Jim Sbarra: RevOps Through a Sales Lens

Business.

Business.

Business. Business. Ah, that sounds all right.

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, the go-to-market cloud. My name is Amy Cook, and I am so excited to introduce Jim Spahr, a revenue executive who has held leadership positions in both sales and revenue operations for companies like Domo, Salesforce, and Oracle. Jim, how are you?

Good, Tammy. Thanks for having me. How are you?

I'm doing well. Thank you so much for joining us. I've been really excited about this and appreciate your time.

Yeah, no problem. Anytime. Anytime.

Well, let's get started. Tell me a little bit about your background.

So I've been in the technology business for about 38 years. I know I only look 26, so I—

Ew. Yes. I don't know how that's possible.

But, uh, I started off, you know, as an individual contributor in sales, uh, for IBM.

Okay.

And then kind of moved, moved through that process. I, I then went from IBM and then at Oracle, uh, I started covering industries. And then rose through the ranks there up to being a third-line sales manager. Then I moved to Salesforce, where I kind of learned about the SaaS industry, and same type of thing, rose up through the ranks, sales leader. And then from there, I got approached by a friend and moved over to Domo to help them try to build their enterprise business. And when I got there, the RevOps person actually had resigned shortly thereafter. And the CRO said, hey, I'd like you to help me out, not only with this, but I want you to help me globally, meaning the enterprise. And I also have this other thing I'd like you to just manage for a while. And that was kind of the RevOps team.

No way.

Yeah. So that turned into 5 years.

Oh my gosh. That's so interesting. I did not realize that you came up almost exclusively through sales and it wasn't until Domo that they said, hey, take this. And you did that for the past— that's so interesting. So what was it like coming up through sales, having all of the sales experience, and then being asked to manage revenue operations? Was it a huge mind shift or was it pretty much the same?

No, you know, it was— when they first asked me to do it, I was like, wait a minute, I don't have any experience in this. Like, I just don't have experience. But then I realized that I had 32 years of being the recipient of everything that RevOps does, right? And when I thought about it, I was, I was like, wait a second, this actually might really work out well for me and others because I was a customer and now I can become the supplier of, of the revenue ops to folks. And so I believe that that helped me and everyone that I worked with, both sales and revenue operations and the executives, Yeah, to bridge a lot of gaps and to create an understanding of how each other's work was happening and the impact that it— that happened to both of us back and forth in the— and of our actions. And so the reality is, and as I talk to people now over the years and I advise some and I advise companies, they all say, wow, that's a super unique skill set, and it And it's actually pretty valuable. And I've learned so much. I honestly learned probably as much in the last 5 years as I've learned in the first 32, to be honest with you. Pieces of the puzzle that I just didn't understand, and then it made sense. Like, oh, okay, I understand why they were asking us this, or I understand why that's so important now.

Yeah.

And I think, you know, if you were to ask the sales teams, it created a different level of credibility because I sat in every one of their seats.

Yeah, well, it makes such a difference to have an operations person say, you need to do this because this is our process, versus you need to do this because I've been where you're at and it's going to solve so many problems in your life, right?

Yeah.

Well, I think— I do think what you've been able to do is, is unique and really interesting. In fact, you know, a long time ago I was sitting on a call at a place where I worked and the operations team didn't know that I was on. And I was involved, like I was in marketing, right? And this was about sales and operations and the operations team was trying to implement something new, some kind of a software. In fact, it was a CRM and one person said, you know, the sales team is saying that this doesn't give us the ability to capture the sales pipeline in the way that they need it captured. And the operations person literally said, I don't know how much we care. And my mind was blown. I was like, holy cow, don't you want your sales team to use this? Don't you want to be able to track what they need? And yet I do think that that happens sometimes. You get different people coming at it from different ways. Thinking that theirs is the best practice and it creates all kinds of friction.

Yeah, I think, you know, I always say to folks, you got to put yourself in the other person's shoes and understand that each person has a job to do. And if you can help them, if what you're trying to change helps them improve their job, or at least you understand how it impacts their job and the change of their job, they're much more willing to go along with it than you do this because.

Absolutely agree.

And so I always, so it was, you know, when I took over the RevOps team, I would hear things like, oh, sales, they just, you know, they're out messing around playing golf and they don't really care. And, you know, they don't know how to use the systems and they don't know this and they don't know that. And oh my gosh, this one. And I would be like, well, hang on a second. What are we asking them to do? All right. Does that actually really, is that something that benefits the company? You, them? What is it? Right. And we were able to, from a good point of view, eliminate a lot of unnecessary process that was more helping operations and put in new stuff, better stuff that kind of helped both teams.

Yes, I love that. So if you're trying, I'm sure you've been in this situation, especially in the past 5 years. If you're, if you're in a situation where you're having to kind of negotiate between sales and, and RevOps and try to help them understand each other, what's one thing that you would say to a RevOps team to try to help them understand the sales perspective?

