Implementing an Actionable GTM Strategy

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Good. Thanks so much for having me.

My pleasure. Can we kick things off with a little bit about your M and A background?

So I've been with Salesforce for about six years now. The Salesforce acquisition of Steel Brick, which where I came in is my third time being acquired and third time's a charm. And I was thinking I really want to learn more about what's going on in this M and A world. And so through a number of different roles and different go to market functions, services, success. I ended up in the M and A integration team specifically for distribution at Salesforce and been there ever since.

That's actually interesting because you had a natural interest in M and A and you found your way through to getting into a role.

And it's been really great having a number of different roles at Salesforce. They really encourage you to take on different roles and experience different parts of the company.

Let's jump into it as part of the integration team. Can you describe your relationship with corporate development?

With corporate development they usually act as a hub and and Then we act as a spoke. And with our function, the go to market function or distribution as we call it, we essentially work with a number of different teams like BT Finance, et cetera. We all kind of collaborate and kind of report in a little bit into the corporate development team on a regular cadence so that we can all work with our field teams as well in our different functions and really grab the best minds across the different teams as we go through the integration.

When you said bt, what does that stand for?

Business technology. Similar to other companies, IT functions, they manage a lot of our various systems, go to market systems, quote to cash systems, et cetera.

Can you tell me when you get involved in your deals?

Yeah, you usually start getting involved during the due diligence cycle. We represent essentially our area of expertise, much like any of the other teams. As we think through that go to market notion, how our customers impacted, what are things to consider Given our knowledge of the field teams and their current state, who would be the best collaborators and so on and so forth.

Diligence cycle goes pretty broad. Specifically where at Pre loi, Post loi.

It varies depending on which deal it is and also how much the team should be involved and the type of deal. But usually we would do a management presentation of sorts where we learn a little bit more about the company and then we also do like individual interviews with the as a team for each function essentially and then we provide our recommendations.

That's actually interesting. So when you get involved, you're really learning that whole business. You're interviewing these different functions. Can you walk me through that a little bit? What does that look like? What are those conversations? What information are you trying to gather?

Obviously there are a lot of different examples, some of which I'm not involved in. I think what we really want to understand is how that customer experience looks like across the spectrum from a sales perspective. How do your different sales teams interact with your customers? How do you guys get involved, what's your messaging, et cetera? Obviously some of the metrics gets reviewed as well. And then from a post sales perspective, we also look at finding four major areas. The success function, which is how they interact with customers and build a relationship with them. The support function, which includes if customers have issues. How do you deal with that? Are there any automated processes that the team uses? Renewals? Because obviously I think a lot of times we look into SaaS businesses and we're a SaaS business ourselves, we look into how do you handle that renewal process when customers are up for renewal and then services, which is how do you actually help customers stand up once they buy your product? Those are four main areas.

Got it. So you get this understanding with the business what goes on after that. Is this sort of built into your integration plan?

Yeah, definitely. Usually what we do is we come together as a team across all of the different functions and with Corp Dev and review everybody's recommendations and take that into account as we think about the integration plan across the board. It's a very much a collaborative process and I think it's really helpful with Salesforce with a lot of different experts in different areas where we collaborate. We also try to understand each other's functions a little bit so we can say, hey, this is where we think your function might be impacted or we might need help from let's say finance or bt, et cetera. And start having those conversations a little bit earlier as we think about the integration planning.

All your considerations coming up, really detailing out the plan. Anything on the Salesforce side? It sounds like you're starting to get a sense of what resources are going to be involved and things of that sort. But anything like specific you're doing to prep for integration?

Yeah, definitely. I think one thing that we often do is as we think about the integration strategy, Corp Dev being the hub of it all, we think about the old overall V2 mom, the vision, values, methods, obstacles, measures of this integration and we draft metrics together. We think about what are the high level goals of the integration and then we figure out what are the owners within the different functions within the company that can help lead and make sure that we're all continuing to execute across those goals. We also start highlighting some of the potential challenges of here's where we might run into issues. Are there additional integration investments that should be made and we have conversations about that too to really make sure that we have everything that we need to actually make the integration go smoothly.

