Full Throttle Leaders Podcast - Warren Zenna & CRO Collective Podcast

All right, everybody, we got another episode here at Full Throttle Leaders. We got Warren Zinner of the CRO Collective. Hey, Warren, how you doing, buddy?

Hey, Mike, thanks for having me. Appreciate this.

No worries. Tell me a little bit about the CRO Collective and then about your journey, how you built this whole Collective up.

Sure. So, uh, we are the only revenue consultancy that focuses only on chief revenue officers. So there may be other organizations that include them. We're the only ones that focus only on them. When I say that, I mean that role specifically, its importance in the revenue ecosystem, how the role is defined, how the role is deployed. how the role is managed, the scope of the role, and how the organization actually utilizes a CRO to bring about the value. And so we do it through a number of different ways. And the whole purpose behind the entire venture was to solve a problem, which is that the role has been traditionally misdefined.

Mm-hmm.

A lot of different versions and opinions about what the role is. Traditionally, it was always a sales-focused role for many years, and shouldn't be. And, uh, you know, CROs are lasting on average around 17 to 18 months, and it's a crisis for this role. And it's unfortunate because it's a very important one. And, uh, if I would say, maybe biased a bit, but I have a lot of evidence to say this, it's the most important role in the revenue, uh, stack, and it's not being leveraged properly. So we fix that. We have a whole bunch of different ways we do it.

Can you give me a, a little bit of understanding? How do you, how do you do it? How do you fix it?

Sure.

Sure.

So the first part is, you know, bringing just general codification, as it were, of the role's definition. So we're like sort of like the, I don't know, we've sort of become sort of like an authority on that to some degree. You know, people ask me a lot, what's the, what is it, what does the CRO do? So by creating and establishing authority around that, we've helped to establish a lot more understanding of what the role is. And what I mean by that is it's a leadership role. It's a system builder role. It's not a sales function role. It's not a function. It is a builder architect of the revenue operation, right? So CRO is designed to come into an organization to not run the system that the CRO inherits, but to actually have a hand in rebuilding or building the system that works. And so by doing so, that person needs to have authority Autonomy, resources, and runway in order to be able to do that. And that's what a CRO should know how to do and what a CRO should be pointed to do. That's one thing. And next, we train people to do that, right? So we have the only CRO-focused course. We started the first CRO course, by the way, our program.

Awesome.

And so we, we help CROs kind of understand this and help them navigate the very complex problems that come with the role, how to survive the role, how to get the role properly, how to get themselves set up in the role properly from day one so that they actually succeed. And then on the other we also help companies become CRO ready, which the other problem is the company. The company, even when they hire great CROs, they screw it up and they usually end up not appointing them properly because they're not ready for one. So we help companies become ready for a CRO through a series of diagnostics and analysis and then process analysis. And then we actually help build that architecture for the company to help them establish more of an environment that's ready for a chief revenue officer to succeed in. So we kind of cap all Both sides of the plate, as it were.

And when do you hire a CRO? I mean, you have AEs, SDRs, VPs of sales. I mean, something—

Interesting, right? Everything you just said is all sales roles. You notice that?

Right. And they're not—

So why? So you're already— your brain is already thinking about this from a sales perspective only, right? So this is exactly— your answer to me is exactly the disease I'm trying to solve, right? It's like all you're thinking about is pipeline.

Yeah, I just called myself out.

So it's like, this is exactly the stuff that I'm thinking about, right? Those people have no business doing this job many times.

Yeah. Because that's because they're not even the right people for this job. Because CRO covers marketing and everything.

Everything.

Yeah.

All retention, growth, expansion, pipeline acquisition, profitability, margin, right? Marketing, positioning, whole thing.

Yeah. And what do you recommend a company that just raised a seed round or Series A How much money? I'd say average seed round is— correct me if I'm wrong because this is more your space than mine.

You tell me what you're thinking.

I think $1.5 to $3 million is a seed round.

