Jeremy Baras: Which GTM Roles Are Hot (and Which to Avoid)

Business. Business. Business.

Welcome to Go to Market, a podcast for RevOps, sales, and marketing leaders to dive deep into industry insights and best practices. Go to Market is sponsored by Fulcast and Silicon Slopes. My name is Amy Cook, and I'm so excited to introduce Jeremy Barris, Executive Senior Partner and Go-to-Market Practice Lead at Talentfoot. Jeremy, how are you?

I'm well, how are you?

I'm doing great. Thank you so much for joining us today. It's such a pleasure.

Likewise, thanks for having me.

We've known each other for about 18 months, and when you were at Hunt Club, and it's just been such a pleasure to get to know you better. So happy to be here.

Yeah, it's been so much fun seeing you and Ryan and Lance and what you're building. Seems like you guys are now acquiring a company, Elite, which which is crazy, but no, just been so great to get to know you and the team.

Oh, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. You've been so helpful to us as well. So as we've gotten to know this go-to-market space, there's just so, there's so much movement right now, isn't there?

It's crazy. And it feels like whether it's monthly, even weekly, hearing new things, reading new articles. I'm fortunate in my role where I chat with CEOs and board members and CROs and CMOs every day. So I kind of have a front row seat or kind of a glimpse before everybody else as to kind of what the newest, you know, trends, challenges, opportunities are. But it's been, it's been fun to watch.

I think it's just an absolutely fascinating, like it's such a shift and a reset, right? With everything. Well, before we get started on our main topic of conversation, which is going to be fascinating, which is. Basically which go-to-market jobs are hot and which ones should you avoid trying to go into. Tell me first a little bit about your background.

Yeah, you know, I took a non-traditional route to recruiting. So I grew up, born and raised in Boston. First job out of college was actually with the Boston Red Sox. I was there for almost 2 and a half years. A dream job. I grew up 10 minutes from Fenway Park, diehard Red Sox fan. And then very quickly, shortly after starting there, I met my wife in Boston and she basically said I can date her if I moved to Chicago. So couldn't bring the Red Sox with me. Ended up leaving, leaving the Red Sox in, in early 2012 to start my own company and had my own startup for about 4 and a half years. We were in the, in the retail space, retail commercial real estate space. Moved to the Chicago area in 2014 where we lived downtown for, for about 3, 4 years. And then left my startup, had a great run there, worked in commercial real estate for a bit, and then back in 2021. Was kind of at this inflection point in my career. And so in trying to figure out what I wanted to do next, had all this great experience, both in go-to-market as an operator, as an entrepreneur, as a founder, didn't really know how to connect all those dots. And so I reached out to all the recruiters I knew in the network, in my network at the time, uh, which just happened to be one. And, uh, he's, it was Nick Kromidas, uh, who you know as well, the, the founder of Hunt Club. And I said, hey man, look, I'm, I'm kind of at this stage in my career trying to figure out what do I want to do next? And Nick's response was, well, why don't you come work at Hunt Club? And so that is kind of what brought me in to Hunt Club and into recruiting and had an amazing 4.5-year run there. I was so fortunate to kind of play a role and see growth from multiple lenses and multiple, multiple seats within that, that firm for, for so many just great experiences. We saw us raise a couple rounds of funding and work with some just incredible customers and best-in-class candidates. And then recently shifted over to Talentfoot to accelerate my career and work with some just incredible people as well and build something truly special in executive search.

Oh, that's so awesome. What a— what an interesting career path. And I love that you prioritized your family first above all. I think that's the coolest story ever.

Look, like I was 23, right? And like, I, you know, my family obviously, of course, I talk to them, probably not enough, but as often as I can. They're still in Boston, friends still in Boston, but I was 23. I didn't know any better. This pretty girl wanted to date me, so I said, okay.

Absolutely. That's what I mean about your family.

I've— you wanna date me and the condition is I have to move to Chicago. It could be worse places to, to live, so.

Well, I did the same thing with my husband. I moved out to California and I stayed here ever since. So it's been amazing.

So good for you. Hey, you sometimes you, you, you gotta do what you gotta do.

That's great. I love it. So, okay, so I am, I've been so excited to have this podcast session with you because there is just so much going on in go-to-market right now. Like, their companies are like, you know, one of the reasons we've acquired so many is because we've been able to see this like great, great technology and amazing people and so much R&D. And yet, you know, like there's, there are cash problems and, you know, there's burnout and just different things like that that make them want to sell. And so we've been so fortunate to be able to, you know, help assimilate a real— what we believe to be like a great go-to-market reset. So what's your— what is your like official position on the landscape? Do you think that there's like tons and tons of movement, or are we just seeing it? Like, what's your thought?