So I like how you laid out from the pre sale understanding the four areas in post close relations, support, renewals, services, and then how you're gearing the teams internally. Those key areas that you're looking at, vision, values, methods, obstacles and measures.

And I think that the really good thing about that B2MOM structure is that it's not a construct that's used only in M and A, but it actually goes across all of our different teams too. And so we can share that V2 mom in that same structure that everybody else understands and really tell everybody else this is what we're trying to work towards. Here's how we think about it. Here's where other challenges and so on and so forth.

What are common challenges when you're implementing go to market?

One thing I think we really try to keep in mind as we think through all of the different details and complications with the go to market process, is to make sure that we continue to keep a customer focus. And so what we really try to do is think about, okay, what does the customer journey look like across the board? What teams are involved? For example, let's say we take the buying process right there is the leads the customer gets and then somebody contacts the customer the lead and then there's a, the account executive becomes involved. If we're lucky, the deal goes through. But after that there's also figuring out what implementation needs a customer might have, how do we support them throughout the lifecycle of this customer's contract and then also the renewals piece. So as we think through each of those processes, we have to figure out what those customer touch points are and how do we want to communicate across the board. Take that customer journey. We think about what are also some of the concerns of the acquired team, some and also our existing teams. For example, if we look at sales, the sales team might be asking how soon can we start selling this new product? Can we start selling right away? How do I collaborate with existing sales, does our comp structure change, and so on, so forth. So in addition to the customers concerns that you have to address, you also have to address your employees concerns as well. And we try to be very transparent and collaborative as we think through what those challenges might be so we can really have the programs in place to really support them. So not only are we thinking about, oh well, this is the structure, but also thinking about what are the communication strategies that we'll need when account executives, support people, success managers, et cetera, speak to their customers, what are the most common questions that they'll have and how do we answer them in a way that really continues to maintain trust between the customer and the employees and then the employees with the company as well.

Who owns communication? Wouldn't you have a comm department that owns that?

Yes, we work very closely with our comms department. We usually draft documents together and also it goes through legal review to make sure that we're not taking on any additional risk, these communications. And also we work with the acquired leaders as well as we go through that communication process because of course they know their customers best, they have close relationships with them, and they're able to help us anticipate what those customers may.

Have questions about what was that relationship like? How do you know who's doing what? Does the department come to you and say, hey, these are things that you guys need to take care of? Or do you sort of know that.

It'S part of the standard process? I would say we try to do that across the board. The comms department is very good about giving us insights into this is some of the things to keep in mind. Here's the questions that we may have. And also obviously everyone with their respective expertise in their field or in their department would also bring in questions that they anticipate. And of course we also keep in mind that we can't answer all the questions at once. A communication strategy around this is what happens at close. And also continuing to work with acquired leaders and existing teams to continue to draft additional messages. What are upcoming details that you should look forward to, how might things be changing for the customers, and so on so forth. And knowing that it's not just a once and done communication, but that process will be ongoing. We also use tools like Slack channels, workflows, et cetera to start gathering feedback and questions from the field teams as well. You know, as for example, if we roll out a communication plan for our AES, we also give like Pocket Guides Slack channels where they can post their questions. So we get a better sense of not just one way communication, but we get a two way communication as well.

I'm curious about this part because I feel like you have lack of communication, you end up with a lot bigger problems that emerge out of it. With what you described, does that roll up into a central place? Is it something that makes it clear across other groups just so everybody's on the same page? Because it sounds like you got a lot of different types of commercial communications going from different groups, customers, employees, et cetera. And you working with this overarching comm department that essentially owns it, does it get centralized somewhere? How do you keep everybody on the same page about what the communication is and core messages that you're trying to drive across the deal itself?

That's where the Corp dev team plays a big role in kind of managing all of the different work streams. As I mentioned earlier, it's a bit of a hub and spoke model. Corp Dev integration team would be the centralized place where everybody kind of shares all of their communications. Obviously with productivity tools and collaboration tools like Slack and Quip and so on so forth, are able to share things even when people are not all at the same place at the same time.

Makes a lot of sense. I had A few other areas in terms of go to market challenges. One was like quote to cash. And I don't know if you wanted to maybe expand on that a little.

