show. we would do calls with people. I remember one call we were doing and someone's like, You guys, seriously, you say the weirdest stuff. It was like Lena, who's now at Grammarly. She's like, you know, we're like, yeah, we got to [00:05:00] record this.

And so that's what you guys are seeing today. So, um, we're going to watch here with Kelly. I actually She wanted her on the show from the get go before I knew about the whole culture driven sales

Matt Amundson: Yeah. Yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: just because she was just such a hitter and high energy and so smart. the culture driven sales, look, it's traditional stuff with new ideas. It's a fresh take on, uh, Sort of coming from somebody who's been hugely successful to the point where, you know, everyone else wants to be, and still sort of coming like with the first idea being about the people.

And like, for many times, many times when we hear this, Matt, it's like cheesy and like unactionable. It's like, I mean, I don't know if unactionable is a word, but like, you know, you're like people, of course. But actually, you know, she just makes a really good case as she sort of walks through her methodology on that.

I don't know how you felt about that, but I thought that was killer.

Matt Amundson: No, I totally agree. Cause I think everyone sets out to build, uh, a great culture amongst their sales team, but very few people know how to go and execute that. And I think she does a really [00:06:00] great job of, of talking about how to do it. And then giving exam examples of how it's been done. And certainly when you look across the track record and the, hits that she's had on her resume, both at Gong and Tableau and, and elsewhere, it's, you know, the proof is in the pudding.

So, you know, who, who better to, to learn this from than Kelly Wright.

Craig Rosenberg: yeah, for sure. And by the way, I would combine that with, this is like classic, right? Where you're on there and you're learning, but like she had interviewed actually, I think, 90 high growth startups.

And so, and a lot of the data comes from there. And so I just thought that was amazing and doable.

That's the other thing too, you know, I felt like early in my sort of career. Writings at Topo. I was in the ivory tower. I didn't realize that, you know, we sort of had this idea that we were going to be actionable, but I wasn't. I was complex and nuanced and like, actually that's really hard to implement.

And this, this was really straightforward. And so I, I really loved it. I think people like it. And then the, you know, the other part, because, you know, we're [00:07:00] sort of a sales marketing, anything go You know, when you think about the methodology and this sort of, you know, the sort of mission first is part of the culture driven sales and that sort of defines everything you do.

There's just some sort of really smart housekeeping that happens at the top. You know, does everyone in line with the mission and what are your operating principles? You know, as we talk about things like alignment and talk about getting everyone on board, these are like actionable missing pieces, I think that we.

That's cool, that's cool. I love you.

How

Matt Amundson: It's hard. And it's

Craig Rosenberg: you? Yeah,

Matt Amundson: It's hard to take the time to do those pieces, but if that's what you want to build, you got to do the hard work. And she gives a really nice step by step approach to how to go implement that. So Kelly Wright, what an awesome

Craig Rosenberg: good

Introducing Kelly Wright: A Journey Through Exceptional Careers
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Craig Rosenberg: Kelly, I had heard about you for a long time. And then, I don't know if you remember this, but I [00:08:00] moderated this, like, hyper amazing panel with you and Danny Herzberg, Olivia Nadebaum.

Kelly Wright: I totally remember.

Craig Rosenberg: and I don't, I don't know if you remember, I got on, I'm like, cause I did, I used to do like, talent makers.

I used to do like 40 things a year and I was like, I'm a little scared on this one because I knew Danny from before.

I didn't know you, you know, and I was like the backgrounds and the reputations were amazing. And so I was like, my God, I got to be on my A game like, you know, and get ready for this thing. I got on, it was, it was incredible. And that actually is what I remember the most. And so when we started the podcast, I'm like, I had you on my list and was waiting for the timing.

And then, you know, we finally got to have you on and we get to have you on as one of the inaugural shows on our new podcast, The Transaction. So let me just give everyone a little bit of your background that you tell me how wrong I picked out my favorite parts. So one is, I don't know what it is, but everyone who's a former consultant.

is amazing in the working world [00:09:00] because you were at McKinsey and Bain, right? In the early days of your life. Those, I don't know what it, it's like a, it's like a lock. Like when we recruit associates, we try to get them out of the, uh, the big consulting firms cause they're just, they know how to just make, get it done.

It's incredible. So early stage for you consulting, uh, which for me is an amazing sign. Sales leadership at ad hoc for a long time, but then big one was CRO at Tableau for like 11 years. And that's where I'd heard about you the most in my time when I was at Topo. I can't even list the amount of board member advisor, uh, uh, ships that you have across incredible companies, right?

By the way, LinkedIn and they have one and it's like a fringe company. These are all legit. President, COO of Gong, and board of directors there, right? So like, um, that's where I actually finally got to, uh, see you in action, as I mentioned previously. Adjunct [00:10:00] professor at UW? Incredible. You gotta tell me about that.