Absolutely. I think right now it's an interesting, interesting point in go-to-market for MyLens because there's so many new tools and technologies out there that are being developed. Obviously AI is the sexy new thing that everybody talks about. I have found, especially in my conversations with, with companies looking to adopt AI in a variety of different areas, they want to do it because it's what everybody talks about, but they don't know exactly where it fits within the org, their business and within the org and what they actually want to achieve from it. And so there's a lot of transformation, a lot of looking at kind of what other companies are doing to either, uh, uh, copy them or, or thinking that you can do it better or trying to take best practices or key learnings from certain situations or challenges that other companies have and trying to figure out if you can apply within your own company. And so it's, it's a really cool time to kind of at least be in my seat as kind of this, this leader that's super fortunate to talk to other leaders and kind of see what's going on across stages, industries, categories. All across, across the go-to-market landscape.

Yeah, that's so interesting. And like, are you seeing like positions that are coming up as really important to CEOs within go-to-market and like some where they're like, no, I just don't see the value anymore?

Yeah, I, I'll say both positions and, and, and, and functions. So one from like a growth standpoint, transformational standpoint, kind of speaking to what I just mentioned in terms of what we're seeing, what I'm seeing from my, from my vantage point. We're seeing a lot of companies, especially a lot of high-growth companies, adopt more of a product-led growth model within their overall go-to-market strategy. Which I think there's a few reasons for that, but that's where you're finding companies oftentimes hiring in leaders that index more in either that PLG motion or more of a product background because they want to adopt some sort of product-led motion, perhaps creating a hybrid motion within their, within, within their existing go-to-market to accelerate their growth or to unlock growth or to double-click on certain categories or customer segments or whatever that is. So I think you're seeing hiring against kind of against that transformation that I mentioned. And then certainly, look, in your world, in our world, go-to-market ops is, is still number one. I think we're seeing a bit of a transformation within go-to-market ops specifically, right? RevOps as it was 2 years ago, 3 years ago, probably isn't what it is today or what it will be this time next year. I often tell candidates too, uh, revenue operations candidates, that like RevOps means different things to different companies, even, even today, even 2 years ago. And, and yeah, not every revenue operations organization is the same. Some have a reporting into revenue, as you know, some into finance, some into operations, some directly to the CEO. And so But I think the through line through all of that is go-to-market operations is really becoming the engine behind, uh, high impact, powerful go-to-market teams and systems and platforms that can really power growth, accelerate growth, catalyze growth for, for count— for all sorts of companies, no matter the size.

Interesting. When you're like, let's say, let's take the RevOps function for example. Let's say that you are the head of RevOps and you want to go to a company where you're going to succeed, obviously we all want to do that, who should you try to report to? Who's the best person to try to report to, to have the most success?

The best, most functional RevOps relationships that I've seen is when those leaders report to the CRO or the revenue leader for, for the business. More often than not, if you're reporting to a CRO, they'll probably have a wide scope kind of connecting, uh, sales, marketing, customer success, pre-sale, post-sale, oftentimes probably adjacent to product or, and some of these other functions and leaders within the business. And so it's kind of more of a center of excellence within the entire, not only go-to-market team, but within the entire company. That's where you can probably make the most impact given what that kind of RevOps scope is for the most part. And the ideal role that they play. Not to say that a company can't have success if you're, if you place them under finance or operations, but it's a little bit more fragmented based on, based on kind of what I've seen in the market thus far.

So that's very interesting. So I was talking with a friend who leads a very well-respected go-to-market consulting firm, and his very strong opinion is that finance is taking more and more and more control. Over go-to-market, especially because we're trying to do efficient growth more than is, you know, the heyday is over, right? And so, and so, so his opinion is if you actually want to be successful in RevOps, that's going to become more and more a function of finance because, because RevOps leaders have a reputation for fuzzy math. And I thought that was a really interesting perspective. I've never heard that before, and I actually don't agree with it, but I want to get your take on that.

Yeah, I don't either. Look, I think finance should be a stakeholder that revenue operations leaders work with, and they should be part of the solution. But in general, I feel like, and I've seen, and I may be in the minority here, but I feel like especially for mid to late stage companies, if you're looking to hire a great RevOps leader, placing them within the revenue org will, and partnering with the CRO or VP of sales or other sales leaders, marketing leaders, other functional leaders within that, within that function, within that space, within that segment of the business will help you achieve your growth outcomes more than if they sit off to the side or within finance. It's looking at the scope, whether it's forecasting, whether it's whether it's adopting new tools, whether it's transforming business models, whether it's building out, as I mentioned, a POG motion to complement your existing sales motion. That's all of those aspects and more are where RevOps plays a role. And you can't do that if RevOps is not embedded within your go-to-market org already. If they're off to the side, theoretically, yes, intellectually, yes, they could do that, but they're so focused on on the financial aspect and the financial health and the financial levers tied to the business that they probably have some blinders on relative to the actual growth objectives that the revenue org has.

Yeah, I, I, that is my personal opinion as well. I've never seen a finance-run company grow very well because, you know, like in my mind you've got the CEO and you've got the CRO who's like growth, growth, growth. And you've got the, you know, the CFO who's like, you know, bottom line profitability. And like between the two, we have the right mix, right? That's kind of always been my opinion on, on that.