Bit with the subscription model or SaaS model, it gets pretty complicated because not only are you responsible for completing the sale, but you're responsible for add ons, renewals potentially and unfortunately attrition events at times as well. And system going and having multiple product lines can get pretty complex. As we think through the integration plan, we go through a quote to cash process and a lot of those different steps I think we have to look at really closely as the go to market team and really understand how each of these processes are executed within the organization. And we heavily collaborate with our field teams to understand, well, how are things changing, what are some of the systems limitations? And then use that as guidance to figure out what our integration plan looks like. So for example, sometimes obviously the acquired company has their own salesforce. Org. We have our own salesforce. Org. Those two may not be fully integrated until an extended period of time because of all of the different complexities around the quote to cash process. So what we think about things from an interim perspective as well. Okay, so before there's full integration where all of the systems are connected, people have access to our core systems, et cetera, what are some of the things that we can do to really help maximize the collaboration and acquisition synergies in the meantime? And so for example, we would have some smaller data integration points where we allow both sides to see opportunities, contacts, et cetera, so that they can collaborate more closely across these different opportunities. And account executive may look at an acquired company and say, oh, I didn't realize that they also have an opportunity for this customer that I'm working with. Let's make sure that we connect, create a joint account plan potentially and figure out what's the right messaging with the customers. Are there overlapping contacts that we should be collaborating on? Are there contacts that one side has, the other side doesn't? Maybe there can be facilitated introductions to and so on, so forth.

This all sounds very touchy.

That's why it's important that we understand what the teams might be looking for as well. And similarly, in the post sales side, the sale gets completed, who is responsible for handling customer questions, customer communications across the board for the acquired product, maybe there's an interim process where the acquired teams are still responsible for the customers and we just make sure that the field teams still understand that the ownership is not on them just yet, but continue to map out what that future looks like with them. A big challenge with the post sales process is as we think about bringing more customers in, we need to think about scale. We also need to think about keeping that product expertise as well. And we work really closely with our field teams to figure out this is what this product looks like. These are some of the complications of executing or implementing this product. How should we think about that in the future where we may not have a single person responsible for the relationship for this particular product with the customer? How do we build self service automated programs that help more customers get onboarded quickly? How do we make sure that when a customer that's already a salesforce customer wants to learn more about this new product, the existing teams that they're working with knows where to point them. Even though they may not have the expertise, we may also have to take into account like how do we we build enablement programs so that when people should be learning more about this new product as we scale, they have the right resources to do so.

Can we talk about approvals? How does that work?

As we look into the sales cycle, a lot of times for smaller organizations, their approval maybe they just go up to the CEO all the time. Whereas at Salesforce that approvals process might be a little bit more complicated. And so thinking about how do we align the same approval process, minimize risk and make sure that all the customers have the same terms and conditions as we integrate this new product is something that we review as part of that whole lead to cash process. Is there any modifications that we need to make for smaller organizations? You have maybe a single person that approves almost everything, but obviously that's not really scalable and you want to make sure that there is automated approvals potentially for certain scenarios and then also different teams involved in the process or different members involved in process. So let's say one person is out, then it doesn't become a situation where it's like a single point of failure.

But when the people hate, the process gets changed.

And that's the hard part of making sure that you continue to keep the people at the center of things. Like you anticipate challenges that they may have and be prepared to show them like why this might be better in the future. For example, maybe they only needed to get one approval in the beginning, but maybe introduces them to more risk such that if that person is out, you're not going to get your approvals done. Something a little bit more systemic and organized can be better for them in the long run. They may also enable them to have Larger deals or deals that are potentially have longer term lengths, et cetera, that could be good for people as well.

But not only explain the how, but really clarifying the why, that would actually create some benefits for them. Yeah, I got a note about provisioning, maybe if you had some thoughts around that and how that differs.

