In this episode, we talk to Sid Kumar, SVP of RevOps at HubSpot. about aligning your organization around the customer journey, using data to drive efficiency, and keeping a focused eye on the ripple effects of RevOps.
This episode features an interview with Sid Kumar, SVP of RevOps at HubSpot. HubSpot is a leading CRM platform that provides software and support to help businesses grow better.
Over the past 20 years, Sid has been at the forefront of the technology industry and has held senior leadership roles with responsibility for driving revenue growth, increased profitability, and new customer acquisition. At HubSpot, Sid is responsible for developing the go-to-market strategy and driving operational excellence to enable millions of customers to succeed.
In this episode, we talk to Sid about aligning your organization around the customer journey, using data to drive efficiency, and keeping a focused eye on the ripple effects of RevOps.
Guest Bio:
Over the past 20+ years, Sid has been at the forefront of the technology industry and have held senior leadership roles with responsibility for driving revenue growth, increased profitability and new customer acquisition. I have a passion for building, scaling and leading high velocity go-to-market organizations to accelerate revenue growth and customer acquisition. Currently, I lead GTM Strategy & Operations for HubSpot where I'm responsible for developing the go-to-market strategy and driving operational excellence to enable millions of customers to grow better. Previously, I was the COO of Sales for Cloud Sales Centers and Greenfield at Amazon Web Services (AWS), where I led the design and launch of the worldwide high velocity go-to-market model to accelerate revenue growth and new customer acquisition at scale. Prior to AWS, I led the digital go-to-market transformation at CA Technologies and built an inside sales, demand generation, partner sales and presales organization with over 300 people. I have been featured as a guest speaker and cited across numerous publications as a subject matter expert in high velocity go-to-market models. I thrive on solving complex problems which can deliver real business impact, underpinned with a relentless focus on hiring and developing the best team on the planet. It all starts with the data and analytics to formulate my initial points of view but ultimately harness the collective knowledge and wisdom of my team and my colleagues to arrive at the best decisions.
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Guest Quote
“So I do think there's always gonna be some element of how do you look out in the horizon and see what's the opportunity, how do you go get it, and then an element of how do you plan to capitalize on that opportunity and what is the execution that's underneath it? So that's the way we've organized it here.” - Sid Kumar
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Time Stamps:
**(02:09) - Sid’s definition of RevOps
**(06:39) - Evolving with your data
**(06:13) - RevObstacles
**(12:49) - The Toolshed
**(25:04) - Quick Hits
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Sponsor:
Rise of RevOps is brought to you by Qualified. Qualified’s Pipeline Cloud is the future of pipeline generation for revenue teams that use Salesforce. Learn more about the Pipeline Cloud on Qualified.com.
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Links
Narrator:
Hello and welcome to Rise of RevOps. This episode features an interview with Sid Kumar, SVP of RevOps at HubSpot. HubSpot is a leading CRM platform that provides software and support to help businesses grow better. Over the past 20 years, Sid has been at the forefront of technology and has held senior leadership roles with responsibility for driving revenue growth, increased profitability, and new customer acquisition. At HubSpot, Sid is responsible for developing the go to market strategy and driving operational excellence to enable millions of customers to succeed. In this episode, we talk to
Sid about aligning your organization around the customer journey using data to drive efficiency, and keeping a focused eye on the ripple effects of RevOps. But first, a brief word from our sponsor,
Ian: RIse of RevOps is brought to you by Qualified. Qualified pipeline. Cloud is the future of pipeline generation for revenue teams that use Salesforce.
Learn more about the pipeline Cloud on qualified.com.
Narrator: And now please enjoy this interview with Sid Kumar, SVP of Rev at HubSpot, and your host Ian Faison.
Ian: Welcome to Rise of RevOps. I'm Ian Faison, CEO of Caspian Studios, and today we are joined by special guest. Sid, how are you? I'm doing great. How are you? Excited to have you on the show. Excited to chat about Rev at HubSpot and all the cool stuff that y'all are doing. Um, so let's get into it. How did you get started in RevOps?