They're not ready for one yet. Not even close. Yeah. And they shouldn't be hiring a CRO until they're well over $25, $30 million in revenues. That's when you need someone like that. I mean, I've seen it done sooner. I mean, there's a lot of people listening to this who are going, are you kidding me, man? I'm a CRO and I'm at a $5 million company.

Yeah.

I get it. And, you know, it's not no insult. You know, I don't mean it to be rude. I'm just saying, my suspicion, and I'm usually right, I have these conversations 20 times a week. Most CROs who I speak to who are in companies under $15 or $20 million, they're running sales organizations because that's what's needed at that stage. You know, you're still trying to get off the ground, all hands on deck. The CEO is probably selling, everyone's selling, which makes sense. So if I bring in a CRO at that stage, What are they going to do? They're going to build a revenue engine? No, they're going to start taking a sale. So the problem is that, you know, that's too early for the role that I just described. You know, you need to have an organization that's probably like more like a B round, you know, like a real, like a Series B or C round, you know, they get like $15, $20 million or something like that. And they're actually on their way to maybe being closer to $50 million in revenues. Now you've got a complex enough organization where a CRO can actually Do all the things I described before. And more importantly, that's when the company needs somebody like that to actually wrangle the organization into more of a repetitive system that got it to the place that it is today. Most companies can't continue to operate the same way when they grow at those stages. They have to change. You need a change agent who has the competencies to know how to build an organization from more of like the, let's say, startup to more of a growth stage organization. That's when CROs should be hired.

Do you see a lot of— I guess the word would be headbutts, uh, headbutting of CROs and CMOs?

All the time. They hate each other. And it's a big problem because what happens is most CMOs are, in my opinion, uh, if I may be, you know, respectful here, uh, they're promoted too soon. They get the CMO title and the company's at like, you know, $5 million or something like that. Uh, marketing in the B2B space is a very weird animal because, you know, marketing, it was traditionally a consumer-facing endeavor, right? Nike, P&G, Adidas, foods, products, packaged goods. This is where marketing really shines. Those are marketing-driven businesses, right? And CMOs in those companies are extraordinarily valuable. You need someone that really understands how to motivate people, in the marketplace to consider a product. Whereas in the B2B space, it's a sales-driven organization, even a product-led organization, and marketing is more of a measurement tool. It's not right. I'm not saying that's correct. That's just what's happened. So now if I have somebody who's running a marketing organization at a B2B company, they are a function of revenue. They're not an engine towards growth, right?

Mm-hmm.

And they should be folded into the revenue organization properly and not be separated out because that's when you have A breakdown between 2 ways in which 2 different organizations measure outcomes. One is measuring leads and lead quality. The other one is measuring closing and deals in pipeline. And those are not the same thing. They're parts of a whole. And if I'm a revenue leader, I'm going to look at both of those 2 things as parts of an engine, not 2 separate pieces. And if I have 2 C-suite leaders running each one of those, Now I've got a chief carburetor officer and a chief muffler organization. And that doesn't make any sense to have 2 parts in your engine having 2 chiefs in front of it. So you really need to sort of understand the rearchitecture of an organization today needs to collapse the old traditional C-suite models that we use to advance people through an organization, but had very little to do with the way revenue is generated in a B2B business. So it's, it's a different model.

Almost sounds like a VP of marketing should be reporting to the CRO and not having—

That's exactly how it should be. So the CRO should have a head of marketing, a head of sales, a head of customer success retention, and probably someone on RevOps, and maybe even someone who's connected to the, to the product team. That should be that revenue— that should be the team that the CRO oversees.

Makes sense. Now tell me a little bit about your background with, with Publicis and Habas, right? Habas. Um, and how that kind of shaped you as, uh, as where you're at today.

No, I mean, it was an interesting question. Um, so, uh, you know, because of my age— you and I both are gray-haired men, you know. Hey, hey, so, you know, hey, what are you gonna do? It's true. It is what it is, man. So, you know, I was lucky and you were lucky in that, you know, we both grew up at a time before a lot of the amazing technologies that we use today were around, right? I mean, in the '90s, we didn't really have mobile phones. You know, we all hung out at bars and actually talked to each other.