And now founder of Culture Driven Sales, which so, I was always gonna come Grab you but then when I saw what you're doing on culture driven sales was even better because you have this whole new Point of view and so to the show today. I welcome Kelly Wright. Kelly. Thank you for coming on the show.

Kelly Wright: Thank you so much for having me. And going back to that time that we did that show together, you were so awesome as a moderator. It made it really fun and easy to have the conversation. So I feel very honored to be one of your inaugural first guests and looking very much forward to the conversation.

Craig Rosenberg: Yes, I am too and I have this long list of things that we have to get through but the first thing we like

to Well, I'm a fast talker, so maybe

I'm pretty sure we'll get through it, and more.

The Surprising Truth About Company Alignment and Mission
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Craig Rosenberg: So, um, the way we like to start the conversation is to [00:11:00] ask for something sort of surprising or different than what everyone thinks.

The question is, like, what's the one or two things? You know, what are the key areas where the market thinks they're doing something right, or is it best practice, or is it truism? And actually, that's, they're either, we could say they're wrong about it, or they should have a different point of view. Um, that's how we like to start.

And so I'd love to get your reaction to that and what would be your answer to that? And let's start there.

Kelly Wright: Well, with that question, I mean, we could take that a whole bunch of different ways, but since we are focusing predominantly on go to market, I will give you a perspective that I've learned just over many years of talking to founder, CEOs, and management teams. Most companies believe that their entire executive team is very aligned with what their strategy is. And they should be. They should be aligned. But here's the thing. Most companies are not. [00:12:00] So let me give you a little story to help to illustrate this. When I was 12 years at Tableau, and when I left Tableau and started doing some board work and deciding I was going to teach my course, I wanted to be able to figure out what is most in need for executive teams and companies in when it comes to go to market and sales.

And so that first year I sat down and met with about 85 hyper growth company founders and CEOs.

specific questions.

And I asked everyone some specific questions. And one of the most common questions that I asked first, and I love asking this question first, is just. What is your mission at the company? What is it that you are trying to do?

What is the company's why? Like what is the essence of why you exist? And the CEO or the founder, maybe it was another executive team member would tell me the answer. [00:13:00] And as I had more conversations, sometimes they'd say, Well, our sales and marketing team's not aligned, or we don't understand why sales is marching in a different direction than product.

And so then I'd ask, well, can I talk to these other leaders? And I'd ask the other leaders, the same questions,

what's your mission? What is your, why, what is your overall company purpose?

And Craig, the interesting thing is I would say between 85 and 90 percent of the time. Each executive member that I asked.

Had a completely different answer to that question. It It was mind blowing to me, actually. And this is the reason that I started teaching my class on go to market strategy and one of the impetus for founding Culture Driven Sales. Is because companies believe that they're all aligned because they know what product they're building or what service they're doing and they [00:14:00] know who they're trying to sell to.

But when it comes to the unified essence of what they're doing and why they exist and what their overall mission and vision is.

Craig Rosenberg: are on

Kelly Wright: Executives are on very different pages. And if the executives are on different pages, it means their departments and functions are in different pages. And then that means the employees are in different pages.

And of course, then they don't have alignment in the company. So I think one takeaway is companies pretty much lead with the assumption that everyone on the team is aligned and on the same page. And it's just factually incorrect from what I've seen.

Craig Rosenberg: is aligned

---

Craig Rosenberg: and it's just factually what I see.

Kelly Wright: I'll give you some nuances there. It is maybe the exec team can say, like if they have a state admission, some companies don't even have state admissions. And this I think is critically important because if [00:15:00] you don't have a North star in terms of where your company is going, then you end up just having goals and objectives and maybe KPIs.

Uh, but so. Some companies don't have stated mission, which is then one of one of the challenges there. So then you take the companies that do have missions, many people might be able to restate what the mission statement is, or at least a variation that's close. I mean, everyone should be saying it word for word because each different word has a variation.

But even if people are aligned on that mission, when you actually ask, like, what's the elevator pitch of the company, Or what's the why? Different people have very different answers. And if, if you have any question, like if your company has any question, go do this with your exec team. Don't tell them what you're doing.

Have an exec team meeting and just ask everyone. This is what I typically do in advising. I'll just say, first question,

[00:16:00] Everyone

write down on a piece of paper, well, what is your stated mission?

work? And

Next question. What is your company's why? And everyone writes it down, takes less than a minute. And then we go around the room and have everyone explain what it is.

It's very, very common that it's different. So that's how you assess. Then we can go into a different thing. How do you go fix it? Cause that we could have a whole conversation on that if you want to go there.