Sid: So I first got started in RevOps, uh, during my time at, uh, at aws where I was, uh, over there for about three and a half years, and I was leading our field sales operations organization there. And then about a year ago, I joined, uh, HubSpot to build out the Rev team here across marketing, sales, and customer success.
Yeah. Exciting.
Ian: And we're gonna dive into how you're doing that at HubSpot, which is super exciting. What's your definition of
Sid: Rev? Yeah, that's a great question. I think there's so many, uh, definitions out there and it's an evolving organization and construct, and the way I think about it is connected go to market.
What are the capabilities required from a systems data people process standpoint that allow you to take a really truly connected go to market approach, uh, across your customer journey? So that, that's my definition and I think, uh, my, the framework generally fits.
Ian: I love that connected go to market.
That's a, that's very succinct. There's a, there's a marketer in there that I, I can just tell. And so with that connected go to market, what does that look like at HubSpot? What's like the scope, I mean, we all know everyone knows HubSpot, but like, what's the size and the scope of what you're dealing with from a Revs perspective?
Sid: Yeah. You know, rev, what it, what it is today is, um, a multiple. Functions that make up the, the rev stack, I'll call it. Um, starts with go to market strategy and, and, uh, operations. So what I lead is a team called Functional Go to Market strategy and operations within Rev that aligns with our marketing, sales, and customer success teams on everything from, um, in year to mid midterm type of planning on and strategy to in year execution of that plan.
Uh, it also includes enable. So for our field reps and frontline managers, how do we make sure they're, uh, highly successful and ramped up and ready to go from, from day one, uh, data systems. And, and then we also have a longer term strategy function that thinks three to five years out that then connects with our in year execution.
So that's how, that's how we define Rev at, uh, at HubSpot. I love it.
Ian: And, uh, and within that team, obviously pretty, pretty big remit to have that strategy side, the very far looking stuff in and amongst the, the, you know, the day to day stuff, which is pretty exciting. You think that's a little unique to your organization, or, or is that something that you think is gonna be more popular here soon?
Sid: Yeah, I think there's some core elements that you, you just start to see that you need in a rev function. You do need to think longer. To see what does your total addressable market look like? How are you gonna go after it and pivot your go to market model if needed to go after it in the most, you know, efficient and effective way possible.
So I do think there's always gonna be some element of how do you look out in the horizon and see what's the opportunity, how do you go get it? And then an element of how do you plan to go capitalize on. Opportunity and what is the execution that's underneath it? So that's the way we've organized it here.
I think you'll see more and more organizations come to realize that these are some of the critical elements of the strategy and planning side, but then you still need to underpin them with great data, um, a strong foundation there along with a systems and automation framework that helps drive that, that productivity and EF.
Ian: Any key learnings in the first year, uh, in the role?
Sid: Yeah. Key learning would be to, to really orient your go to market, uh, organization around a common customer journey. And align each of those different phases to what, what does a North Star look like? What does customer success look like at each of those different phases.
So we talk about attract, engage, and delight. And how do you then think about the, um, the role of marketing, sales, and customer success across the customer journey? So you're thinking about it from a customer in as opposed to a function or HubSpot. And creating just a, a shared understanding of what that journey looks like across each of the different teams.
So you, you, you just have that, you reduce the friction and you have like a seamless customer experience across end to end.
Ian: All right, let's get to our first segment here, rev Obstacles.
Sid: Obstacle. Obstacle. An obstacle to what? There's your obstacle.
Ian: We talk about the tough parts of rev ops. Uh, what's one of the hardest problems that, that you faced in the last six months? I know you kind of detailed, uh, a bit of one there already.
Sid: Data, data is one of those areas that can always continue to evolve and, and getting very clear. On, on definitions. How are you gonna architect your data foundation to support scale?
Is this an area that I think is, is a continual process of, of evolution and, and improvement? So we're, we're spending a lot of time thinking about what's a first party data that we need to, to really efficiently and effectively run the business. In addition to what's a third party data that we need to go supplement, um, our first party data with, to, to really, um, have an end to end view of that customer experience and that journey from end to end and how we can be more effective in our interactions and engagements with our prospects and customers.
So that's been, that's been a big area of focus for us over the past six months or.