Yeah, I think when, you know, people. Who don't work on commission or a large part of their income is not commission-based, right, then they don't understand what that means to somebody. And if someone who is working on commission and is, you know, a large part of their income commission-based, anything that doesn't involve closing a deal seems like noise. Right, or nonsense, or not value-add, or whatever. And so, you know, back to my earlier comment, right? Put yourself in their shoes as to what they're trying to do and what they're trying to accomplish with a lens of, okay, this actually can help you, and this is why we need it. And while it may not be right now a sales-focused type of thing, it actually helps you two steps down the road. When you wanna close the deal, right?

Mm-hmm.

When you, you know, or, or, you know how we come back and ask you 20 questions after things are closed? If you answer these 3 now, we can eliminate those. Oh, okay. Got it. Right.

So makes sense. So you can help just, so basically taking the time to explain to them how it benefits them.

Yeah. From the perspective of, again, understanding what motivates those folks, right?

Mm-hmm.

Because of, because of my selling career, which is where I spent most of my time, That's what sales really is, right? You gotta understand what the other person's pain is and how to motivate them to move towards what you're offering. And if you can't solve pain or you can't make it better for them, then they're, they're gonna resist. Mm-hmm. And if you don't understand what that pain is or what makes it better for them, you can't explain it. Mm-hmm. And no one, no one likes to be told you're doing this because this is our process. This is what we say you have to do. Now, there are some things that are non-negotiable, and you try— I always try to limit the number of those to a very, very small amount because you don't— you only get so many times to say that before people shut you off.

That's very true. I'm a mother of teenagers, and so all of this is very applicable to what I'm experiencing right now because "I said so" works very few times, and you got to pick your battles and know which hill to die on, right? And, and I feel like it's probably the same when you're trying to build relationship capital with another team who's motivated in a totally different way. And I think what you're saying about understanding what motivates people, I think is so impactful and really something that we all overlook in business. Yeah.

And I even told my RevOps teams, you know, 'cause, 'cause we had deal desk as well and we had enablement and we had communications and company meet— not company meetings, but all-hands CRO meetings and kickoff meetings, I would always say, okay, so that means we have to deal with finance, we have to deal with marketing, we have to deal with legal, we have to deal with facilities, right? Especially legal, finance, marketing. You got to take the same approach with those folks all the time. And if they see you as an ally, and at least that they know you understand, or you're trying to care about what they do, then you're gonna get way farther than, this is what we do in operations, this is how it has to be. We have to dot this I and cross this T because that's the checkbox that we always follow. Mm-hmm.

Absolutely right. I, I've run into operations leaders who are very good at this, like you. And then I've also ex— been, you know, in marketing departments where operations leaders just really don't care. So it's, it really makes, it makes such a huge difference. What would you say to then on the reverse side, what would you say to salespeople in terms of how to understand revenue operations and why they should care?

Yeah. Again, you go back to the commission thing and I would always try to position, well, first of all, for me, I was in a unique position because I would be able to easily say we're doing this because it helps in this process or whatever. And sometimes I would say, folks, I know that you don't like this and you don't want to do this, but you are going to do it and you have to trust me that it will benefit you. And then once it benefits them, then it's, then it's a no-brainer. It's that initial trust, right? Yeah. But in general, again, I would say the same thing, like, understand what this person's job is. But I think the key is, yeah, I always would say, do you, do you Do you believe, do you honestly believe that this group is in place to stop you from selling?

Mm-hmm.

Because you realize if you don't sell, they don't get to keep their jobs. Mm-hmm. All right. And the company doesn't grow, which then maybe you don't get to keep your job. Mm-hmm. So there are things that yes, you don't like, and I completely understand it, but there are things the company has to do. There are some just basic rules and laws that we have to follow that we, if we try to make sure we follow those 'cause we were publicly traded. If you're not publicly traded, well then sometimes you have to position it as we want to get there and so we have to be prepared for that. But it, it's really an understanding that these folks for the most part are not there to prevent sales. They're just not. They understand that we have to sell, right? But they are there to make sure that we, do sales in a reputable, legal way that also allows for tracking accountability and accurate reporting. All right. Not only for the business, but also for the customer. Right. Because we have to turn the customer software on. We have to give them their entitlements. We have to make sure the contracts are right. We have to make sure that both the company is protected and you're protected. You also want to collect your commission, don't you?

That's right.

We need to make sure that we have some of these things in place. And rather than spending 80% of your time fighting it, spend 10% just doing it.

That's right. That's right. It's interesting. A friend of mine is a CRO right now at a healthcare company, and she just texted me a few minutes ago and told me that her Third attempt to get the sales team to use HubSpot was now succeeding, and people were very excited to start using it. And the difference is that she was able to take the time to help them understand what it— what their concerns were and how they were being addressed, and really do that with them. What's in it for me? Why should I do this? You know? And when I've done this before, I've also found that with the sales team, especially inside sales, helping them to be able to trust you that you are going to be following up on all of their deals and making sure that they get credit if they're on the early stage of it. And so I think that everything that you're saying to me, I just, I, I feel emotionally and viscerally because I've been there as well. And when, you know, it's people's livelihoods and it's their lifeblood. And they're trusting us as RevOps professionals to log everything accurately, to be able to not share their leads with other people. That's another concern sometimes, right? And the, and, and to be able to give them the, the territories that they need and they want that's equitable and fair. And it really does, as I've done this more and more, it is becoming more apparent to me how much trust a sales team really has to give operations. And it's not always easy to give because so much of their livelihood, you know, depends on it.