Yeah, so I think provisioning as part of the entitlement process, after the sale happens, you have to make sure the customer gets access to the product. And for some of the smaller teams, potentially a lot of that is very much manual. As part of that go to market motion, we also have to collaborate with the product teams and post sales team as well to make sure we understand what the provisioning process looks like. So that if it needs to be automated, we need to figure out how to actually do that. Because it's okay to. If it takes maybe five minutes to provision a new customer. When you're a small company, but imagine you have hundreds or thousands of new customers that becomes not so scalable, especially when you think about provisioning, new add ons and so on, so forth. So figuring out, okay, what are the possibilities within the existing product structure of how to provision, how to automate provisioning, and then also maybe finding a couple different people who can help with the provisioning process instead of maybe just one person. Historically a lot of smaller companies, people wear multiple hats, but as you can transition to more scaled model, people have more distinct functions. Things that might seem small and it's just a small part of somebody's day, really gets a dedicated process and there is redundancy to make sure that it's not a point of failure.

Went from frustrating the sales rep to frustrating the the customer success folks. Now they got to change their whole process and adding more steps there.

Having been part of that team, for me it's definitely a learning experience and having that empathy is really important. Where you understand what are the areas that might be frustrating for them at times and helping them see through what does the future look like for them. For me, for example, like I started out in a services role and because of the acquisition I was able to transition to a number of different roles over time and then into the M and A integration space. Using that to help build a relationship and really think back sometimes, like why things are frustrated and making sure that the acquired teams know that you understand their challenges. It's a big part of that integration team building as well.

We touched on it a little bit, but can we expand on data structure.

For some of our acquired products? Obviously when they're smaller, they have fewer customers. A lot of it is just thinking about a customer has purchased, they have assigned licenses, etc. And maybe that's the end of it. And then a lot of the data collection about how the customer's doing, are they actually adopting the product and getting value out of the product? A lot of that depends on the relationship between the success managers and the customer for some of the smaller teams. And so as part of that go to market process review, I think we also want to think about what are some data structure changes we need to implement potentially in conjunction with the product team so that we can better understand the customer as the product gets built out as well in a more automated fashion, maybe what features and functions are being utilized more. Are there ways that we can figure out A customer's implementation might be less healthy than we'd like in an automated sense, so that we can have more data points to figure out, not just via talking to the customer directly. This is what your implementation looks like. This is the health of your implementation. Or maybe there are risks that we can help them highlight, maybe they're not aware of. Potentially that's really important to think about. It can definitely feel like an afterthought at times. But it's good to have that conversation to know what are the possibilities as we go through that integration planning process so that it doesn't become three or four years later before realize, hey, we grew our customer footprint a lot, but we don't really know how the customer is doing until the point of renewal.

Well, you expanded my thoughts there. Initially I asked, I was just thinking of fields in the CRM and that was pretty much the extent of it. But now you've expanded that to all these elements. Tracking the metrics around the customer success or customer journey, the way they're adapting. How are you identifying the success metrics in other key areas? That's a lot to look at and plan for. What does that look like when all this stuff comes together? How long time frame are we talking about?

And definitely months, sometimes maybe more than a year. It also depends on the function as well. Right. Some functions integrate more readily into others and may just come in after a few weeks or a month or two, depending on the function as well. So it varies quite a lot. And I think what's important is to understand that maybe not all the functions have to come in all at the same time. It's good to make sure that there is some kind of thinking into whether or not they're ready to come into a mainline business and what is the support that they'll need to be successful. Otherwise, your acquired companies get very frustrated, and they're more likely to attrit potentially as well. That's an important piece.

You're staging this in a way where you're not just really trying to do this all at once, but you're saying, all right, let's create some priorities and do this tier by tier.

Yeah, potentially. And it depends again, on the integration. But it's good to keep in mind that we're not saying, hey, acquired company, you all have to come in by the end of this fiscal year, or else we have to be very methodical and also considerate about what's a good time and what's a good path for them.

Do they provide some of that feedback or.

Yeah, absolutely. I think we try to be as close to the leaders as possible and also the teams as well. The corporate development team also helps run surveys to see where people potentially are having challenges or feel like they're not as well supported. And I find those surveys really helpful.

The gist of it is, hey, how are things going? What's good, what's bad? Basically?

Yeah, exactly. Just to get a pulse on what people feel like, especially if other people who are not as open to come to you or somebody else specific or it's a very large acquisition, you're able to gather that feedback and that pulse a little bit more methodically.

What's the hardest part out of all of this?