Ian: Yeah. It seems like, you know, with, with HubSpot having so many customers, so many different sort of products and, and, and product skews and all that stuff, that the, uh, the difference between sales and upsells and all that stuff is, is potentially endlessly complex.
How do you think about sort of making sense of all the complexity. Yeah, I
Sid: think it goes back to really thinking about that end to end customer journey. So if you really trace a prospect through to the point where they become a customer, and then from the point of sale to the post sales and retention and loyalty side.
It's really thinking about that customer as a relationship, that prospect that turns into a customer as a relationship that doesn't end with the sale. It's really about making sure they're getting activated, they're using the product, are they getting the ROI that we, that, that we anticipated they would get when they, uh, signed on with HubSpot?
And it's really thinking about it as a customer for life as opposed to tra different transactions along the, along the customer journey. So it's, that's our philosophy. It's why we also think about. Our customer journey as a closed loop, as opposed to a funnel. We don't, we don't use the funnel. We think of it as a flywheel that's very much about, uh, attracting and engaging and delighting our customers.
And if they're happy, there's word of mouth, they're gonna talk to other potential customers about it. They're gonna reference, um, their experience in communities and other, um, forums to get, uh, get that flywheel continuing to, to spin. I'm curious,
Ian: you know, how do you. Balance supporting so many departments with sales, marketing and CS and, and sort of that, that fixed pie that we kind of all feel in rev hops where it's, there's a lot of mouse to feed and only so much bandwidth.
Yeah, it's a,
Sid: it's a great question. The first thing I'll say is ruthless prioritization. It's really around what's going to drive impact for the customer experience or what's gonna help drive impact for the rep experience. I mean, those are the two big anchors I would, I would use to prioritize around from where do we go spend our time, effort, and energy.
Um, I mean, the way we have it organized is we have. Pillars that align to, uh, to, to those different functions. So we have a marketing strategy and operations team, a sales strategy and operations, and then customer success. And then I, um, we have a team that, uh, is called the Flywheel, um, analytics and planning team.
And that is really thinking about what are those horizontals that cut across from marketing, sales, and customer. That can be done in a more efficient way or need to be done in a more connected and and collaborative way. So you have an integrated plan or you have an integrated set of, um, compensation models, uh, between sales and customer success.
So balancing that horizontal, connective tissue with functional. So there's gonna be certain things that only are relevant, um, for marketing, for example, or for sales because of the nature of those functions. But looking at where are their commonalities and similarities, where do they need to be talking and engaging with the other functions much more, um, deliberately and intentionally.
And identifying those points just gives us a model where we can be highly efficient, but also be able to go really deep where we need to at a functional. Is there
Ian: any sort of rev hoops moment or a, a mistake that you see other rev ops leaders sort of making, uh, pretty common. I think
Sid: it's easy to make a change that seems fairly minor in one part of the organization.
Call it customer success, but not fully think through what are the implications to the other, the other pillars like sales and marketing and to the customer experience. So I think it's really important in a connected go to market model. And the job of Rev, candidly, to be thinking about the end to end customer experience and what are the ripple effects of making a change in any one part of that engine.
On the rest of the, the organization could be simple things like how you're incenting different parts of the organization and what are the unintended, um, effects or impacts on other parts of the organization, and is that the aggregate behavior that you're trying to drive? Or did you solve one thing and then create another challenge somewhere else?
So just thinking holistically really about that customer experience. And then how does this go to market engine, um, show up holistically to go support.
Ian: Any other thoughts on, uh, rev obstacles or, or obstacles that they see people making?
Sid: Yeah, I, I, I think the other area is just really thinking hard about where, where to automate as opposed to where to, to have humans involved.
Right. And I, I think it's easy to look at a, a challenge or a problem and throw, throw more people at it. And some, sometimes you just need to, in order to figure out. What a more scalable and extensible solution is, but also knowing when to go pivot. If you're solving the same problem multiple times over and over through manual processes.
Having a framework on when do you go automate that or when do you go prototype that to be a a, a more scalable and efficient approach, I think is, is uh, is gonna be prudent, especially, um, in the market, market environment that we're currently in right now.
