Vetting the CRO Role & Avoiding the "VP of Sales" Trap with Mike Price

Hi, I'm Warren Zenna, founder and CEO of the CRO Collective, and welcome to the CRO Spotlight Podcast. This show is focused exclusively on the success of Chief Revenue Officers. Each week we have an open, frank, and freeform conversation with top experts in the revenue space about the CRO role and its critical impact on B2B businesses. This podcast is the place to be for CROs, sales and marketing leaders who aspire to become CROs and founders who are looking to appoint a CRO or want to support their CRO to succeed. Thanks for listening. Now let's go mix it up. Welcome to this episode of the Ciro Spotlight Podcast. This is Warren Zen. I'm the founder of the Sierra Collective. This week, I'm really excited to have Mike Price, the CRO of dtech. So Mike and I had a pre call, and, you know, it's one of these things where I don't do that often since I just let people just jump on and we talk. But we set it up, and Mike said, like, two sentences. I was like, okay, this is fine. We're gonna have a good conversation. I'm not worried about it. And we ended up talking for an hour. But so, you know, Mike and I, we had an amazing conversation. He talked a lot about the role, how to vet the role, how to know you're getting the right role, and also what why it is that CROs succeed and why some don't. So listen to this episode. It's amazing. And provide, if you don't mind, a little background on yourself, like, how did you end up where you are today? What's your journey? Like? This is really a really important part of the story for my listeners, who many of them are aspiring right now to kind of expand their careers. They're in their 40s, most of them, maybe a little bit, maybe before, but mostly we'll say like, 40s. They're executives, they run teams, and they're thinking, what's next for me? And they see people who have big titles and big jobs, and they want to know, what do they. How do they get there?

So mine was. Was kind of a circuitous path, like a lot of us are. Like a lot of ours, ours, I would have to say, had it not been for a couple of key people in my life that probably saw something in me that I either didn't see in myself or I thought maybe was there but hadn't. Hadn't demonstrated itself at that moment, I certainly wouldn't be here. So I. And these are people I'm obviously keeping up with and thank them as often as I can, which is something I would tell anybody. There was somebody that made a difference in your trajectory in life, you're not thanking them on a regular basis. You should 100. It makes you feel better and makes them feel a lot better. So, you know, I kind of fell into the sales game. I remember I've got two older brothers. One of them made a suggestion to me early that, you know, you should. You should get into sales. M. Because. And it wasn't a compliment. It was a, you're probably not going to be good at anything else, so why don't you. Why don't you just get into sales and see how it goes? So I did. I've just been very fortunate, Warren, to get into the right place at the right time, sometimes at the right company, sometimes into the right job, and then have worked really hard to make my customers and my manager successful. And I would tell you, one of my secrets to success has always been a philosophy of how do I make my immediate boss exceptionally successful? How do I make that person more successful than myself? And good things should probably follow. And that has worked out pretty well so far. Now, in the process of making your boss really successful, you tend to make yourself fairly successful as well. So being really thankful, trying to make my boss successful. And then that third piece that I would say is attributed to my success and how I got here here. Even though I'm in the sales profession and proudly a sales profession, I've never considered myself a salesperson. I've always considered myself and done my best to maintain this as a business person. And with that attitude, it kind of forces you to look outside of the nest, the sales profession. It really forces you into putting your businesses, who you work for, their total needs in mind as well as your customers, total meats of mind. They're running a business. Your employer is running a business. What do you do in that context as opposed to, I'm a sales professional here at this. And. And how do I go get the next transaction? I think that put me in a position that when the opportunity raised its hand and said, well, Mike, do you want to step up? I had proven myself to be thinking at that next level, not my current level, but as a business person. So allowed me to move forward. So I had a couple of key people who made a difference in my life. And then some of those key people also moved on to other particular organizations and invited me to come with and be a part of their team and had those incredible opportunities as well. So I Think it's really. I'm not trying to make this sound corny, but I have literally focused on other people in my career other than myself. My career is important to me, obviously, but I found that if I focus on everybody else and really make them successful, my supposition has always been that's going to return in, in, in major returns and benefits to me. And so far it has. And I've been able to, to move up the ladder and get myself into great positions over the years.

You know, it's fascinating you said something just now because I had a podcast episode with another Ciro yesterday and he said what you just said. He said he was trained to be a businessman, not a salesman. And it was a great insight because you're right, it's a completely different context and it's a better context because you're looking at the bigger picture and how what you do affects things. And you're taking more of a systemic approach to your job as opposed to a functional approach to your job. And I just don't know if enough. And I'd say salespeople maybe it's probably relevant to all people in any function are being trained to think that way. You seem to have been imbued with some maybe, you know, wisdom early on. That's a wisdom like thing to think about. That is, that's not a. But it is.

I'm gonna, I'm not gonna take claim for that. I was one great parents, a very, very fortunate. My father at a, what at the time I thought was an old age, but it was actually in his mid-30s, left a very successful career at one of the largest companies in the world at the time. Still one of the major Fortune 50, but at the time it was in the Fortune 10. And he left it to go start his own business as an entrepreneur. And looking back at it, it was an incredibly gutsy move at the time because he had three kids and all the things that go with that. And he left this very, very large organization, opened up his own business. So I grew up in a very entrepreneurial household. I grew up listening to my father talk about business. It was small business, but all the things that make a small business run more and I, I, and I have it because my father passed away. It was something that I sought out in his papers. I have a flowchart of a business process on how to complete a very, very large construction project. And it was a flowchart. And I mean literally you could tell this was hand drafted at the time and Xeroxed Off. And he learned this by working at this very large corporation because they did things great. He took all these learnings as an entrepreneur, but this is the type of stuff I grew up around. Finance, marketing, small business, management, process orientation. Dad would take me at least once a month out so I could go see how the business was being worked at, be on the job site. And so I get that absolutely from my parents. I've really known no other way than just think about business as business.