Craig Rosenberg: So there's like this idea where the, let's say you talk to the founder, the CEO, and they say, this is a state admission in the Y and then that doesn't trickle down, but like of the, uh, or, you know, 80 something or 85 hypergrowth come in the, you know, whatever millions you've talked to since is the, uh, is there a lack of a state admission in a Y like, or that's, you And like not thinking big or whatever, because you said something in there that resonated as well, which is like there is a use [00:17:00] case where from the top they're thinking just goals, objectives, and KPIs versus having a big vision there.

I don't know what, what, I mean,

Kelly Wright: Well, there's, there's different ways that you can handle that, but I'll give you a couple examples. I remember two specific instances where I was talking with the founder, CEO of great companies, like companies that have gone on to do really amazing things. And I asked, What is your mission? And one of those companies, the founder CEO said, our mission is to get 30 percent market share. And I said, that's not a mission statement. And they said, yes, this is a mission statement. And I said, well, how is it a mission statement? And said, this is what we have all of our employees rushing to do is our, our focus as a company is to get 30 percent market share of our space. And my answer was, that's not a mission.

[00:18:00] That's not a purpose of the company. That's an overall metric or goal or KPI. Uh, and he said, well, this is how we're motivating the whole team. And we had actually a whole hour going back and forth with. How can you actually run an effective go to market strategy if your stated mission of the company is to get 30 percent market share?

And how is that going to be something that's going to be motivating to motivating o customers to want to do business with you? If that's what you're saying is your business. And he's saying, well, that's not the product that we sell, but that's what our mission is. That was one example. Another example was very similar of stated mission was to be profitable by X year.

I like that. That's not a mission either. So there's many companies that have these operational metrics or KPIs. And if you think about

Kelly Wright: this gets into culture driven sales, but if you think about what is going to be the unifying purpose, [00:19:00] That your employees rally around, that your customers rally around, that helps you to create a movement where people really want to be in the ether of your company, whether they're partners or investors or employees, customers, et cetera. Purpose is really critically important. And there's a whole bunch of research that has been done that show that. The way, the part of the reason that employees stay with companies is because they actually want to have an impact and know that they're having a meaningful contribution to something that's bigger to them.

That's a purpose and that everyone around them is rallied on that same purpose. And this comes down to why it's so important to have a mission at the company. And so if companies are going to ask different members of exec team, or you go ask, Your feet on the street, your individual contributors, and they have different answers.

Then, you know, something's [00:20:00] wrong and very little of the time, is it just a communication thing? Usually it's more of a systemic issue that there's just not clarity and alignment on what the company mission is. And the purpose and the overarching why.

Craig Rosenberg: Isn't that amazing that that's the most surprising thing? Uh, it is. And the data that is really surp, actually the data is surprising. You know what I mean? Like, it's

Kelly Wright: Well, it could have been just fine. It was who I was talking to. And oftentimes I'm talking to startups. So a lot of the times emerging tech, you know, if they're, when I talk to startups, I'm, I'm talking to private companies, not always startups. So on the run from zero to a billion and beyond of those 85 companies, I talked to many of them are sub 1 billion and they're still private.

And oftentimes companies are thinking, Hey, we need to go get our product market fit first. We need to be able to make sure that our, we're going in the [00:21:00] direction that our customers want to go in and that they do that too much instead of actually putting a stake in the ground to understand what is it that you're doing?

What is it that you stand for? What is it that you're trying to achieve? Instead of being pulled in all different directions because your customers and your partners or your investors want you to go to different places. And so companies often think they're aligned, but then they're pulled in all these different places.

And so one example that I give with this is I like to explain it. I think an easy way to, to, to reference it is like a map.

10 people,

So let's just say you're in New York and you give, you have a team of people, 10 people, and you're in New York and you just give everyone a map and you say, we're in New York.

Everyone go! We'll meet up at the end of the day. Well, there's a whole bunch of places that you [00:22:00] could go in New York. So they might all be in the same vicinity. They're all in New York City. But you have no idea where they're going to end up. Now, if you were to say, Hey, we're gonna all end up in this one place.

We're gonna all end up at the zoo in Central Park or wherever it is. And people might have their own idea in terms of where they're, how they're going to get there. And they have different paths. But ultimately, everyone's headed to the same end destination. So there might be very many ways in past to accomplish what it is that you're doing.

But you need to make sure that everyone is headed to the same ultimate destination. Otherwise, it's going to get very, very confusing. And not only for your employees, confusing for your customers too.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. That's amazing. Honestly, there was probably a hundred snippets in that we could, I mean, if we did a 15 minute show, you would have 10 snippets. That was, that was amazing. Actually, I [00:23:00] wanted to, I, there's a, what I, what I like about, uh, a lot of what you talk about and write, you know, with the culture driven sales is, you know, so mission, the missions first.