Ian: All right, let's get to our next segment. Tool shed.
Hey, Hey Brandon,
Sid: Michael, wanna do me and mom a favor? Get off that shed.
Ian: This
Narrator: is my favorite place.
Sid: the tool shed get
Ian: off the shed. We're talking tool spreadsheets. Metrics. Just like everyone's favorite tool qualified. No B2B tool shed is complete without qualified. Go to qualified.com to learn more. Check them out.
Sid, what's in your tool shed? What are the softwares, the tools, dashboards, what systems are you spending the most time in?
Sid: Yeah, I mean, uh, you know, we are HubSpot, we're a crm, so we, we run our business on HubSpot, and HubSpot is a. CRM platform, but has a, you know, provides that end to end, connected, go to market, uh, approach through a marketing hub, a sales hub, and a service hub to really, uh, go across that customer journey.
So we do use that and we, we run our business on HubSpot. We use, um, we use look. as our, as our bi tool that sits on top of HubSpot and our other, uh, data platforms to get us the insights and analytics. Uh, on top of that, um, we, we use conversational intelligence to go look at, um, what, what are our customers saying and how do we get.
Insight into patterns and trends that are happening across the number of customer and prospect calls and what are the patterns and, and, um, trends that are emerging where we could, we can go do something proactively to go either, um, address areas that are challenging or, uh, conversely capitalize on, uh, new opportunities that are, that are out there.
Um, so, uh, and then we're, we're evaluating just, you know, what does our broader technology stack look? And where are there opportunities to add, um, area add, new capabilities are gonna improve, as I said, either the customer experience or the, um, the rep experience make it more productive and efficient. And what are
Ian: the metrics that that matter to you?
What do you stare at all day and try to try to optimize ?
Sid: Yeah. We, we look at, uh, if I go, you know, from the beginning of the customer journey, from attract, engage, and delight at, at the attract level, we're looking at things like, uh, awareness, looking at our media properties and how are, how are those impressions driving content leads and signups for our solution?
And then ultimately, Leading into creating demand for our sales team. So those are some of the metrics we'll look at through demand. And then from a sales perspective, we'll we'll look at sales velocity, we'll look at ASPs and win rates for high volume, high transaction business, we focus on smb. So those are pretty, uh, important relevant metrics there.
And then on the post-sale side, really looking at, are we activat. Customers quickly, helping them get time to value, uh, as, as efficiently and effectively as possible, helping them meet their use case. So how does their usage and adoption look like? And then all the way leading through to, uh, renewal and expansion.
So those are, those are some of the higher level metrics. And then each of those will have a couple of, uh, double and triple clicks. Yeah. Can
Ian: you gimme an example of, of one of those that you do need to always kind of double click into and make sure that you're not feeding some, some incorrect information into the system there?
Sid: Yeah. I, I think a, a really important one is, is demand creation or deal creation. It's really looking at what does it take to create a deal and how do you, how do you really go look at what are all the sources of pipeline and what does the rep need to create? On their own versus what's gonna come from marketing or from partners.
It's taking a really sort of aggregate but deeper view into all sources of pipeline and, and how, how a rep is going to create a, a book of business to go, um, progress and close. That's one I would say is really, you could keep, keep double clicking on that one.
Ian: Uh, quite, yeah. Well, no, I, I'd love to, I mean, well, and because it's such a, it's such a hard one to judge, you know, back in the day we said, you know, 13 impressions equal sale.
Right. You know, that is kind of the old adage now it's, I don't know what it is, but it's, it's a whole lot more than that. Um, and what is an impression? What is a, uh, you know, how do you weight those things? All of that stuff. Yeah. Curious to your process.
Sid: Yeah, and I mean, you could look at each of those different sources of pipeline and then go look at what do you want that relative mix to be?
And, and then go trace the the chain all the way up to say, okay, if I want X percent of this pipeline to be. Rep generated by a rep. What am I doing as an organization, as a Revs organization to make that rep highly efficient and productive in creating that pipeline? So it goes back to, uh, having a point of view.