And.

And a salesperson is a member of a business team, and we have a very important role and function. But if you don't see how it fits into the bigger objectives of a business running, you miss it. So I've. I've just. I'm. I'm steeped in it. I've grown up in it. So I have to thank my parents for this. I'm not sure I would have gotten it any other way. I'd like to claim I'm this great insight into how the world works, but really it's about how you grew up and the learnings you get along the way. Very fortunate with that.

Great. So were you like. Were you like a jock? Were you a nerd? Were you a book guy? What was your. What kind of a. When you growing up? Like, what's your. What's your profile? Would you quit yourself in you think?

This part is obviously going to be immediately deleted from the podcast. No, I was. I was the guy who played in the rock and roll band.

Cool. Me too. What you play?

I play the guitar, sing. Little harmonica here and there, a little piano. So I wasn't in the school band. I was in the rock and roll.

Yeah, me too. I was in the garage band. I had the garage band. Yeah. All right.

That's what I did.

So you're like a creative type, then. Okay, gotcha.

I am. I'm very left and right brain. I mean, if you. When I've. And we've all done the. The tests over time where you go get your personality test, sometimes you're forced to do it, sometimes you do it just because you have an interest. It's like, okay, what. What makes me up? I am split almost right down the center. Left and right brain. I love the numbers. I love spreadsheets, but I also love banging out some great covers and some great songs on my. On my Martin or my Les Paul. And so it's. That's. I've struggled for years with that. You know, where. Where does it lie? But I've got both. As I mentioned before, both My brothers are, are engineers, yet incredibly successful in business. And so I've got this engineering streak in me, but I definitely have the business streak in me as well.

That's amazing. Very common, you and I, although I'm not as proficient in the math thing, I don't take to it well, but I have a lot of other analytical brain. So this is great. So. Okay, great. So now you are a salesperson and you know, you just went through a very high level idea of how you've kind of manifested different success. So you know, as we take on more and more complexity, right. We have to bring different skills to the table. Right. Because complexity requires new ways of thinking.

That's right.

So you know, how do, how do you adapt to that? Like is it, is it mostly, is it trial and error? Are you reading a lot of books or you have mentors? Like, what's the way that you develop new skills to adapt to your new circumstances?

All the above, actually. I mean you just hit it. And I really don't know any other way that it can happen. Because the fastest path to quick education is reading blogs, reading books and some of the great ones and absorbing that information and figuring out, okay, what about what I'm reading here, putting it all into context, what about here can we take away? And then it's, you surround yourself with a great team where you can bounce a lot of ideas off of, get their feedback, other other individuals, you respect their opinions, you get the learnings, you absorb as much material from the outside as possible. You run it by your team and make sure you know how it would work both in as general ideas. What do you think of this notion after you put your own spin on it? How could it be actually taken into practice at your particular company or your particular environment? And then you've got those trusted advisors that the mentors that you're talking about. Not necessarily on all things practically, you know, what are we going to put into execution? What are we going to do today in our company? But just in general, here's what you're thinking about. Have they seen this before? How are they doing this? And it's a little, it's a little higher level kind of bouncing off, not in the practical of these are the people that are on your team, how are we going to go do it? But more of a philosophically, how are you going to do this? A big company, what do you think about this? Have you tried it before? So Warren, it's all of the above. I, I wish, I'm sure all of us are like this. I wish I had more time right now for the. For the reading of the great materials that are out there, because there is. There's like never before. There's so much data and great content that you can read about this profession, but business in general and keeping up with what's happening with other businesses. But I have to admit, one of my favorite things is to get together with the team and bounce those ideas off of them and get the feedback, because it is that feedback is so incredibly important, not only with hearing yourself say it, but that relevant contextual response from the people that you respect in the moment to say, this makes sense. This is how we can do it. If you thought about it this way, it's as good as anything else. But everything that you mentioned is what I'm doing. And really in my position, and I think a lot of positions today, if you're not doing it, then in many cases you're not taking advantage of the resources that are available today. Making mistakes is critically important. I actually love that part of the business as well, that trial and error. But sometimes it's good to get the ideas on what we're going to go run and follow from other sources and shave a couple of steps off those experiments that you've got to run. But if you're not running multiple experiments at any one time in today's business environment, you're not meeting the moment of the market. You've got to be running experiments.

Yeah, no question. I mean, failure is a much better teacher than success is. There's no doubt about it. So I'm curious, though, about that. I'm sorry, we have a thought.

Well, I was going to say, I think one of the biggest shifts that I've had to make in this CRO role, but also when we deal with a lot of adversity in this role, we deal in the sales profession. I can't think of any profession where you deal with more rejection and more failures almost by design, by the numbers, than the sales profession. I think the big issue, the big mental shift that you have to make is categorizing any of that as failures. I think it's just one more step on the path to success. I know it sounds a little trite, contrite, but it's. If you don't make that mental shift, all those activities which you could deem as a failure is a huge burden. It's a huge weight on the shoulders of anybody. If you can make that mental shift and turn that into a. Well, this is just one more Step in the path to success. I mean, if you know the numbers, I've got to do this 10 times to be successful once. I've got to do this 11 times. Well, then we got to get to that 11th as quickly as possible. Those aren't failures. Those are the necessary steps I've got to take to get to the 11th. That is the winner. So I. That's. That is, I think, for a lot of salespeople. For me, that's one of the ways I think you survive is when you can change that internal dialogue from a. Well, that didn't work. And that was a failure to. That was one more step to success.