Really? Just making sure that you continue to stay passionate and making sure that you keep the customer and employees at the center of things. I think there are a lot of distractions at times where there are challenges with the process that may be. Makes it harder for them to integrate. It might be that roadmap might be very complex. Right. So it takes a lot of mental power to figure out exactly what needs to be done when. And obviously there's potential cooks in the kitchen as well, where you are collaborating with a large team. And it's important because there's a lot of different areas of expertise to account for. But I think at the end of the day is just making sure that you continue to keep people at the center of things, even if things may not go as well as you originally planned. I think having that transparency and having that empathy and honesty throughout the process, I think it's really what keeps people continue to be motivated and really adhere to that process and be patient with it.

Let's switch it up. What are your best practices when it comes to getting everybody up to speed.

The core dev team does a pretty good job of setting the right meeting cadence and expectations. More recently we've also started using Slack to really help drive some of that knowledge transfer as well, especially when people can't all show up to the meetings at once. We've set up workflows where people can submit their updates, et cetera, more async. And so people can see what's going on in other work streams that might be relevant to them without having to necessarily always join that meeting. And then also as people a lot of times have shorter attention spans and there's multiple insight initiatives, et cetera, using those automated workflows is really helpful. And then also I found for me at least huddles have been really helpful and just pinging somebody, having a quick conversation with them to clarify some of the probably nuances of the integration. And then I would say for the field teams, shorter, more frequent, just in time enablement has been really helpful. In addition to, of course, having a large training session where you get to review your rules of engagement, your collaboration strategies, initiatives, et cetera, having things like your Slack channel, having pinned content, having short documents that are very concise in explaining what people need to do just in time then can be really helpful as well. Where a lot of times you sit in a meeting for an hour, people may not remember everything. And so it's really good to make sure that there's an easy place for people to go to to access information that they'll need later.

This is a lot of interesting stuff here. You're leveraging a lot of analogy modern project management approaches. I have a few follow up questions. One, I like how you mentioned having the workflows to send updates, which makes a lot of sense. I liked how you gave a broader theme about just getting away from the long update meetings where everybody's sitting around, look at their notes, too busy thinking about what they're going to say instead of actually listening to what others are saying. When it comes to getting the right people, because obviously you have this nature of working with people within different teams, cross functions, what does that look like? Is there some method around that?

One thing we do a pretty good job is making sure that it's pretty visible who is responsible for what acquisition. Usually people are very responsive when you ask questions. So I think overall that collaboration, nobody feels like, oh, you're going to ask a stupid question is a very open, collaborative environment where people are able to ask questions even outside of meeting. And so I think I find that really helpful. We Also have documentation that helps track who is responsible for what. Who are the owners going to that V2 mom that we mentioned, who are the owners for that V2 mom? Sometimes for larger acquisitions there's maybe also like a raci for who is responsible for which work streams and so on so forth that helps people keep track. Sometimes the same groups of people as well. And you build a really good relationship with them over time and you have that trusted collaboration relationship where hey, you just make that that much easier.

Now when you mentioned going to more of these huddles, keeping things short, having more of this sort of just in time approach, I'm trying to get a sense of a lot of companies that don't do that very much. The typical long meetings and a lot of things to check off. How would you see that sort of shifting? And the way you described it made me think of our company, the way we use standups, really short, quick updates and then you essentially identify, okay, we should have a meeting about that. And it's just the key people that need to have the meeting can have the meeting, keep it short and objective. But to hear how you achieve it and maybe even thoughts of how an organization that does it the old way can move towards the new way.

Yeah, I think that kind of initial alignment is really important and I obviously agree that there's still need for some of those really long meetings to set the stage. That's important. But some of that eight work on aligning what the values are, the vision is and then who is responsible for each piece of the execution I think helps get rid of some of that overhead. It's also important to recognize who are your most frequent collaborators or where potentially the long tails of the acquisition would look like. So you can set up upfront. This is how you might want to engage. You have bi weekly or weekly that meeting with all of the different integration work streams. But maybe I will need to work with finance frequently then or legal frequently to review existing contracts and I set up a time with them to do so so that it's not the same large group of people, but you're really identifying, hey, these are the smaller, more tight knit work groups that we'll need. I also think that working between cryptocurrency has been really helpful where people are able to provide feedback and comments asynchronously and thinking about all of those things where you can take offline a little bit. If you, let's say have a meeting with 10 people, can it be with five people and the other five people can get just a readout of that meeting. Just being really conscientious of people's time and attention spans as well. Because obviously people have a hundred different things going on.

