Nicole Farina: It's Not About the Tools: True Transformation Starts With Vision

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 Nicole Farina, Senior Director of Go-to-Market Strategy and Transformation at Ansys. Nicole, how are you?

I am great, Amy. Glad to be here with you. How are you?

I'm so glad you're here. I'm doing well, thank you. It's hard to find time to break away for a fun podcast like this, but I'm so glad we were able to do it. So thanks for your time.

Absolutely.

So Nicole, tell me a little bit about your background. I know that our listeners are going to want to know, how did you get started and how did you come into this awesome career that's really just starting the industry?

Yeah, absolutely. So I have a little bit of one of those stories where, you know, you wonder, how did she go from there to there? So I actually studied at a fashion school. In New York City for business. And I had these big ideas and dreams of being an advertising executive in New York City, focused in marketing. And I actually started my career in life insurance in marketing, which wasn't quite as glamorous, but it really launched my career in what I would say is, you know, pre-sales services.

Support.

So when I started there, I focused, um, in marketing and sales operations, and there was a need for performance incentive improvement and management within our call centers. And so I started training our call center reps, and that was my first exposure to Salesforce and training on Salesforce. And I really liked the idea of understanding what motivates sellers and how to support them. And so I ended up taking a position with a, a smaller performance— employee performance and rewards company who was actually looking to build their own SaaS platform and needed support in that. And so that was my first experience building a department from scratch, which was at the time it was called solution design, but it was essentially bridging the gap between sales and how you sell, what you sell, and how you deliver that effectively. And then I took that type of role to Salesforce Consulting. So I worked for BlueWolf, an IBM company— it's their Salesforce Consulting arm— and I focused in pre-sales as a technical liaison for our sales team and delivery. And that's really where I cut my teeth, more specifically in Salesforce implementations and understanding how you design an implementation with customers that takes into consideration where they're trying to go, but deliver something quickly to them, as well as how you manage change.

And so important, especially in big transformation. The crawl, walk, run is what we would always tell people when we were at Simplex. And that's— I know exactly what you did at BlueWolf because that's what we did at Simplex. And when I was the CMO, you were— I think you were at BlueWolf at the time. I would always look at your state of Salesforce reports and go deep into them and model them. And I was always LinkedIn stalking you guys so I could come up with good marketing ideas.

You have to share best practices in these things.

Yeah, that's right. We always do. And your CMO at the time was really kind and offered to meet me for lunch. And so I I've always had the best impression of BlueWolf, and it's fun to be part of that Salesforce ecosystem.

Yeah, absolutely. I loved working there. I think they really built a great culture. And when I joined Ansys, I joined on the client side now. So, you know, having the experience with implementations, both on consulting and on the client side, has offered me a lot of insights. And I would say, you know, at Ansys, we are an engineering simulation software company, and We are partnering with some of the biggest groundbreakers in the world to change the way the world works, which I find fascinating.

Yes.

And what my team does is we really focus internally on changing the way we operate so that our teams can work together as best as possible. So when I started, it was really just focused— the, the team recognized it as the focus of systems. And we have evolved that to what is called go-to-market transformation and strategy now, which really guides our business through transformational change and how we leverage systems with a focus on process first, which I think often is, is underrated or underestimated in the importance to get somewhere fast. So we focus in 3 key areas: process transformation, workforce transformation, and data governance and administration. To deliver our biggest initiatives and support the business.

This is so fascinating to me to see where you started, which is in sales support, and then expanding into implementations, and then expanding further into go-to-market transformation. I think what an awesome career trajectory and how much you must have learned over the past, you know, few years as you've been doing this. Um, I find that fascinating, and my career is very similar to yours, only I come at it from marketing rather than sales support. But we've kind of ended up in the same place with go-to-market transformation.

Isn't it funny how we end up similar minds end up in the same place, which is right, transforming the way companies work.

That's absolutely right. So I wanted to talk with you a little bit more about how people underestimate the importance of process in delivering their largest initiatives quickly. You know, I'm sure most of us have heard that phrase. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast. And to me, that speaks really well when an implementation goes well. At first, it may seem a little slow as you're pulling all of the brick, like all of the bricks together, and then that wall goes up real quick or that house goes up real quick. And so can you talk to me a little bit about what is a transformation really like and what do you want people to know about that? Sure.