Yeah.

And, um, you know, what happened was, you know, when the internet came out in, you know, late 2000— uh, 1999, 1998, you know, I was right there. I was working when There was such a thing as the internet, you know, and the first browser. And so, you know, it's fascinating for me because I was really interested in technology and selling things that were new. I like to be in front of new things. So I was like really involved a lot in the internet when it first came out, selling a lot of creative services. And then I was in the agency space because I was selling marketing services primarily, not for a choice, just happened. Didn't really—

Yeah.

Didn't make a decision. Someone hired me to cell marketing, and I stuck with it. So what ended up happening was, um, when the iPhone came out, I knew that this phone, this just incredible piece of technology, was going to become the new way that everybody conducted business and communicated. And, uh, there was a guy who was running, uh, a mobile agency at Publicis. He got— the company got purchased by BlueSys. This was the first mobile agency within one of the holding companies in the US, and I got like the second or third job there. So I ended up working for them. At the time, we were just building applications, and at the time, imagine this, you know, iPhone applications could cost like, you know, $5, $10 million to build. It's crazy. And so, you know, we were selling all these things, and it actually turned out that what our clients wanted— this is, I may say, a discovery I kind of found after about a year of selling this stuff, our clients really didn't want apps. What they really wanted was they wanted to understand mobility. They wanted to know how their companies could become mobile-first organizations. They were all desktop and, you know, computer-based businesses.

Mobile ready is what we called it, right?

Everything, right? So it was a very, very big thing. And so we became a consulting company. We actually sold thinking and consulting and transformation to big corporations like Bank of America, L'Oréal, you know, Microsoft. We helped them migrate their business dynamics from desktop modalities into the mobile context. And it was really good business. We built this big business. And so it got really cool. I got involved in a lot of understanding of all these different ecosystems around this stuff. And then from there I left, you know, Publicis, they ended up absorbing that company into another group and I left. I started working for some other companies and then I got hired at Havas to run their mobile marketing agency. which was an internal agency at Havas. And they had like a focus at the time on building mobile and mobile advertising business, right? Because people were, you know, at the time it's sort of become all one big blob. But at the time there was a difference between like getting an ad on your desktop and getting an ad on your phone, right?

Yeah.

And so delivering and deploying ads to mobile devices became a very interesting concept. There's new technologies for it, different types of measurement, particularly in the areas of of location-based marketing and location-based data. And so we built a big business there where we focused specifically on helping clients buy mobile user data and inventory and then purchasing advertising allocations on mobile data to reach people when they were on their phones. And I built that business at the time. That's when the ad tech community became huge. You know, it was like 2014 or '15 when like it was the heyday of ad tech. You know, it's all this money floating around, a lot of money flowing through the ad tech system. And I was a buyer because now I had a big budget because I had to buy the services of all these ad tech companies to help me build the business I was creating at Havas. So I became a buyer and now all these tech guys are coming and selling to me their mobile, you know, ad tech services. And I became very, you know, ensconced in that whole space and learned a lot about it. And this is where I sort of formulate this idea Because I started seeing the way people were selling and I saw how it was all broken and that this CRO was like this sort of weird nebulous role. And I thought, you know, this doesn't make any sense. So around 2019, I was like, I'm gonna help create a business that will solve what I see as a problem on the customer side. And that was how it formulated.

So the CRO Collective is your basically group of people that are CROs and you're basically connecting them. Tell us a little bit. About that CRO collective approach that you have.