So I'm, I'm not surprised. I am surprised at. The, uh, lack of mission that's out there and the, the alignment around it. That, that is a perfect start. You know, the other one, which I think is surprising that I'm surprised if anybody could catch along with that is, uh, that connect with a heart, right? Where you're talking about.

Um, you know, treating people with care and respect, and I hate to say this because I do, I, and maybe I'm wrong, so you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I do feel a lot of times we're, allow ourselves to forsake kindness and, and, and sort of connecting with the heart when it comes to the sales team and the sales organization.

And that to me, you know, is sort of core to a lot of the [00:24:00] things that you're talking about. And to me, that's like, I'm surprised that's surprising, but it is. Not exactly the first priority on a lot of people's lists as they think about the sales team, as they organize, as they manage. I'd love for you to comment on that because I think that's a, that's a really interesting one.

So the surprise to the surprise to the surprise on that one, but go, but

Kelly Wright: There's a lot of surprise

Craig Rosenberg: I know you're very surprising, but it's just, it's awesome. And I just want to just make sure that we talk about that. Yeah,

Kelly Wright: Yeah, well.

Craig Rosenberg: could be,

it it's interesting.

People, People, People: The Core of Successful Companies
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Kelly Wright: There's one topic I discussed every time I'm a guest on a podcast or do some kind of a speaking or advising, and this is really. around this topic that you just discussed. So to, to put it more into perspective, I've done a lot of board work, done a lot of consulting, a lot of advising, and oftentimes companies will ask me a question and say, Hey Kelly, [00:25:00] for this stage we're in now, what should be our top three priorities? And often, I think there's an expectation that the answers will be different for those different stages. So think about what those stages could be. It could be just a startup, zero to 10 million. It could be doing international expansion. It could be launching a new product. Maybe starting or expanding enterprise and field sales, maybe launching a partner or channel motion, maybe going public, whatever it may be.

There's always this expectation that the priorities need to shift depending on the stage or the strategic initiative. So strategic initiatives do change. But here's my answer. It's because people say, What are your three priorities? And anyone that's heard me before, I say this on almost every show, so they'll, they'll have [00:26:00] heard it.

But my answers are always the same,

regardless of company, regardless of stage, regardless of challenge. And in indefinitely in the future, my answer will always be the same.

Craig Rosenberg: and

Kelly Wright: So what are my three priorities? Priority number one is people. Priority number two is people. And priority number three, think anyone can guess, is people. And why is that? Well, it's because, if you think about companies, It's people who are building the product or creating the service. It's people who are engaging with your customers. [00:27:00] It's people who are hiring other people and people who are managing those people. It's people who are making the decisions. People are what make companies go round. And if you have the wrong people, but you have the right product at the right time with the right strategies. It's still not going to work if you don't have the right people. But if you have the right people, every company is going to have fits and starts and have to adjust and change and tweak and might not have the right strategy a hundred percent of the time.

But if you have the right people and you can keep those people and attract the best talent and help them to feel like they're being successful, And retain those great people, then that's what makes great companies. And so I think many [00:28:00] companies are so focused on having the right product and so focused on all of their operational efficiency and strategic initiatives.

that they prioritize that strategy and operational efficiency above their people. And then it doesn't go well. So people always need to be your top priorities. And then if you have the right people that are the best in the business, who want to work at your company, who are motivated by your purpose and mission.

Craig Rosenberg: push forward

Kelly Wright: those people will do amazing things to drive great operational efficiency and push forward your mission and strategic priorities. So it's all about people the way I look at

Craig Rosenberg: I know the people, people, people. By the way, people, people, people is like, uh, did you, I mean, my generation there [00:29:00] was a group called Tony, Tony, Tony. Um, and I always loved everyone said, ah, the name is good. I'm like, no, I love it. We're going to hammer it home with the people, people, people. so we hire the right people.

I think people know, I, I, you know, one thing I think that's a breakdown on the people, people, people is sort of used as you talked about, like we all, you know, we have to keep them and we, and one of the things that, uh, [00:30:00] we talked about initially is that we do, there is, as you said, there is research where, uh, if we can all get behind the same mission, that that's.

That's as valuable as anything. What other elements in the, besides hire, you know, once we've hired the great people that need to be in place culturally or operationally to sort of get the most out of those people, keep them happy and keep them there for a long time?

Kelly Wright: Great question. So mission is really important, but it's not just the mission because core values or the company's operating principles are really critical as well. And many companies These have core values or operating principles, but much of the time they're really just words on a wall. They're like posted on a list somewhere and they're maybe on their website.

Maybe you can see them when you walk in the entryway and there's a little posting at the, in the lobby. But if you [00:31:00] ask people at the company what those core values are, many people don't know them. And then there's plenty of companies that don't have them. In my conversations I've also, I talked about stories that I've had chatting with leaders about mission.