I think the other thing too is it's just all my career and even in my personal life, it's, it's, it's about really collaborating and, you know, selling and RevOps, any, any job you do, no matter what your job is, it really boils down to basic human interaction skills. No one wants to be told you're doing this because. People want to feel like they're part of the process, not a victim of the process, right? And so that collaboration is so key and critical. And, you know, when I implemented Fulcast, that was one of the number one things that I really loved about it was it allowed for/forced the collaboration between sales and finance and operations. And everybody's on the same page now and everybody knows if I can play and make these models and do these things, we have an understanding and it's not send me the spreadsheet, send me this, do that, here's an email. It's in the tool, it's in the system. So that was one of the things that really struck me about Fulcast. So I just really love that. I thought I'd throw that in.

Yeah. Well, and thank you for saying that too, because that is one of the things that a lot of companies are finding to be super important is that, you know, for example, in the scenario planning, there have been situations in sales teams and you've probably been in these sales teams where the RevOps team will hand them their territories and be like, here they are. And then the sales leaders look at them and they're mind blown because they've missed 5 things and it takes 3, 4 weeks in order to fix the territories. And by then there's all all kinds of trust that's been lost. People are fighting, everyone's emotional, and all that can be avoided with the scenario planning where you put things in a proposed bucket and make sure everything's right before you push go. Little things like that.

And you can replan as often as your heart desires. And that was another thing, you know, and for, especially for growing companies, you know, replanning and people in my role know that that is like, oh my gosh, when you hear we're going to replan or restructure or reorg, whatever the term of the day is it's like PTSD for people in my role. And it's just, oh my God, I can't do that again, all that work, etc. Well, Fulcast makes that pretty simple. And most importantly is now people in my role or on my team can actually start looking ahead. Oh, hey, you know what this looks like? If we made these changes, it would be better. What do you guys think? You want to try to do this? Now we're in the forefront of it. Not in the receiving end of it, right?

Well, it's— I love that you said that because it's always better to be proactive than reactive, right? It's always better to be able to try to forecast and predict what's going to happen. I'm working with a company right now where we have Fulcast implemented and we're rolling out 4 different acquisitions into a comprehensive plan. And I'm getting like on the daily, our CRO saying, hey, we just hired a new guy. You need to take this territory and add it to here. And we can do that in an hour, whereas it would have been just like an absolute nightmare to try to do that.

Totally agree. Totally agree.

Yeah. Well, thank you. Thank you for the nice plug about Fulcast.

I know that wasn't the intent, but it just, it just, it just came to me like, wait a second, you asked me what kind of the secret was and I, and that just, you enabled that secret for me. So.

Well, I really appreciate it. I mean, it's clear that, you know, you have had such an amazing career in both sales and RevOps, and you really are at the top of your game. So what do you do to stay there? What do you do to keep learning and growing and even becoming even more, you know, expert at your craft?

Yeah. Well, first of all, I appreciate the compliment and I, you know, I, I think the first thing I do is never tell myself I'm at the top of my game. Because I think the minute you believe that, then you stop learning. So I always have believed no matter what I've done in my life, that there's always something I don't know. There's always something that I could learn about, whatever that is, even if it's in my personal volunteering work or whatever. So I think probably the biggest thing for me is I, I, I continuously be curious. I continuously read things, not necessarily, I'm not a big book reader. I've read some business books, but you know, some folks are like, oh, you have to read this book from top to bottom. It's so great now. And there are some, right, that I have read over my career that have made big, big impacts. But just articles, just news, watching news, you know, watch the stock market stuff. And I try to think about other industries and what other people do and the struggles that other people do and how, how could I actually apply their fixes to what I do, or what I've seen, right? I've had the benefit of working with so many companies over my career and industries, and I've learned so much from just people, right? Just asking, what's the challenge and how'd you fix it? But reading, I just really read articles. I really try to think about stuff and I never tell myself I'm at the top of my game ever. Right?

I think, I think that's such, those are such wise words and I feel exactly the same way with marketing changing as quickly as it is with RevOps changing as quickly as it is. We can't afford to be static. One of the things I love doing is finding a mentor And being able to be in the same room and just watching them work, right?

Yeah.

So from, for you, like some of the things that, that you're saying about like how to work with the sales team well, how to, how to conceptualize this, you know, I'm going to go back to the sales team myself and approach things a little bit differently after this podcast. And so I really appreciate your time and I really appreciate all the insights and perspectives that you've brought today. And, and, um, super excited about the future and what's next for you.

Yeah, thanks. I appreciate it and appreciate the time, and I'm happy to talk again anytime you want.

Thanks so much, Jim.