Sure, sure. So, you know, essentially kind of, I mean, we're not a membership type, you know, business. We don't have like fees that people pay to be part of something. There's reasons for that and I don't want to get into, but it's just a sort of a choice for various reasons. But it's really more, you know, CROs do have a very unique job. They have a very unique problem. A very similar common issue they have. They they suffer from all the things that I mentioned at the beginning of this conversation, which are things like what do we do and why don't my why does my boss know what I do and all the stuff that goes into it can get kind of complex. And the first one of the first things we thought was well CROs need a home you know they need a place right I mean there's plenty of CMO associations and CTO associations and CEO associations, but there was no CRO association, which I thought was kind of preposterous. So that was one thing, was to bring together a place where CROs can talk to each other and learn from each other and collaborate and learn. And then we formulated the idea that we would kind of graduate these people through a program where they would become competent in Chief Revenue Officer principles and how to kind of transform themselves from sales leaders into these more You know, complex architects.

Mm-hmm.

And then create events. We have CRO roundtables. We do about 10 a year across the country. And those are small groups of CROs who talk, you know, in a conversation that we've sort of organized. And we've been in a certain format that we created that engages a really amazing conversation between them all. And they're all formulated around the principles that the CRO Collective has espoused and gives them kind of a sense of Community and home and education. And those things tend to ladder up to, I want to do your course, I want to be one of your clients. We have a CRO in transition program where some CRO is like, I just left my job, it was really crappy situation, I got fired or I quit, and I'm looking for my next one. I don't want that to happen again. We have an incredible program for those people to transfer from that role into their next one really successfully. And we do that. And then we have the CEO, you know, which is the CEO Readiness Program, which is for the company that hires them to make sure that they're looking for the right person with the right competencies and they know how to diagnose the right person and how to place that person properly. And they know the kind of authority that person needs and how the organization needs to be set up so that that person's successful. So we have all this sort of ecosystem around the role to make sure that the role is successful.

So sounds like your revenue model is consulting, Education, consulting, sponsorships, and coaching and advising. Coaching. And what's, what's a, what's one or 2 tactics, strategies, thoughts, ideas, failures, or achievements that you're like, that was incredible, I want to repeat that, or that was a big no-no and I don't want to have people that are listening follow that footstep? Um, maybe within the last couple months.

No, no, it's, it's a, that's a good question. I'm thinking about— I like it. It's a great question. I mean, I think one of the first things is the good thing was I just, I said, fuck it, I'm doing this. Like, I didn't wait, you know. I just, yeah, I just went for it, you know. I just started putting out content. I was very clear what I wanted to do, and I didn't wait for everything to be perfect, you know.

I just did that.

And, and, um, you know, it was against my, my grain. Like, my nature is to want to get everything right before I do something, and I typically find that's probably a way for me to avoid doing things. It's like, you know, think about how good I want it to be so I don't do it, you know?

Yeah.

But in this case, you know, get ready, right?

I'm fixing— just—

yeah, make the— exactly.

You do or you don't. There is no try.

Yeah, you have to just do it, right? And so I put it out there and, uh, And what I did was I, I had an idea and I put together a curriculum. I really spent a lot of time on this. I didn't really kind of—

No AI back then?

No, I did this all from my hands, all my head, you know, and I produced really good content, you know. And I did a lot of research. I spoke to hundreds of people. I mean, I went around speaking to everybody who— and believe me, it's a pretty big group of people that are smarter than me, so it wasn't too hard to find that. And I found a lot of people who were really, really smart in revenue. And I went to them, I said, look, this is what I'm trying to do. What do you think of this? You know, I asked, I got to say, probably 100 people I really look up to. And they all said, you know, this makes a lot of sense. Yeah, this is a good idea. Yep, this is needed.

Wow.