I've had similar about values and people say, well, we're not going to really put energy into our values because they're just words on the wall. So why bother? And that's just, to me, it's like baffling. It's if you're going to believe you're going to come up with values and they're just going to be words on the wall, then of course they're not going to work.

But at the companies where I've advised or those where I've worked, like for instance, at Tableau or at Gong, at Tableau, we call them core values. At Gong, we call them operating principles. They permeated everything that we did. So they helped to inform who it was that we hired. So there was behavioral interviewing tactics that were

very critical during the interview process to assess, does this person behave [00:32:00] according to our values?

There's two is part of performance assessment. So every year when there's an annual review. Are these people abiding by the core values and the operating principles of our company that are so pertinent to our, our culture? And if they are, maybe they get not only a better review, but it is a requirement before there is promotions.

Also, in terms of additional pay or RSUs, stock grants. The, the cultural element of

abiding by and living and breathing those core values are really important. And then also how does a company make decisions? So at, at all of the companies where I've been at, but especially cause I have most intimate knowledge of Tableau and Gong, it was very often that we would have these core values.

would be in the executive team meetings or in whatever team meetings to [00:33:00] help to inform what kind of decisions we're making. So two quick examples I could give you there. Uh, like for instance, at Tableau, one of the core values was we keep it simple. And if you think back to business intelligence at the time, there were business intelligence that not only the product was so complicated, but the SKUs were so complicated.

There might be. Three pages of pricing SKUs of, do you want this? Do you want this add on, that add on?

Simplifying Business: The Power of Keeping It Simple
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Kelly Wright: Do you want it in the cloud? Do you want it on premise? And at Tableau, we literally had two SKUs. For a long time, we had a desktop and then we had log into the online version and that was it. And you got everything part of it.

And people said, well, aren't you cannibalizing? Why are you doing that? You can make so much more money, but our whole thing was, we keep it simple. And that keep it simple was our presentations. Our hiring criteria, [00:34:00] our comp plans, everything was about keep it simple. And I could give multiple examples of how we did this at Gong and other places as well.

Uh, but they, the operating principles permeated everything that we did, not only internally, but also it helped to inform how we interacted with our customers and our customers were aware of our core values. And they could call us on it if they felt like we were engaging them in a way that wasn't. in adherence to our core values.

The Impact of Culture on Sales and Customer Relationships
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Kelly Wright: So mission and core values, it's critically important. There's some other pieces too, but this comes back to why culture driven sales is so important because many companies say, well, mission and core values, that's not even the responsibility of the go to

market team.

Marketing and sales and customer success, that's not our responsibility.

That's the responsibility to HR. And they give, you know, maybe coming up with the mission statement is marketing, but core values is just the responsibility of HR, which is [00:35:00] just baffling because what is more important than the way your employees engage, not only with each other, but the way your employees engage with your customers, your prospects, and your partners.

And if you, if that community does not understand what your mission is, And how you are doing your mission and your purpose and your why in a differentiated way, and understand some of your differentiators are going to be, that you're gonna behave in according to your core values, to provide them really good service and be able to know what those values are to call you on it.

It can be really challenging. So I think this culture piece you will see very, very loudly and present. In the best companies with the most effective sales and go to market teams. I

Navigating the Challenges of High Performers with Poor Cultural Fit
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Craig Rosenberg: Can I, I gotta ask, I, I had this whole big strategic flow, but I gotta [00:36:00] tell you, I had this question the other day and it was, uh, the CEO founder and he said my best rep, like double quota, you know, three acts, the quota killing it for us. is a horrible person and cultural fit. What, what would you recommend to that person?

I know it's a different, but I just couldn't help but think about it as you were talking. Cause I got this like a week ago. And, um, what you just said was really interesting. Cause like part of the breakdown on, not the core values and the mission permeating the go to market teams. It's like, well, I hire you, go hit the number.

You know, and I'll, I'll enable you and whatever, just, you know, your job is to bring home the number, but if you're, um, if you're breaking, sort of, culture and relationships in the company, uh, what, how would you advise that CEO? Sorry, we'll get back on the strategic stuff. I just had to ask you that one.

Kelly Wright: [00:37:00] think many companies struggle with this because there will be great salespeople. There'll also be great engineers and great marketers and great in all different functions, people that are very good at their craft. They can go crush their job, but they're not a pleasant person to work with. And it's one thing for people to not like that person because not everyone's going to like everyone else.

But if someone is not operating according to the values of the company, then It becomes Impossible to, to actually maintain and uphold the culture of the company. Because if you are allowing people to behave in a way that isn't symbiotic with what you're preaching, your mission and your values are, and you as a [00:38:00] leadership team, by not doing anything, you're condoning that person to behave that way.