Sounds like you set the expectations upfront early and you leverage tools to help that practice come together.

Yep, exactly.

This one I think we touched on. But I don't know if there's anything to add, but it's around data structure. How do you work with the product team and bring all that information together?

Another area that we work with a product team very closely is that new product introduction process. As we think about how we bring that product to market, all of the different dependencies, we work really closely with them to make sure that, hey, what's the right marketing strategy from a post sales perspective? What are the supporting requirements for that? Are there potentially any more white glove offerings that's required for the new products, any new services, et cetera? So all of that kind of gets rolled up into one longer process as well as we think about it in another lengthy work stream.

Yeah, we didn't touch on MPI and then how the marketing part fits into it too. That's a whole nother channel. Just to get a sense, is that pretty much established as a process that you already have? Because obviously you have new products that are internally developed, then acquired products. Is it sort of. Here's a process, everybody's pretty familiar with it and it goes through that channel or a lot of more ad hoc considerations with it. And obviously it's a blend of the two. Kind of curious. What does that look like?

There is a pretty well established process. Obviously there are some modifications based on the integration strategy for the acquired company, but usually I think we have a pretty good standard methodology for that. We kind of apply that. And a lot of times it's teams that we work with in the field already that kind of help us go through that process.

How do you track the value from the buy plan as you take it to market?

That's where the V2 mom becomes really helpful. We use that as a vision and then vision, values, methods, measures, obstacles, and we use that to see how we're tracking according to plan. A lot of times we also do reviews of how some of the key metrics for each of the integrations based on what was on the V2 mom. And we do a report to corporate development or to other leaders to make sure they can see how we're doing.

Sounds like a great model to go beyond just pure metrics, but even look at some of the softer things with the success of the deal. How do you keep everyone on the team on task through the M and A lifecycle?

A lot of it is trust. I feel like everyone comes in with expertise in their areas and as we think through those methods and measures, trust your collaborators to execute on the part that they're responsible for. And then you always keep an open channel for communication and make sure that if they need something from you that you are able to respond quickly and also have a good conversation about what are the challenges that you're experiencing and then what are the anticipated actions that you need your collaborators to take. It's making sure that we stay focused on what the actions are and also what is the impact or the values that we're driving for our acquired teams and our existing teams.

Yeah, I like how you put trust in there. Cause that is a big part of it. Get away from micromanaging.

Yep.

How often do you report on progress that quarterly, monthly, bi weekly, or weekly.

Updates, depending on the team and the function. And then obviously there are more quarterly reviews as well.

Given that go to markets, typically a matrix effort across multiple departments. What are soft skills you use to keep everyone moving forward together?

One thing to me personally that's really important is always assume that people come in with good intentions. A lot of times for an acquired company or even for our existing teams, it is challenging. People have a lot on their plates and on their minds. And sometimes when things get potentially taken out of context or it feels like people might be saying no, it's good to keep in mind that everyone's trying to do what's best for their team and for the company and have that conversation with that in mind so that you can continue to build upon that trust and that collaboration environment.

Totally agree. I like that idea. That view too. Just assume they're not working on bad intentions. With everything that needs to be achieved and what we went through, there's a lot of moving parts and it's complicated and a lot of work for everybody.

Yeah, it is. And with what you see, there's always like that iceberg of okay, where there's 90% that you don't see that people are doing. And if you just assume that what people are working on is probably somewhat complex or there's a lot that you don't know about, you're able to uncover some of those challenges that they might experiencing and really learn from that.

I like what you said there, Kassum. You don't know.

Yeah, that beginner's mindset, that's hard to.

Get to sometimes I get guilty of it. But it is one of the things where even though you may feel you have a subject matter expertise in the area, you can jump to that beginner's mindset which you know is wrong or you don't know anything that really pushes you to learn a lot.