So I sort of validated, you know, what I was doing by asking people that were smarter than me. And I think throughout the entire time I ran this thing, I always had this idea that, yes, you know, I'm a pretty smart guy. I understand this stuff. But there are so many people that are a lot smarter than me and I want them to work with me and I want to work with people who are a lot smarter than me so that I learn more and that I'm always having better around me. I don't want to be the smartest person in the room. So the people I work with tend to be really, really super smart in the areas they're in. And in fact, another thing that I did that I really, really advise people to do is to figure out that, like, what is it that you're good at and what is it that you're really not good at? And try and do the thing you're good at most of the time. And the things you're not good at, give it to somebody else to do because you're not good at it. And I see a lot of people wasting their time trying to do things they're not good at. And I think that you could get better at it, but why not find someone that's the best at that and you do the thing that you're the best at, and then you'll have a better thing? They've already— something that I—

they've already built, they've already failed at that and they're good at it. So why would you— exactly like same thing with like the Legion approach, right? I'm like, why are you gonna Hire a 20-year-old kid to do sales development work. And so you can hire someone that's been doing this for 30 years, just like— Yeah.

You know, it's kind of a question of components and functions, right? So if I'm a pitcher or I'm a batter, right, there's, you know, there's multiple parts of swinging a baseball bat. You know, it's not just swinging a bat, right?

There's— I used to play—

Leg position, hip position, right? There's body position. There's like, there's a whole series, even a golf swing, right? There's like a whole bunch of mechanics. So, so if you're playing golf, someone can say to you, hey, you know, you're really good at like your top swing, but you're really bad at your backswing, right? So those pieces, you do need to work on your weaknesses because if you want, if you want to get the whole motion, you got to break it up into parts.

Yeah.

I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about like a function. Like if you're going to go out and you're going to be good at something, like let's say for example, I'm really good at throwing a football And eyeing the ball and being able to throw it to people, then why would I need to learn how to be a linebacker? Like, it's not related to the mechanics of what I'm trying to do. So I'm not going to do that. Someone comes to me and go, well, you know, you're really good at quarterbacking, but you don't know much about linebacking. I know, schmuck. That's his job. I don't do that. Right? So I think there's a difference between mechanics and functions. And I think you have to find out the function that you're designed for and be really good at that function. And not try and do all these functions. It's probably not a really good idea. So anyway.

So who's a good ideal customer profile for you to get ahold of you and how do they get ahold of you?

Mostly my most place to find me is on LinkedIn. I'm there a lot. You know, I've just, I do a monstrous amount of content on that platform every day. Certainly probably once a day at least I do something on that, whether it be a post or a comment or 2 or more. I also have a podcast called the CRO Spotlight Podcast, which is, you know, pretty popular now. Got about 100 episodes we've done with some great people. Got some amazing guests lined up in the last next month. I mean, really the kind of people that now are coming on my show, it's really amazing. Really accomplished, like luminaries are coming on and it's really cool. And then, you know, just yesterday I launched my first issue of a newsletter. called The CRO Fix. It's on Substack. There's only one issue in it, but, you know, it's good to go because we're going to be doing one every couple of weeks. You can DM me on LinkedIn. You can go to my website, thecrocollective.com.

Okay.

There we have all the list of all the events that we're doing this year. So if you're a CRO and you're, you know, running and operating at a business over $50 million, you should come to those events.

Awesome.

And if you're a company that wants to get in front of CROs, you should sponsor those events. They're really, really good. Um, and then if you're a CRO and you're looking for help, you can apply for our CRO course. Uh, everything's all available on the court, on the line, thecrocollective.com. And that's, uh, the best way to get ahold of me.

And what, like the, just the, and then on the course idea, what's the investment for someone that wants to take the course?

Or is it, that's a complicated question because there's so much. Yeah, it's a 15, it's okay, it's fine. It's a 15-week course and it's $6,800. It's a small investment for the amount of value you get. It's like, you know, it's like a master's degree course level what we do, and it's like half the price of what you get— you have to pay one of the big universities. And we do a really good job, so I'd suggest it.

Cool. Well, thanks for having— thanks for— I'm sorry, thanks for coming on my show, and, uh, I look forward to keeping in touch.

And I appreciate it.

Everybody should reach out to Warren. He's a guy that's— he has over 15,000 connections and very well respected in the space. And, uh, feel free to reach out to Michael Falato about lead generation, and we'll, we'll talk soon. Thanks, Mike.

Thanks so much. It was a great conversation. Appreciate it.

Thanks.