And then think about everything with leadership is about leading by example. So that means not only is that person not doing it and you're letting that cancer live and spread, but it actually can be very, um, diminishing to your credibility as a leader, because under your watch, you're saying, here's our values, but you're letting something happen and letting people go and behave in a way where they're not operating in accordance to those values.

So for me, I always will prioritize the people and the adherence to culture over someone's individual performance. But many other companies care so much about performance, they will do it the other way. They'll say, this person's such a great performer that [00:39:00] I'm just going to let it go. And that's when you end up having culture just go by the wayside.

Craig Rosenberg: I agree. All right. Sorry. I just had to do that. All I can think about it actually, it, it ties back into the overall theme.

Embracing Data-Driven Strategies in Go-to-Market Teams
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Craig Rosenberg: So, uh, tell me about, uh, data. So the being data driven embraced it. So like, because we're, you know, I, I, I love everything sort of connecting back. If we went into a CRO and said, all right, it's about, Mission and people, people, people.

I know you got to do some selling. It's like, but wait, we're about being data driven and committing to win. Uh, you know, this isn't, you know, like we, we have to, we have to, we're going to bring home, uh, the, the, the number here. Um, on the way there though, we're data driven. What, how do you, how do you think about that?

I think a lot of people today want to be data driven, right? I would say that's like, uh, when I was at Gartner, [00:40:00] that was, I would get, you know, you get these little flashes of like your briefing notes of what you're about to go do, and it was always like, we want to be data driven. But as a person who helps and did, did it yourself, I mean, you lived in the world, you lived in the world of data for however many years.

Uh, how should we think about that? And, um, you know, what does it mean to be data driven, particularly on the go to market side?

Kelly Wright: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I When I think about myself, yes, it's all about this culture and sales, but also data. I worked at, for 12 years at Tableau that disrupted the whole data space. And then actually, even my time at Gong, I, if you think about what Gong does is, Gong's mission is to unlock reality by helping people and companies reach their full potential.

So it was unlocking the data that people don't even know that they had through using The proprietary AI that Gong had. And so companies [00:41:00] often say they want to be data driven and many claim that they are data driven, but then are they really? So there's a few questions to ask about data driven. Uh, before we get to the question.

So the importance of data driven, I think back to my time at Tableau and. People at the time said, hey, Kelly, you are the most into data of any sales leader I've ever met. Like I was all over the data. And so the, yes, I was, but I also think that this was our competitive advantage of why Tableau was able to grow so fast because Tableau had Tableau to help us manage our business.

So we knew everything that was going on at all times. And so there's a few thoughts on being data driven. Most companies collect all kinds of data. So they collect the data, they store the data, but then companies need to ask themselves, can your data workers, and data workers can be anyone, [00:42:00] they could be salespeople, they could be your recruiters, they could be your marketers, they could be your project managers, can they actually interact with the data to answer their own questions?

Can they be self sufficient? Has your organization truly democratized data to empower people to answer their own questions? And this is what Tableau is so great at. But oftentimes companies think that they're data savvy. But they're so concerned about privacy and such that there's like a team of 20 people out of thousands in the company that have access to the data and people might not be able to ask their own questions because they don't have access to the data.

They don't, people want to save money so they don't get, they don't get licenses to the products that allow them to interact with the data. So of course companies have to be careful about privacy, but there's an [00:43:00] appropriate balance. of you can't gate data behind some locked door where only very limited people have it and expect that you're going to be a data driven organization where people are going to make reality and data driven decisions.

So that's always a balance. That's the first thing. Any questions on that? Then we can go to a couple of them. going. So the

Okay. So the next piece is to be, one thing is to be data driven, but the other is to actually be a data savvy company where you're not following of the data, but you're actually like on the cusp of You can have a competitive advantage the way you're tapping into and leading data.

So if you think about the evolution of data

years back, no one cared about data. I mean, even when we were starting to get Tableau, people didn't care about big data, they didn't care about little data, but then companies started storing

data. Then companies [00:44:00] started like interacting with the data, with business intelligence, big systems.

Then there was more democratization of the data. So self service, which was. Like with Tableau, et cetera.

But now what you have is there's so much data. I mean, the diversity and the volume of data, I mean, in what we're creating in data, just in the 30 minutes we've been talking, it's just huge, right? You create so much data.

So the next question to ask is how are you getting ahead and tapping into artificial intelligence? to help you be on the forefront of data so that you can allow people to see insights and connections. of things that they maybe weren't even thinking to ask. Because there's so many correlations in the data and insights in the data that when we're in self service and [00:45:00] democratization of data, it's fantastic. But then you are limited by a human being coming up with the question to then actually do the investigation. And now there's a whole bunch of products that can say, Hey, guess what? We have found that there's A. I. has told us that there's some association and finding in this data, and so I would encourage companies to stay on the cusp of being data driven of how are they still leveraging self service and democratizing data while layering on top of that some levels of artificial intelligence to get to the insights And the questions that maybe no one yet has thought to ask.