Yeah, this is great. There's two parts of this conversation, which is the internal. Which we're talking about right now, right? The mental shift between our relationship to success and failure and making that shift, which I think we all. Not all, but, you know, I think you get to. If you're successful, you realize that failure is necessary. Frankly, you know, it's not to something to be avoided. Even though, you know, corporate culture is very much, you know, you look at like the sort of common tropes of the way we run management organizations is, you know, you get fired for making mistakes and there's this fear you're going to get called to the office. The reality is that you have to experiment. You got to try and fail at things, but you have to do it in an experimental way that everyone knows that what you're working toward makes sense, and that failure is going to lead you to this promised land. But if you're just randomly making failures, it could look like you don't know what you're doing. Right? So it's a construct. It's like constructing a experiment in a way that failure is baked into the experiment so that everyone has a different perception of it. You know, much like I learned from, you know, watching the incredible Elon Musk, how he built his companies. You know, he screws up everything, but he does it on purpose because he knows the quicker he screws something up, the better off he's going to learn what makes it work. And so you watch all these rockets blowing up about five or seven years ago, and you think, this guy's an idiot, but really he's going, no, no, we're sending it up there so it'll explode. And we're monitoring exactly what exploded. We just build the next one better next time and keep on doing it and doing it and doing it until we get it right. And they're like, okay, it makes so much sense. But, you know, the world perception only sees failure. They don't see experimentation. And it takes a really strong person to just ignore what people say to keep doing it, because they have a different mentality about what they're going for. And that also takes a team. Right, so that's right there, Warren. Exactly. So I want to talk to you about this because this is where it gets really interesting. Because, you know, you as an individual, you come into an organization, you got this mindset, you know, that you can keep doing stuff and you know what you're doing, but if you're in an organization that views success differently than you do, you're going to get fired for doing things that were probably correct, but the metrics weren't, like, managed properly. So how do you do that? How does someone like Mike Price get into an organization or build an organization or maybe build coalitions within your organization of we need to innovate. I need to experiment. And the way I put it in my work is I need authority, autonomy, I need resources and Runway to be able to do my work and aid the organization to provide that to me so that I'm in a position to succeed. And we have to be aware of the fact that if we want to get from where we are today to where we want to be tomorrow, it's not going to be with what we have today. It's going to be with something that looks different. And because we don't know exactly what that is, we're going to have to sort of figure it out. And that's not going to be pretty until we get there. So how does that sort of. How do you build that? Because the CROs that I work with, the problem they have is they don't have the environment where they're given those authorities. And as a result, they don't succeed because they're measured not on their wins, they're measured on what their failures are, and then they're let go, as opposed to everybody being on the same page about what we're trying to go for. So that's an interesting idea. And I want to talk to you about that. What your thoughts are on building the right. What I would call CRO ready Organization.

Yeah, so you mentioned a couple of things. You mentioned authority. What was the other one?

Authority, autonomy and resources and Runway. Yep.

Yeah. So those first two, authority and autonomy. What I would tell you is. Yes, but I would call that authority. I would call that collaboration, autonomy. I would call that leadership. Those are the two critical elements in any CRO Going into an existing organization, which is going to be the case 99% of the time that you got to go into that, you, you build your alliances, you build your, your recognition in the organization through deep collaboration and your leadership around that leadership begets that authority and that autonomy. But I would tell you, anybody looking necessarily for autonomy in today's world of work, you're, you're probably going after something you won't get what you, the ability to build a team around you as opposed to this idea of I can work autonomously. There's, that's, that's an unattainable situation. Matter of fact, you don't want it. You want to be a critical, a critical point in an organization with the organization that rallies around you and also looks to you for that leadership and looks to you for direction. It's the only way that you can be successful right now. The difference is when you're entering new into an organization in regards to resources. This is something that I would tell any CRO that's interviewing or somebody who wants to be a CRO for that new job is you gotta be in the interview process asking those right questions around what is the, what is the current state of the team? What is their current organization modeling plan? What is their appetite for you being able to come in and hire those resources, whether it's people in your network or build net new and build that team and get the appetite from that from both the CEO who's probably hiring you and the CFO through those questions. And you've got to be very careful around vetting out what is their view of you joining that organization and your ability to build the right team. And I'm not talking about you bringing all your, all your folks over from one company to the next. It's the ability to build the team and the recognition that building that team is the path to organizational success and how the company is going to thrive. With your ability to build out a team and build out a team fast, it's understandable why a company would be Leary Warren because salespeople are often the most expensive investment that an organization can make. First line salespeople, they're expensive and the risk of non return is pretty high. So you can understand why they may be leery. And then there's a tremendous amount of support that you got to hire to be successful as well. All your, I'm just going to put them in general in your, your operations team, your operations layer, critically important as well. And so you really have to vet the organization. One do they want you as a business leader. Do they understand how you're going to collaborate and build a team and how that team's going to interact with everybody else? And then do you have a path to that resource availability? And from a. It does exist. It doesn't exist either one, they can fund it or they give you the ability potentially, whether they tell you there are no sacred cows, or we're going to give you the ability to come in and evaluate all the current players and make the right decisions. Obviously, everybody wants to be very cognizant of the culture and, and the existing people that are on board. Everybody wants to do the right thing. But you really need to make a determination before you accept a job. If the company is willing to let you run your program and deliver on your philosophical approach to running the business, and if you start to get some feelings that maybe that's not the case, it's worth additional conversation or potentially asking yourself, do you have the right fit here? Is the organization really ready for a croat? Are they looking for a different role in actuality, and they're just calling it a CRO role?