Yeah. And I think every company, every team, every person's a little bit different. It's good to know that we embrace that diversity of opinions and also personalities as well as we go through that process. Because sometimes people need a little bit of a push. Sometimes people need a more relaxed environment.

That kind of sums up what I've seen the last five years. We've gone from very finance focused M and A approach to more of a people focused M and A approach. I like the way you almost summed it up is just you got into that learning state when it's less about creating this tactical driven model of what everybody's going to do. It's not the way things work, but having that more agile ability of just can we continuously learn and then be adaptive to what needs be to to get done, Keep it goal oriented and give people that ability to do things.

With something as complex as large scale. Go to market motion. It's important to know that sometimes there isn't a single person that knows everything and everyone has something to offer.

I want to just hear from you about even just advice you give other practitioners that are getting into M and A. They're new to it. I'd just love to hear a little bit about what are some of the things you've learned from your experience that you think you're going back years prior, that you'd really encourage yourself to develop earlier or change.

I had a conversation with a couple a CAR teammates that I've worked with. They told me it resonated well with them. One thing is sometimes you'll go into a new program or a new project and you're going to go through a phase of feeling like you know nothing and being probably a little bit stressed and a little bit overwhelmed. And then you are going to, over the course of maybe a couple weeks or a month or two, feel like you learned a lot. And then because the organization is so large and the program can be so complex, in a couple of weeks you might feel in that state of feeling overwhelmed that you don't know anything again. And so there's a bit of that kind of wave of feeling really overwhelmed and then feeling more confident. And I think that's perfectly normal at the end of the day. There's always so much to learn and you can't really know everything. But as you build on those relationships that you can really lean on, then you are able to address those questions more effectively. And keep in mind that you always have something to offer.

Yeah, you touched on a couple of things there. You have this rollercoaster ride of emotions that happens in the deal, and then you're right. There's so much about relationships. And I think there's a good point there, especially if you're a new role. Be mindful of that, that there are a lot of relationships within your organization that you should try to develop and understand to overall give you better capabilities when you do have to go through the actual deal.

Yeah. And then I heard this from someone else as well, where a lot of times things that may seem really obvious to an existing person in the company, maybe new and really unfathomable to an acquired employee. And it's really important to give those acquired employees somebody to reach out to, either a buddy or a regular cadence of meetings where they can ask questions, et cetera, so that they have a forum for answering those questions. Because if you're a new employee and you're coming into a team, you are surrounded by people who have been there for a long time that can help you on a more regular basis, more ad hoc basis. But for acquired teams, they're all coming into new systems, new team structures, new organizational culture sometimes as well. And it's really important to know that there are probably a lot of things that they don't know, and it can get really overwhelming really quickly. And so making sure that you recognize that, help them find ways to address some of that confusion or some of that feeling of overwhelming confusion, et cetera, can be really important as well.

How does that work? I've heard of like the two in the box approach where you try to pair somebody with somebody in a similar counterpart. Do you think that makes sense or just more of. Here's like the project lead or something? The IMO that you.

A little bit of both, I think. Like the buddy programs, I think work out really well. We also have of dedicated training programs or onboarding programs for our acquired employees. A lot. A lot of our existing content that we know would be useful and helpful to them that we make available. Myself, I try to make myself as available as possible to answer some of those questions. And then also I think over time, as we go through the integration process, also introduce them to people that they may not collaborate with immediately, but they will in the future or are in roles that they may want to know more about. That helps open their minds about what's possible or what's there. I've definitely went through that process as well as an acquired employee of understanding understanding, hey, Salesforce is a much larger company than the one that I came through. And there are a lot of different functions that I've never even heard of that I should learn more about and understand how they contribute to the overall success of the company.

What's something about integration that's surprising that you may have not expected getting into.