That's what's going to keep companies really competitive.

Craig Rosenberg: to keep companies going. That is amazing. I, I uh, Yeah, that was perfectly said. I actually asked you with, I was definitely curious as to what you were going to say [00:46:00] there. And that was, you nailed exactly what, I have no, I have no comment, except I just want to leave it at that as my future snippet.

I think, uh, and by the way, I do agree that is a, uh, a key point from the Ascent of Gong, right? Which was like, you have a very tactical example, which is you record calls, but actually the data.

Kelly Wright: I'm going to interrupt you there though. Gong does far more than call recording.

Craig Rosenberg: I know, I know, I know, but that, but when they initially, so sorry, let me just, I'll back up, of course, right, that's the point, is that they, you know, that there's that tactical, but actually the richness of that, uh, of that data, the actual engagement with the customers and to be able to capture that at scale and make decisions, right, and to look at that is so powerful and incredible.

Like, as you said, we're making data right now, right, on this

Kelly Wright: right. Well, I think one thing around that too, is companies often think that they're data driven because they collect data, maybe, [00:47:00] maybe they even do have all the tools to use data. Maybe they even use AI, but you need to challenge yourself and ask. Are you making data driven decisions? Because what happens is if companies are just making the decisions by data, and this is where it gets challenging with go to market and sales, because oftentimes people will say, well, sales can be so nuanced.

It's about the relationship. It's about understanding what the customer wants. The experienced salesperson actually understands a lot more with their Their hunch of just understanding people. And yes, that's true. You can't just do things based on data, but then you need to say, okay, we have to make sure you're not making decisions just based on hunch and opinion too.

So if the thing to do is to say, okay, when I have a decision that needs to be made, you make a hype, you come up with your hypothesis or you come up with your theory. It's [00:48:00] just like science. It's a scientific, data driven method. You come up with your theory and your hypothesis, you ask the questions, and then you go validate and you prove it with the data.

And what happens is companies are moving so fast and they want to be nimble and agile that someone says, Hey, I've been there, I've done that before, but it was a different circumstance, a different time with a different company, maybe a different customer, a different set of customers. And companies make way more decisions based on hunch and opinion than they're even aware.

And so it's really important to be able to say for every decision that you're making, can you actually validate and prove and justify it with quantifiable and quantitative data? And if you can't, Then maybe you're not as data driven as you think.

Craig Rosenberg: Boom. Okay. So [00:49:00] one new section that we have in the show is like a speed round. And normally we sort of make, we make stuff up except I love from twos and you have this killer from two, which is traditional old school sales versus culture driven sales. So I'm going to mention, I'm going to pick out like three or four I've already got that I want to get your reaction to and you can.

It's technically a speed round, but I, but just you're, I don't want to miss your sort of richness in your responses, but just we'll

Kelly Wright: so tough, fast, but not so fast.

Or short, but not so short.

Craig Rosenberg: so by the way, I'm going to start, look at, there's a tagline on, so from two is traditional old school sales and then to now, which is culture driven sales.

And if the tagline is traditional old school sales is out. Culture driven sales is in. Nice job on the, on the marking there. Very, very, very clear. From to here is my, one of my favorites. So we're going to make that the speed round here. Okay. [00:50:00] Slow, traditional old school sales, slow and inflexible, culture driven sales, fast and agile.

Can you talk about that for a minute?

Kelly Wright: Yeah, well you just put fast and agile around culture driven sales. I don't know that that's necessarily the adjectives that I would put around it. But what I will say is that old school sales is really about like solution selling, pushing your wares. Being able to understand how to best package your, your product or service to push it onto the customer. Whereas culture driven sales is about emotionally connecting with other human beings. So that you can understand what their need is and they're more likely to buy because you're actually speaking on a more emotional level than on a transactional tactical [00:51:00] level. And And with that, people want to buy. They don't want to be sold. Culture driven sales helps people, helps salespeople lead their prospects and customers to buy. Whereas old school selling is pushing salespeople to sell.

Craig Rosenberg: Got it. I love it. And that ties to, and you mentioned this earlier when you were talking about mission and principles, how that's shared with the customer. Because one of the things that's in this is sort of moving from being vendor centric to customer centric. And that sort of ties to what you just said right there.

I do think that's true still today. And you gave great examples, right? We're only thinking about ourselves and what we're trying to do and push. Product here and being customer centric so that you just gave an example you gave examples Previously on that, but like do you have any further comments on moving from being vendor centric [00:52:00] to customer centric and what you need to think?

about there

Kelly Wright: Well, I have to, one of the trainings that we did at Tableau, most companies, and even today, when companies are thinking about upskilling their go to market teams, sales, marketing, customer success, whatever it is, they do traditional sales training. And that sales training can, it can be solution selling, it can be customer centric selling, spin selling, whatever it is.