100% correct. That's right. And the other aspect of this too is not only having the right diagnostics and frankly, the right maturity to know how to do that. You know, as you probably know when someone's looking at a CRO role, the emotional component of this is really strong. They want that job, they want that title, they want that salary, they want that employment. And, you know, they tend to overlook the red flags or they make them look better, or they shine them a little bit up so that they can make the job seem more appealing than it may be because they are more attracted to some of the more superficial aspects of the job as opposed to getting in the weeds. And that takes a lot of maturity, you know, to be able to look at a job and know that you'll walk away from what could be a very lucrative opportunity. That because, you know, it's not going to work for you, as opposed to, you know, I'll take the job and then I'll figure it out, I'll work. I can work through this stuff. Some of this stuff is not. You can't work through some of this stuff. Some things you can. And that's sort of another thing I want to ask you about, because way in which I'm working with my clients is. Frank, thank you for articulating it that way, because that's exactly what I'm doing with my clients is that vetting and Understanding what the role is and all that stuff and understanding exactly that question is, are they ready? But also, what influence can I have over this? Like, let's say, for example, I like, look, you're executives. We're executives, right? We get hired in roles because we're not. We're not fulfilling a function, right? I mean, unfortunately, to the degree that we both understand salespeople can be many times look like they're treated like cannon fodder. There's just a lot of them out there. You bring them in, you throw them on out the front line. Some of them get hacked up to pieces, some of them make it through and you find the profile of people that made it through, you hire more of them. You know, you just deploy them out there and they're like drones. And then some of them arise as superstars. But, you know, a Chief Revenue Officer is not a functional part. This is someone who's going to be a major systems builder in your organization. And if they can interview for the job, the presumption should be that if they're coming to me to interview for this job, they should be bringing some expertise. And frankly, if they're an expert, they should maybe even frankly know more about this role than I do. That's why I'm hiring them. Right? So given that, I think the right organization should be open to the Chief Revenue Officer's assessment. And aside from saying, hey A, I don't think you guys are ready, but I could see how you could be and I'd like to make you ready so the job could be successful. That's a good opportunity. Is when the company is. They want to collaborate with the incoming crs. Yes. Help us do that. You know how this job is supposed to work. You know, how do you uncover. What's the query that you would engender to an org, to someone whom is trying to uncover how much agency am I going to have in the shaping of my career here as opposed to I'm going to have to just take the job they give me.

I think when. So many great points there, Warren. I think one of the first things anybody who's interviewing for a CRO role can do, and this is when talking with that CEO, is to ask them, why do you think your business needs a Chief Revenue Officer right now? Now, this is a standard discovery question that any sales rep would ask a client. We're looking for the pain. Why now? Why do anything? Why me? Pain. Compelling reason to act value. We start with the pain. Why do you feel that your organization needs A chief revenue officer right now. And if the answer is something like, well, we had one and they just left, then that definitely should throw laundry on the field. Right? Okay. That's a flag, 100%. But if, if, if the articulation of that answer from your CEO doesn't, doesn't get back to some of those few things that you just mentioned in regards to. We need someone that will help us mature our organization. We need someone that will help us look at our go to market strategies. That we need someone to look at the business and possibly build the business out for this next phase. If they aren't answers that represent a strategic thinking and more functional thinking as opposed to, well, we've got to get somebody to get in here and really install a sales process. Okay.

Yep.

Then you know that what they're looking for is probably a vice president of sales.

Yep.

Who's going to be focused on sales and not somebody who is going to be in charge of go to market or building a business. I think it's one of the most common misinterpretations by a lot of really great CEOs is they think hiring a CRO. I'm going to get my chief salesperson. And that's not why you hire. You may need that person. I'm not saying you don't, but that's not why you hire a CRO. You hire a CRO to go find a chief salesperson. But if you're looking to your CRO to be your chief salesperson in the organization, you're probably hiring for the wrong objectives. And so that's the first question I would ask. Why do you think your organization needs a chief revenue officer right now and have them tell you what they're looking for and why. And if you don't feel comfortable that they want a business partner and they're willing and they want a business partner that is going to have a big impact in their go to market, possibly take it a different way, possibly invoke a lot of change management. Warren. And that their organization can handle it. Potentially bring in a new cultural element to their organization and that person, that CEO is comfortable with it, the organization can handle it. If that's not what they start to come back with, then you should know, okay, maybe they're looking for a chief salesperson. Now, you may be comfortable with that and you may know, okay, I can work into that position later. Or they're looking for a VP of sales. I'll get the CRO title that's right for you in your career in that moment, but at least you'll know what you're getting into as opposed to what you're not getting into. But I couldn't agree more with you on your point that it is unlikely if you get hired in as a VP of sales under the CRO moniker, that you are going to turn that into a CRO role.

It won't happen. I don't see it happen.

It will not evolve for you over time because you're going to be working against the cultural and the role perceptions of the organization from day one and they're just not going to change for you. Maybe a great step in your career. It may be exactly what you need for your resume, but you shouldn't go into it thinking, okay, this is going to turn into a CRO role because.