Look, to your point, CROs can be the visionaries, right? I think the VP of RevOps or the RevOps leader is the reality check, right? It's, it's, you know, they're tasked with, yes, you know, taking the vision of the CRO or the revenue leader, making sure that it can be doable and, and can get done. And if, if certain aspects cannot get done, then like calling their bluff and, and letting them know that. but also leading with data, leading with insights, leading with, with their, their, who their customers are, where they want to go, competitive intelligence, all those aspects to help, to help make, make smarter, smarter decisions and more thoughtfully.

I totally agree. So if you were a RevOps leader and you were like, okay, so, so you think, okay, report to the CF, CM, excuse me. CRO. Some do report to the CFO, should do report to the CFO, of course, but it report to the CRO. That's where you're gonna get the most alignment. What's the best way for a RevOps leader to, for example, work with the CEO and to work with the CFO?

First of all, treat them as partners, uh, and interact with them as partners. At the end of the day, all those stakeholders. Have the same goal in mind. It's to, it's to grow the business. I think where the, the other kind of role that's, that's CR, that revenue leaders or RevOps leaders, I should say, play is more that chief of staff type of role. And that's where I've seen, you know, RevOps leaders, not to oversimplify it or diminish it, but oftentimes play a chief of staff to the CRO type of function. And a great chief of staff is this leader who knows how to effectively get great cross-functional buy-in at all levels up and down an org. And so if you sit within revenue, as we talked about, that's where the, the most alignment will happen. That's where you're going to make the biggest impact. But using finance, using operations, using your CEO, using any other stakeholders outside of revenue as your partners. Absolutely should be, it should be part of the playbook of any great RevOps leader and can help optimize for growth in that role.

Yeah, that's really, that's a good call. What do you say to people who downplay the role of RevOps? Some people are saying, you know, RevOps as a function is not going to exist in 3 years because they're going to work themselves out of a job. What do you think about that?

Um, there's always going to be a need for RevOps in some form or fashion at every company. They may not call it RevOps, right? But when you think about sales enablement, when you think about processes, when you think about system deployment, implementation, when you think about all of these skill sets needed to build, to, to create, make decisions and empower teams, empower growth teams, catalyze growth. Everything behind that, that's all RevOps in, in some form or fashion. And so I've heard that argument that AI is going to take over RevOps, a lot of these functions, or that they're going to work themselves out of a job, or the scope is going to continue to evolve to a point where traditional RevOps leaders are not going to have that role in 2 years, 3 years, to your point. First of all, I don't think there's anything traditional about RevOps and ever has been traditional about RevOps, because I think as we talked about It looks different based on the company, the stage, the scale, the scope, but also anything that comes about, AI, automation, they're all just tools. They're, they're, they're tools that help people work smarter, better, faster. But at the end of the day, you need people to still do the work and lead the work and drive the strategy and, and, and, and generate the outcomes.

And I 100% agree. I was talking with the, the chief customer officer of and Trust, and she said something really meaningful to me. She said, "We have technology to serve people. People don't serve technology." And I think that's absolutely right. I think sometimes we forget 'cause we get so excited about AI and generative stuff, but at the end of the day, it's really about how do tools serve us as people? And I agree, maybe we don't call them robots, maybe we call them something different, but in my opinion, that business function is what is driving the change between, like, from bureaucracy into digital transformation. And I think that that is just a fundamental, like, position that cannot be taken away.

For any company that wants to grow, they need to have some sort of RevOps function. You don't need to call it RevOps, you don't need to call it sales ops, you don't need to call it all in any, you can call whatever you want.

Yeah.

But if you don't have the people with the insights and the knowledge that can connect those dots internally around where you are today versus where you wanna be and, and wanna get to, you're not, you're never gonna grow and you're never gonna get anywhere that's sustainable and that's scalable.

Yep. I, I couldn't agree more. Well, Jeremy, thank you so much. Like, you're clearly at the top of your game. It's super fun to like poke you with these like compelling questions and, and you've got, I mean, you've got it. How do you stay at the top of your game? Like, what do you do to, to stay there?

In my role, the best part of my role is being able to talk to people. And look, I've been on, I mean, today's Thursday. I've been on at least 5, 6 calls this week with revenue leaders across different categories and industries, different sizes of companies, VC-backed, privately funded, PE-backed, across the board. You just talk to people. I just talk to people. I try to get smart. I try to get their perspectives as to what they're hearing in the market, what challenges they face, what they're hiring for now, or what they're building for in the future. Q4 planning for next year is in full swing right now. And so helping to help guide that and frame that in some ways is certainly also part of the conversations we're having. But honestly, it's just being able to talk to people and have these conversations and asking the right questions to get the intel that I need to not only be more informed, but also get smarter.

Well, you can tell that you're very deeply embedded in these conversations, and it's exciting to talk to you because you're at the forefront of all of this change. So thank you so much for joining us today, Jeremy. It's been such a pleasure.

Yeah, thanks, Emmy. Always a pleasure. Appreciate it.