So some of the biggest learns and sayings I, I use quite often is, you know, when you are in go-to-market transformation, you need to be a thought leader, but also walk alongside the business and meet them where they're at. And so I think the other thing we, we often recognize is that you do have to play the long game and you have to be okay playing the long game, even if you're implementing in smaller, you know, in smaller increments or releases. When it comes to transformation, to your point, I think, you know, we often talk in terms of agile and moving fast and implementing fast, and that is necessary. You have to move as fast as the business, but you can only move somewhere if you know where you're going. So we often will and, and a, a rigor we've put around our implementations is before we move fast, let's talk about what the North Star is. So at the very least, you know, what does that future state look like? And that's not just from the perspective of implementing a shiny tool that is going to, you know, introduce all these benefits, which it will. But we really have to think about how that tool is going to work inside of our larger tech stack. And not just the primary users of that tool, which in many cases will be our, our sellers or our sales team, but what is, what role does it play in the overall customer journey or the internal supporting journey? And when you see that and you have a plan for where you're going, we can implement those smaller releases actually much smoother and quicker to get us to that long term versus, hey, let's implement these tools, let's get them going as quickly as possible, and then we'll figure out how we manage them. Together. So I'm not necessarily prescribed to waterfall, but I will call it planning agile, which has an element of what is your strategy, who are all the people, process, systems, and data involved so that when you do deliver something, you deliver it right the first time.

I have, uh, I really, really love this strategic thought process behind it, because one of my personal goals is to show why elevating the role of this, of the RevOps leader to be viewed as the strategic position that it actually is, is so important. And I think you've articulated that really well, that you can't just go willy-nilly and just like, I think the way you mentioned it was like, build a lot of tools together and hope that they meet in the middle, right? It has to be very strategic. I like the way that you discussed it as planned agile. I think that's really important. Gotta have the strategy behind it. And I also thought it was very interesting how you mentioned people, processes, systems, and data. Would you say that those 4 categories are very similar to the way most people in our industry view, view a strategy, those 4 categories?

Absolutely. I think if you talk to most RevOps or GTM operations leaders, we recognize the importance of not just thinking about the systems or thinking about, you know, in order to achieve the goal, you have to consider all 4 of those to be successful and across the go-to-market. So really, when you think in terms of— and I think most RevOps leaders do— the marketing to sales, sales to sales ops, sales ops all the way through to customer service, how do we think about the integrated people, process, systems, and data. And when we do that thoughtfully together across those systems, that's how we ultimately deliver success as a RevOps organization, which delivers success for our sales teams.

I love that. Data itself, you know, it— more classically, people think of as strategies, people, processes, and technology. But one thing that I've noticed just from doing these podcasts is it's very consistent for RevOps leaders to separate systems and data rather than plugging it into technology. And I think that that's really interesting. What would you like people to know that are hiring? For example, like, you're on the client side now, right? What's something about transformation that is maybe underappreciated or something that just, like, you know, you really think people need to know in order to successfully execute one? Sure.

So I would first say, you know, especially when it comes to hiring or looking for the right skill sets and candidates, it is those— the team members that have critical thinking and strategic thinking and are— and have exposure across the go-to-market. So there is importance in having deepened expertise in certain business functions, but within revenue operations, we have to be able to look broadly. And so I will often— on my team, we, we have roles like process architect. And the responsibility and mindset of those individuals is that they are big thinkers and they understand how the whole engine works. Now, they may not— they may be an expert in a particular process area, but they see the whole vision in their head. And when we look for different skill sets on the team, whether it be process architects, data analysts, change analysts, business process analysts, we're doing a lot of analyzing, uh, thinking through even when you scope requirements, who, who's going to be impacted and primarily, and then who's your, your bigger audience that's going to be impacted. And so that ability to look beyond the specific ask, but again, be thought leaders and guide the business in recommendations, I would say, are some of the most important things if you're going to work through transformation. Not to mention, as I said earlier, you know, being comfortable playing the long game.

Mm-hmm.

When you are transforming a company, as most RevOps leaders know, it is not overnight. And often it's going to take a decent amount of time for leaders to embrace that change all the way through to the end end users of the new functionality or process itself. And you, you have to be willing to walk alongside them and meet them where they are. When, you know, certain change, they may just not be ready for it. And recognizing, I think this is ultimately where we want to go, but it's not time to introduce that yet because we're not quite there in our journey.