It will not agreed 100% and it happens all the time with my clients. So they have this title and then it's an interesting thing that happens. So, you know, we've created a problem in the marketplace for ourselves because of the problem that you just well articulated, and that is that because we've assigned the role incorrectly, we have a lot of people out there with the title, but not the job. So what ends up happening is you have people that occur qualified because they worked at a company for three or four years as a CRO, but they actually ran a sales organization. And then when someone's actually looking for a real cheap revenue officer and they go to this person because of their vast experience, they all of a sudden find out what happened. We hired this guy to run our business and he's like trying to close deals. And I don't understand what happened here. And it's because, you know, most, not most, it's not fair. But a lot of people who have had the CRO role didn't have this job in the way that we're describing it. And it's changing more. But I could tell you when I first started my business about five or six years ago, almost every CRO ran sales. I mean, there were very few Croes. Doesn't mean there were some that were more, you know, business leaders. But the track was you ran a sales organization, you did a good job and you got promoted and you got a title, Chief Revenue Officer. And that was the track. And, you know, now I'm seeing, you know, thank God, it's great. You know, I'm seeing a lot more companies who are now realizing that this role is a much more sophisticated, you know, role, and they're hiring the people that way. So that sort of goes into my next point, which is then, in your view, what are the qualities that differentiate a great sales leader from a chief revenue officer? What, what is it that would a company should be looking for when they're looking for someone like, other than, you know, the fact that they had the title before. But what are the actual competencies, characteristics, qualities that make a successful chief revenue officer?

It's such a great question. I'm going to actually, Warren, step back to something that you just mentioned about how the chief revenue officer role evolved. And I think if you look back into the, you know, the content that was being generated at the time, just a decade ago, the number of CROs that existed at companies was few and far between. This is a very modern role.

It's a very modern role. It's about, I'd say really in its true iteration, it's probably somewhere between 10 and 15 years at the most.

That's right. I would agree with that completely. And where else do you pull someone as an organization to go run revenue? Well, you, of course, you pull them out of sales.

Pull them out of sales. That's where you go.

He's a revenue generating leader, so obviously he can do that. And it's funny because we never seem to learn. It's the same idea that you can hire your best, you can take your best salesperson and make a contributor, make him a manager. Exactly the same thing. So what we're seeing now, which I think is great, is we're seeing companies take the chance on chief revenue officers. Even if that's not quite the title, it's really the role. And they're sometimes pulling them out of the ops team, they're sometimes pulling them out of the marketing team, they're sometimes pulling out of the partner team. Because there are some, especially in ops and marketing, there are some capabilities that are coming out of that that don't necessarily exist in the revenue organization per se field, sales or sales, because they're not training for that, they're not developing those skill sets. Modern business, especially businesses at scale, have become, I mean, everybody laments the silo, the silos by design as well. I mean, we can lament it every day. But you look at the modern business organization, you look at a big company, I'm not, I'm going to leave names out, but some of the biggest software and technology providers, I mean, they have orchestrated their whole business into silos. So sales really does almost nothing else but just sell. They're not, they're not, they're not general managers. Of their business. Their scope is limited to a slice of prospect, meet with customers, sale, sell, move things through channel. They're not getting a view to the other business elements that would be necessary to be a chief revenue officer. So what do you need? I think this goes back to the very beginning and again, I was very fortunate both through getting exposed to this in my business career, but getting exposed to this in a, at a young age. You have to have a real curiosity, I think you need that in general about, you know, being a business executive, period. But you have to have a real curiosity on how businesses work, period. And want to understand how the marketing team works. You want to understand how the engineering side work, want to understand how delivery works, wants to understand the customer success role. And it's not just a, okay, these are necessary components, but really how do they work? What are their processes, what are their cost imperatives, how do they resource, how does that fit into a bigger picture? And you have got to. And the CFO's office, you gotta have a real curiosity to wanting to understand how that works and then understanding how you collaborate and work revenue into that. You also have to feel very comfortable with yourself to be in that situation where you can say you are not going to be the chief salesperson of the organization. That's hard for a lot of people coming out of sales where it's a, I'm not going to be the guy and I don't want to be the guy or girl that is the chief closer. As a matter of fact, I would tell you if you're running your CRO organization well and you find that you are closing more than 15% of your, your business and closing not executive alignment, that that's a necessity, not relationships that you're developing with your key customers and, and you're key individuals because you need that. I mean, if you are actually executing business more than 15% of the time, you're not a CRO yet I agree, you are still a salesperson. So if you're not in a point in your career where you're going to essentially be comfortable moving away from what's made you a success in the past, and some things that you may be exceptional at and picking up all these other interests, all these other curiosities, all these other ways to analyze the business when you're probably not in the right spot, you're not there yet mentally, but you also may not have those key characteristics that are going to make you successful because it is running a business, not running a sales organization.