The role that's surprising. I feel like I don't get surprised that easily because I generally I'm pretty curious about how things function. Not a lot surprises me, but I feel like I constantly get reminded of challenging or emotional an acquisition can be because I personally went through it it three times already as an individual. But also coming from the integration side, I've seen multiple acquisitions come through. I think what's most surprising to me is actually how emotional and how impactful it is. And I feel like I keep having to remind myself of that because I went through that process too. You may not know that your company was going to get acquired and there's a lot to adjust to. It could end up being a really good experience for you. But a lot of times there are a lot of surprises along the way for the acquired employee. There's a lot of potentially feeling of lack of control. I think a larger company that people may experience helping address some of that to make sure that they not only from the methods and measures perspective that we're doing well, but also we're taking care of the people as well.

So true. You have a new employer that you didn't choose.

Yeah, exactly.

What is the most common mistake you see when approaching M and A?

To underestimate the complexity of an existing company or not coming in with that beginner's mind. People assume that they know everything. Obviously. I think experience helps a lot. There are definitely patterns, but keeping an eye out for what the differences are and understanding how that might impact integration plan is really important.

Assume you know everything in M and A. Come on, who does that? So I want to ask you one future vision question. We talked about this before. You even mentioned interesting moving upstream and deal process. What would you change? What would you make different about the M and A approach?

We're already doing that a little bit at Salesforce, I would say, but I don't know how frequent it is. But really having that due diligence process or involving different teams and really planning that out earlier and more focus on the customer, more focused on the employee experience and really having that be a part of the integration planning and the deal model instead of just the financials.

And this is an interesting one because a lot of companies talk about the focus on customer journey. At the end of the day, each organization has their unique way of creating value for the customer. That's the reason why they exist. But when we talk about two organizations coming together, we tend to lose sight of that, that they need to come together. And it should be around down that customer journey because ultimately once the company's combined should still keep that as their ability to create value and how they serve their customers. How do you keep that in a way where it's not just talk, but it is very actionable that both sides are really working together with that approach prioritized.

It's good to always have your customer list available. Knowing which accounts, who's responsible for what, thinking about it, not just from the highest level of this is our customer, this is what they need. But also so taking it down a level of like thinking of what engagements they might want. Are they thinking about engagements where they get value from, getting a quick start from the product, or are they trying to learn more of like where are other areas they can apply the existing functions that they have to really expand across what they currently have. Taking that down a couple levels of okay, well here are ways that the customer would engage with us and get value and design programs and initiatives based on that. It can be really helpful as you think about the combined product, right? You have the products that you sell and then you think about here's how we anticipate the customer to get value from these combined products, but helping them make that journey smoother and what they need along the way, the types of engagements that they'll need along the way really help make that a little bit more tactical or easily received.

I think you just outlined a whole nother interview for us. And what's the craziest thing you've seen in M and A?

As I mentioned, I think people have really strong emotions because I think sometimes they feel like there's a lot of of control. And one thing that was really memorable for me is that I highlight that risk one time to a leader. And that leader actually took a lot of time and attention to interview a lot of the different people from the acquired company and helped really build a sense of community. And as a result of that, a lot of people were able to find the path for them at Salesforce, even people who potentially were thinking about leaving the company stayed or we were able to bring more people into the fold. So I thought that was really touching where a leader really took time to build relationships and build that trust with our acquired employees and that worked out really well for the team.

It was like the most positive response ever got to that question.

I think there are definitely a lot of touching moments in M and A too, not just like the crazy moments, right?

Yeah, that's actually really good. Leadership can make a difference and make a really positive impact during a very intense time of change management.

Yeah, definitely.

Hannah, thank you so much for the time. I enjoyed the conversation, learned a ton and look forward to future conversations.

Yeah, definitely. Thank you so much for the time and inviting me.

Thank you. Here's to the deal. Thank you for taking the time to explore the world of M and A with our podcast. Please subscribe for more content and come conversations with industry leaders. If you like our podcast, please support us by leaving a five star review and sharing it. I enjoy hearing feedback and connecting with our listeners. You can reach me by my email. It's kisan kisonealroom.net M&A Science is sponsored by Dealroom, a project management solution for mergers and acquisitions. Additional educational content is available on Deal Room's blog@dealroom.net blog thank you again for listening to M and A Science. See you next time. Views and opinions expressed on M and A Science reflect only those individuals and do not reflect the views of any company or entity mentioned or affiliated with any individual. This podcast is purely educational and is not intended to serve as a basis for any investment or financial decisions.