But it's always talking about how can you actually package up and sell. At Tableau, we did something very different. We actually put everyone through storytelling training. That's what it was called. I mean, we were, we were teaching them how to storytell. And how can you wrap things together in the story where it takes your mission.

It takes your vision. It, we touch on core values. You can articulate the company's why and your differentiated value propositions of how you do things differently [00:53:00] and be able to understand all of that part of storytelling. But then be able to tease out what it is that the prospect and the customer really cares about and be able to spin that story in a way where it actually resonates on a more emotional level with that prospect.

So we talked about three different levels of stories, and this is something I teach in my class at UW. It's something I talk about with culture driven sales with my curriculum there is. People should have three different stories. They need to have the company story.

They need to understand their own personal story so that you can connect.

Why are you at the company? And why does the mission and the purpose of the company resonate to you? Because that matters to the customers. And then three, what's the customer story? And so all of these types of stories, if you do storytelling training, you make your whole team much more adept at stories.

And if you think about, [00:54:00] forget about sales.

Craig Rosenberg: listening If you think about going to a dinner party, who is everyone listening to? They're listening to the storyteller. If you think about old family traditions, or cultural or folklore, or even Aesop's fables, how do people remember all of these things? Because there's some meaningful content that's wrapped around the story.

Kelly Wright: And so many companies Disconnected pitch. That's about the how and the what, but what actually lands and what people remember, not just customers, but people remember is people remember those stories. And after we did this training at Tableau, I remember customers saying, Hey Kelly, Why is it that, why is it that your salespeople, why is it that Tableau salespeople are engaging in such a different way?

I seem to have a better connection and they seem to get me more. And I think it had, [00:55:00] it really had nothing to do with me or nothing to do with the way, like our product, our product was cool, but it really was our salespeople were engaging along stories rather than traditional sales pitches.

Craig Rosenberg: I love it. Alright. One more. Um, I promise, like we, we had this thing in the, uh, in the previous shows where we'd said, Look, we can't spend the whole time talking about alignment. It's like, we just can't. Because nothing gets solved, you know, whatever. But! The way, you know, as we talk through some of your core tenets, core values of culture driven sales, I, I feel like that alignment starts to come together on some of the things that we can start doing starting from the top.

So one of the, one of the things in the culture driven sales is to move from this disconnected silo strategy to an integrated aligned strategy. I just, this [00:56:00] is a perfect time. We did so many other things on this show, but if you Uh, if people start to think about culture driven sales and to understand it, how does that help integrated, integrating and aligning strategy and just start there and comment on that because that's obviously it's still today a massive issue and so I'd love to hear more from you on that.

Kelly Wright: or the service. And then they have the product engineering team, or maybe it's a service team. It depends on what you're selling. They come up with the product your company is and marketing.

And then they take this and they throw it over the fence to the go to market team. And they say, go. And then companies ask, well, why is marketing not aligned with product? [00:57:00] Why is sales not aligned with product? Because you can't just have a product strategy. You need to, your product strategy is not your whole company strategy.

Your company's strategy and your go to market strategy is very intertwined from the top. And it's much broader than just your product strategy. So it really comes down to a pyramid, which says, first, what is the mission and vision of the company? What is that unifying why of what you're trying to do? But after you have that, we've talked about that a lot, then you have, Well, what are the differentiated value propositions of what your company does anyway?

Not just your value propositions, because those could be the same as every other company that's in your space, but what is it that you're doing differently? And then who is it that's going to care about that? Because that's how you find out who your ideal customer is. And at that point, then you need [00:58:00] to come up with what is the right strategy to engage your differentiated approach and what you're selling to the people who are going to most care about it.

And then that is what unifies this go to market strategy. So you have the marketing people are marketing it, the sales people are selling it, but then the product people and engineering people know that they need to keep on building. And expanding their offering to address and push forward that go to market story. And this is the biggest thing. Oftentimes companies mistake product strategy equals company strategy. And it's actually more company strategy and go to market strategy and the product strategy kind of fits underneath. Oh,

Craig Rosenberg: Awesome. So That was, uh, [00:59:00] a whole, that was like, uh, instead of a 30 minute sitcom, that was like the winds of war. I mean, that was like, um, there was so much in this. I, I just want to say I'm so glad that I was able to get you on the show. And I'm, I'm glad that you'll be one of the inaugural guests cause that was amazing.

So I,

I thank you. It was very fun. You know what? It's uh, it's always fun to talk about go to market. It's fun to talk about the positive impact of culture and. I hope that people are able to take little tidbits here and there and make some good use out of them.

I love it. I think so. So thanks again. [01:00:00]