Yep, agreed. 100%. And I think a lot of it too, is it's the constraints of the job you took where they put you in that position because they sort of don't really understand the role. And they're putting you in deals to so many times nothing more than just either A. We don't understand the role, but also it's a really good way for us to be able to get ROI out of this investment you made in you. Because we know you're closing deals. We feel comfortable at night. You know, the other thing, too is there's an identity crisis that sales leaders have. You know, it's their superpower, you know, and wherever they go in a place, they're used to being the guy that comes back and rings the bell. And, you know, if without that, who am I? You know, if I'm not closing deals, who am I? You know, And I think that someone who has gotten to a point in their career when they see they see themselves as a, you know, acquisition hero, that you're right, they haven't matured enough yet to know that that's just a piece of the puzzle. It's just a beginning. It's the spark, right? The rest is everything else. It's, how did you get that customer? How do you keep that customer? How do you make that profitable? How do you sell the right things? You know, that's. It's a much bigger, bigger thing. And I think it's like the difference between, you know, when you look at the way we run a military operation, you know, we train people to do very, very, very specific things. You know, sniper, you know, guy that runs in the tunnel, you know, the guy that flies the plane. Because we need all those things to coordinate together to do something. So you have to be highly specialized at that thing. And, you know, why do there generals and leaders of battalions, because they sort of understand how the snipers help the, you know, other groups, you know, And I know the whole picture. And it goes to the other thing, too, which we see a lot, is this seems to be consistent, which is the best players are not the best coaches. And the best coaches are never the best players. I mean, look at the best coaches. They weren't good. They had no careers that we spoke of. Their careers were leading teams to win. You know, that's right. And so, you know, this is a really. This is a big issue I see, is that, you know, you made hit it on the head. And this is something that we talk about a lot, but it does show a weird way in which we have to manage perception better is that when you see somebody who's good at something, we tend to assume that that must mean they're good at a lot of things. And it doesn't always mean that. In fact, I would say real precise expertise, it usually means that that's. The person should stay there. That's what they're good at, and you should use them that way. But if someone shows a general interest in things and they can speak to a lot of people, you know, they don't shine as much because people that have precision tend to shine. But someone who understands everything. You need people like that in your company and it's you. You have to showcase thinking and system thinking and curiosity as. As an equally valuable skill as precision. And I think that this is like a, you know, you meet someone who's really good at something, they can occur smart. So you have someone who's like a really good electrician, let's say, right. Incredibly smart. They know the whole thing. You think, man, this guy's a genius. But in fact, no, this is just like the one thing they know. And you saw them in this area where they're really smart. So it doesn't necessarily bleed over to the rest. And I would say then when I'm looking at people who want to be leaders, I'm looking at just the way that they think about things, you know, because it's. That's going to be much more valuable to me. And then the other components obviously, too, are how well they communicate with people and motivate people and, you know, put people into action and create opportunity and know how to like, drive forward actions and complex actions. Those are the people that tend to be good at jobs like this. Would you. Would you agree with that?

I totally agree, Warren. I think you've. You've hit it on it a lot. There are lots of misperceptions in business, and there are lots of misperceptions about individuals with incredible skills who are incredible contributors to an organization. And you desperately need those because they can deliver something that nobody else can. But as you start to move up, this is also one of the difficulties. One, organizations take those people who thrive. They put them into positions where they may not be as successful because they were great at one thing and now you're asking to do something else. But you have to find out if that greatness that you've seen, seen can. Can actually be articulate in other areas. Do they have the capacity to go learn it and then at the next level and be a specialist in something Else, like a manager, a coach, or what have you, you got to go do it. But it doesn't always translate, but you definitely need those people. When I. When I think about the. Again, the reason that I think I was well suited to be in leadership and look at this is I've always. I've even said it. We talked about it. I would say I'm a business person. You know, what do you do for a living? Like, I'm a business person. I happen to be really good at sales, but I'm a business person, and I'm just good at that. And I think that's one of the. The shifts that you have to make mentally as you're moving up the rope, is moving up the ladder is to say to yourself, you know what. What is my superpower right now? If it's a. I'm in sales, My superpower is sales. Well, when there's some. You need a new superpower to do this job really well. But you better move to that idea that you're a business person. If you want to be a CRO and not a salesperson anymore. But then in regards to understanding, when you have specialty and you have really high competency and specialty, there's. When you're interviewing an individual and you're thinking about an individual for that next move up, you have to one have those great conversations, but determine do they have and a. Want to open the aperture on what they do or what they're doing. Have they also acknowledged to themselves that I'm an incredible specialist, but there's more for me. There's more for me, and I want to pursue more. We find a lot of specialists, and there's no way to knock on this. They're specialists for a reason. They love it. Yeah, Definitely love that.

Oh, there are people who just are passionate about something, and, you know, you love those kind of people. You know, you want to be around people that are really, really good at something, but absolutely, you put them to work in different ways. That's. That's the whole point.

I had Warren. I had the opportunity once to. To. To work with a. A former professional baseball player. We just wrapped up the World Series, so it's. It's on my mind. And. And he was good, and. And he played. He played for many years in the pros, and he left, and I ran into it as a technology organization. So, you know, as somebody who. He's not playing professional sports, you just have a ton of questions.

Forget it.

It's like you're dealing with somebody you know Quasi famous and just oh, you want to know everything about the things that you'll never hear about. And they're never going to tell you all those things either because they know that you couldn't handle the truth. And also it's their old profession they don't want you to know. But I did ask him, you know, why he left and because he left at a point in time where it's not that he didn't have many other years in the game. And his point was he tried to tell me from a neophytes position, he tried to Mike, if you play professional ball, it's not just about your ability to play that game. And this is specifically about baseball. He said you have to love playing the game. You're going to play every day and there are times you're going to play a game twice a day. But you have to love everything about the game. You have to love the practice, you have to love the preparation, you have to love playing it. You have to love everything about the game. And if you don't, you just won't be successful. And so I stopped loving the game, just stopped loving the game in that way. I still love the game, but I didn't love it at that level. And it was a real insight for me. I was a young person at the time with just this knowledge that it's not just about the skill set, it's not just about the knowledge that he had every intricacy about baseball. It was that you have to love the game to the point where you want to play it every single day. Practice, not, practice is not drudgery. The travel is not drudgery. You love the game and you have to find somebody that you want to promote that. They haven't fallen out of love with the game, but they, they, they want more of the game. They just don't want to be the second baseman anymore. They want, they want more out of the game. Now I want to be the coach. Exactly. Now I want to be the GM now maybe want to work for the club and I want to go into that. They love the game to an extent that they're willing to learn more and do more there. That's an interesting combination. And if you don't find that in that individual, they're going to be, they're going to be struck for finding success in that next thing that they go do.