That is such an important point. Um, just as an example, one of the clients that I'm working with at Fulcast that I'm doing some consulting work with, has had a very backwards approach to technology. And they're trying really hard to get there. But we're at the stage right now, where the old lead in, in the Americas said absolutely no social media, marketing does not include social media. And I think of it and I'm like, whoa, like I've never— I haven't heard of many people who don't approve of social media now. Right? So they're coming along on the marketing side as well. Now they're also integrating tools and systems to understand, like, CRMs and the revenue operations. And so we're helping them move that whole system into their business. And it is slow right now, but they're already starting to see the agility as they're using the tools. One of the biggest challenges that I found so far is a change management piece. Do you have any advice for me and other consultants like me and other RevOps professionals who are having a little bit of difficulty helping the team come along where they're at? Exactly like you said.

Yeah, absolutely. This is my sweet spot. I could probably talk about this for hours. Oh, I love it. I would say, and from my personal experience in major transformations where, you know, the business is asking for the change because they're feeling the pain, but they're not necessarily aware of what that's really going to mean for their responsibility in that change. And so a lot of what we've spent our time doing, preparing for major transformations, is understanding what it is that they're willing— that they want and what it is that it's going to take for them to also— because there's a certain component where the sales leaders themselves, marketing, customer service, they have to drive that change as well. We cannot just be recipients of it. And so we will often think of an integrated change plan that starts with communications at, at least 6 months prior. If you're talking a big transformation where you're starting, you're starting to prepare them for changes. We've seen change comes in multiple stages. And so we wanna get them prepared for that much earlier on. And we've used all different types of tactics, everything from full employee communications integrated plans to boots on the ground, employee shadowing, interviewing our team members. And when we roll out that change, I think we also need to recognize that not everybody receives training the same way. We have to think about the global considerations, which we often do since we roll out across the world. And when it comes to the releases themselves, it takes time to embrace that change. And so often we wanna have one release after release after release, and that's a good thing. We shouldn't overwhelm them with change, but we also need to give them a chance to actually adopt it. So I would say, you know, the combination of a change plan that recognizes timely releases, but also, and I can't stress this enough, partnership and buy-in from the leaders themselves whose employees are actually going to receive this and ensuring that they are on the front line of driving that change. Otherwise, it's just RevOps or go-to-market operations saying, Hey, this is something really good that you should use, and we're driving all the training and communications, but it is much better received when their sales manager is sitting down with them, having the discussion on the importance of pipeline management or putting their contacts in, in CRM or whatever the case may be.

Right. That does make so much sense. And, and I do see that in one of our customers that we've been working with. They're trying to pull things in from cell phones and from mapping software and from all these different places. And the idea of putting everyone's, like, all the salespeople's Rolodex, like, they're, you know, it's really kind of their private information into a public CRM, even though it's a 20-year technology now, it's still a little bit nerve-wracking for people sometimes. So I really like appreciate what you said just now about that. Nicole, it is so fun to talk with you, and I would love to have like a specific just change management discussion another time. It'd be so great. It's clear that you're at the top of your game, and so what is one thing that you do to stay there? It could be anything from a polar plunge or reading books, or what is it that, that keeps you motivated and keeps you charging forward? Sure.

So I would say as I've progressed in my career, I think like many millennials, we have tied our identity to work and how well we do in our career. And first and foremost, I really took a step back and recognized that in order for me to stay grounded and to be the best leader that I can be, I need to focus my time outside of work as well. And so separating those two things has been a game changer for me. So outside of work, I meditate. I am a big advocate of gratitude meditation. I make art, so you can't see it too well, but behind is my own art that I make around my house. And I would also say travel. I think away from— especially when you work remote and you're in the house often on calls all day, it's really important to get out and spend time with your friends and family and experience new parts of the world. And I find all of those things are a breath of fresh air and bring me back to when I do start my day for work. I am refreshed and I have new ideas and I'm ready to be the best leader that I can be for my team and the organization.

Oh, I love that. I'm gonna incorporate all of those. And tell my husband who is upstairs, because we both work remotely, that it's time for a vacation. Yep.

Talk about it when you go on vacation together.

That's right. That's right. Well, thank you so much, Nicole. It is such a pleasure, and I really appreciate your time and all of your insights.

Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me, Amy.