No doubt. You know, it's funny, I talked to a lot of these people who I work with and I made a long post about this. It was really somewhat Strangely controversial. I don't know why. But I was saying, and this is true, I can tell you, I speak to, I don't know, hundreds of chief revenue officers and not one of them, not a single one ever told me, because I asked them the question, like, why did you want this job? You know, this crazy job? And they never ever say, money. It's a great money making opportunity. You know, I'll make more money, I'll get equity, I'll close out, I'll get some exits, I'll make a lot of money. They might. And that might be in the back of their mind, one of the outcomes, what they all say, all of them say is, you know, I am tired of being at the effect of decisions in my business that I can't control or do something about when I know and love this business and I can probably do it better and I can make better decisions. I want more authority to make decisions across the business lines because I know that if I had that authority, you could trust me with it. Because I know what everybody should do. And I want the opportunity to exercise that desire. I have to have more. I don't say control, but more of a say or to orchestrate things that I see when I'm stuck in a functional role and I'm tired of it and I'm ready for it and I can do it and I want that job. That's why I want this job. There's more of a. It's more satisfying to be able to execute a larger scale set of decisions and not be at the effect of them. And it's every. Almost everyone wants this. Like you just said it very well. I, I don't want to just hit a ball anymore now. I want to, I want to run the team or I want to be the baseball commissioner or whatever that may be, you know, and that's, that's. Those are the kind of people, I think that are hungry for their called upon to do bigger things and take on bigger, more complex responsibilities and all the that responsibility and risk that comes with it. And I think that's the kind of person you want to be in a position like this. That's the person whom you're going to rest your business on the shoulders of.

That's interesting. I. Warren, I'm going to give you one. I agree. At first I thought you were going to tell me you heard a lot of people saying it wasn't for the money. And I was going to say, okay, Warren, you've talked to a lot of liars out there. Because everybody likes to couch the, the, oh, it's not about the money.

People are very honest with me. I have like, I'm like a therapist to these people and I can tell you what they say is, you know what I, I really, what I really wanted, I'm really tired of having to deal with all this crap. I wanted to run things. That's, that they have that kind of personality, you know, they want to make a lot of money, Mike. They can go be a great salesperson, they'll make great money being a sales leader.

That is absolutely right.

They will, they'll do fine. You know, but I think that for.

A lot of folks, I'm going to put this into a category, ambition. And I've, I've been a victim of this myself. Ambition is one of the most powerful motivating and delusional forces in the human mind. Ambition will make you take that role that you know you shouldn't make. You go after something that, and just ignore all the reasons that you shouldn't. And sometimes you should just go after it anyway because it's a great learning experience. But ambition is a very powerful emotion and I think that ambition, fueled with the need for control is a really strong cocktail that can, can wipe out your decision making capabilities pretty fast. Just like a really strong drink. What's so paradoxical about this role as well is if you're not going into it with a, a personal comfortability of giving up control, then you're going to be fighting against forces that you shouldn't be fighting against and wasting a ton of your time when you could actually have real change. The most exciting thing for me about the CRO role is building a great team of people that you cede control to, those people who are going to do things that you know that you can't do, whether you don't have the time to do it, or that specialty that we talked about, or those insights because they have a chance to find them, or that their hands are always in the mix and yours aren't going to be. You're not going to get that 20,000 hours of practice and that in that area to become an expert. But one of the most exciting things for me is assembling that team, that great band, that great orchestra when they play together. It's just going to be amazing and that you get comfortable with the fact that you're going to seed some control of your business over these individuals and you're going to put the framework in place, you're going to put the superstructure, the processes in place with them, for them. So when they live up to their potential, things are going to go exceptionally well. But you're going to build a process. If you do it right, where you're seeding control to those who you feel like can make sound decisions and move the business forward, it's because there's just a way at scale. You can make all those decisions.

You can't. You can't. You need people. And you're right. You need. You're. It's a combination of. I know it needs to be done, and I have the humility to hire people smarter than me that I can deploy to make the job successful. And that's someone. That's a superstar. Like, someone's like, I don't want to be the smartest person in the room. People say that, but they don't mean it. Someone who really is, like, sort of, like, in a way, has this sort of silent respect and command over everybody, but yet is clearly not the smartest person. That's a really amazing leader. That's someone who's like, I don't care. I'm not here because I'm great at stuff. I'm here because I know how to lead things, and I got the best people around me. And when I turn to you and I say, I want you to do something, he says, because you're better at it than me. That's why I brought you here. So go do it. You know, tell me how to do it. You know, I know what I want. I know what I want it to look like. I know the goal we have. I know how to motivate you, and I know how to give you the right tools and the right opportunity and the right environment to succeed. But you know this better than I do. Go do it, please. That's the really strong thing. Yeah, that is it.

And you'll never get the most out of your team unless you put them in that position to live up to the responsibility and the necessities of the business that you hired him for. I mean, it's. It's. For us as leaders, this is the reverse charge. It's the. I'm going to give you a lot of control, and, boy, do you have to perform. Yeah, I. I don't want you to come to me for everything, but you have got to deliver at this highest level for the needs of the business. It's both sides. It's you, you. I found everybody wants additional. Additional work and additional say in a process. Rarely do they want the responsibility that goes along with that.

That's true. That's true.

So the key is to find that individual has those experiences, those skill sets that you need. You bring them into the position that you need them in and you have that conversation with letting them know, because there's. I love, just like you started off with, how do you, how do you learn? You read, you talk with other people, you experiment through doing well. There is nothing that I like more than have a really well thought out idea that I have and bring it to one of my key people and have them say, okay, but what if they add to it? Or they. All of a sudden we start the conversation of a, that's great, but we've got these problems. How do we solve it? And we come out with something that was better than I came up with, better than my idea. And then I say, that's exactly what we're going to do. And by the way, you are now 100% responsible for delivering that. And you've got to deliver it for the sake of the business. That's one of the great joys. So I would tell you, this is another thing you talked about, you know, how should somebody be thinking about taking on a CRO and what they're interviewing for? This is about that personal motivation. Yes. Wanting. Having this firm belief that if I had the chance to be the boss, I could do it better. I think that level of confidence, if you don't have some of that, you're probably not ready for the big show. You're probably not ready to go after it. But the paradox, and life is 100% about working through your paradoxes. The second you feel like you've got enough confidence and you can say, you know what, if I could have made those decisions, I would have done it better. If I had just been in that management spot, I could do it better. This is why I want to be CRO, because I don't want to have to hear from my manager or my CRO anymore that this is how we should run the business in the field. That probably gets you to a point where you need to say, I'm going to go hire a great team and let some really smart people that I brought in help me execute and tell me what's the right way to do it and what a weird place to get to where it's like, I know better. So I'm going to go hire somebody that tells me I don't exactly, that.

That takes a certain type of person, you know, I mean, how many times I. I don't know about you, but I've worked for so many people that just, they need to be the smartest. There's no way they'd ever see the control of that. And you can feel it. You know, people either feel sublimated or they hire dumb people. You know, But I want to make sure I'm running out of time. I'm sorry.

Or they hire really. Or they hire really smart people and.

They don't let them do their job.

And it immediately goes like this. And they wonder, why do we have such incredible turnover at the time? Top level of organization.

Exactly.

Why is that? Why are we constantly turning those folks over? And it's, it's, you know, in retrospect, it's really not hard to figure out.

Nope. So before we run, tell me a little bit about dtex. What do you do there? What is the organization and you know, what's the offering? What problem do you solve and what are the audiences and type of customers that you solve it for?

We solve one of the most important problems that organizations are facing today. And it's really, really, it's. In many ways it was the first frontier, but now it's the last frontier. It's understanding the security risks that exist inside your organization right now. And most of, because it was, it was easier and the technology was available. Most of corporate America was solving for all of the attackers, if you will, using euphemisms. All the attackers that were trying to get into your organization from the outside, trying to get in. In many cases, business ignored what was happening inside their organization. Those, those threats that were already inside the wall, that already gotten through the. And you may have let them in for a variety of reasons. So what we call insider risk, insider risk management is what DTEX is uniquely designed to help organizations with. And most of corporate America has realized now because they've got great availability of technologies and tools that solve for so many of the outside in equation. But that inside out equation hasn't been solved for DTECH solves for that. We help organizations get their hands around it and understand it at a deeply, at a deeply personal level as well. And I know that's strange to think about from a security perspective, but we utilize probably the ultimate security control to help organizations view it. And that's around behavior. We're one of the most unique companies and being able to really understand the behaviors of what's happening in your organization from your employees or in this world of AI and agentic AI, even understanding what your agents are doing and how people are using AI, which is a very exciting frontier. So we help organizations really understand what potentially could be going on in their four walls and adjusting and making sure that either one the risks that are real get addressed or the people in their organizations that are great people that may be doing things that are risky to them and the organization can be addressed and handled before anything happens which may jeopardize the security of the firm or put them in a situation where they're suffering dire consequences. So we're one of the leaders in this world of insider risk. I think it's one of the most dynamic, exciting things that are happening in all of technology right now and especially technology B2B technology selling to the the Fortune 1000.

Gotcha. And it's a global organization. Is it? How big is the organization we are.

We actually founded in Australia and one of our although we have several engineering centers around the world, one of our large largest in engineering centers is still in Adelaide, Australia. It's a great little town and we have operations in emea, Asia pac, US Majority of our business is happening in the US but this is not only is this an international concern right now with businesses across the globe, we can service those. It is one of those there are often technologies that are highly applicable in certain regions of the globe. This our technology and this concern is ubiquitous. Every organization right now, regardless of where they are. We have some great customers in the Middle east, great customers in emea, great customers in Americas, and great customers in Asia PAC right now all suffering the same concerns. And we have a solution that helps all of them.

And are you the CRO of the entire organization or just the Americas? What's your scope?

CRO of the entire organization?

Oh, big job. Amazing. Well, I mean look, we could probably talk for three more hours.

I would enjoy that.

Yeah, I would too. I really appreciate you being here and thanks so much. This would be a great, great episode for our listeners again. Mike Price, CRO DTE thank you so much for being here and appreciate your wisdom and your experience and thanks for contributing to the conversation.

Warren thanks so much for having me. Really enjoyed it. Can't wait for the next one.

Thank you for listening to the CRO Spotlight podcast. The CRO Collective's mission is to help CROs succeed and help founders and CEOs build CRO Ready organizations. You can find out more information about our services@the crocollective.com that's the crocollective.com and we look forward to having you join us next time.