If you starting all the way with total addressable market, what is the total addressable market for the company or for the solution in that particular geography or segment? And, and then within. Really understanding how many accounts within that, that that patch are, are actual customers, how many are prospects, and then what motion are you gonna go after to activate the prospects?
And then go, uh, continue to engage with your install base. So it's really taking a, starting with Tam or total addressable market and then, you know, double clicking all the way down to how do you make it easy for the rep to figure out where to prioritize their time. And, and looking at high propensity accounts.
So leveraging, you know, ML models to look at high propensity accounts, where is there the best fit? Where do the, where does the intent exist? And then from there, uh, really making sure whatever time they're spending on prospecting is gonna be the most highly efficient and effective use of time. So they spend the rest of the time on, uh, progressing and closing those opportunities that they, they've identified.
Does that make.
Ian: Absolutely. And, and I love that stuff. I mean, that is like so fun to me looking at that because as someone who, who was a salesperson sitting there owning a number, you know, calling on, calling on accounts like, you know, it was so brutal. When you knew in your heart, like these 20 accounts, my boss says I need to call 'em, and I know they ain't buying.
Like I know that they're just not the right prospect for us. Yeah. You know, and that's the sort of stuff where. Goodness when Revs can come in and say, Hey, you know what? Those journey accounts, they're definitely not, we should not be calling those as many times cuz they don't have a high propensity to buy.
I mean, like, those are the things that, that really
Sid: help sales. That's, that's exactly it. It's just how do we leverage the data and all the, just the advances in, in ai, ml. Be more intelligent about where to go spend that time, right. And, and continue to learn from it. Never gonna get it perfect, but you can just keep iterating and getting smarter about it.
Curious about
Ian: metrics as it relates to churn. I don't know if you, if you all call it churn or, or what you call it, but as a customer success function and figuring that out, obviously that's the name of the game in addition to upsell or cross sell, and I'm curious, uh, how do you think about that and any, any, uh, metrics or, or special.
Double click into those metrics that matter to you?
Sid: Yeah, no, that's a great question. We think of it as retention, right? We think of it as retention from a dollar perspective and also from a customer perspective, and, and then looking at what are the actions and behaviors that lead to higher retention.
And then if you have a higher retention, What are the leading indicators that signal that the customer is ready for expanding that footprint and going, uh, going broader with either, um, more seats for an existing solution or expanding to another hub? I mentioned we have multiple different hubs that's said on top of an integrated CRM platform, so that, that's how we think about it, is really more the behaviors of a happy, satisfied, healthy customer.
And, How do we use that to go, um, look at the broader portfolio of what customers are coming up for renewal that are part of our broader install base and driving proactive engagement with them across those different, um, motions. Any insights to
Ian: what makes a happy customer in the numbers ? Uh, that's always helpful.
Sid: Yeah. I, I mean, it's, it's adoption and getting value. It's making sure that it sounds, uh, sounds trite, but it really is. Did the value proposition that the customer believed they would. When they signed the deal, are they getting it? Are they getting it in a short period of time? And is it frictionless and seamless from, from that experience?
And I think we really spend a lot of time thinking about how do we make that experience from them becoming a customer to getting immediate and ongoing value. We spend a lot of time thinking about that and really educating them. You know, we have a lot of capabilities out there like, you know, our community, our network, our academy.
Helping them learn from other customers around best practices, others that might be in their industry, trying to solve specific use cases. So we're there. Our partners are there in the ecosystem as well as other customers. So it's really trying to give our customers multiple different ways of learning and engaging and interact.
On how to get the most out of their, their solution. As I mentioned earlier, just really making it an ongoing relationship versus something that's transaction. I love that. That's great.
Ian: Any blind spots that you wish that you could measure better? Yeah, I think it
Sid: goes back to what's the best way a rep can spend their time?
You know what, what should the mix of prospecting time or closing a deal or, or progressing a deal, working with partners. I think really understanding an optical mix of time in a day. For a given model. I mean, it'd be a really interesting thing to understand. It's, I wouldn't say it's an area we've spent a ton of time on, but would be very interesting.
And then conversely, on the customer success side, um, where should a customer success rep be spending their time to make sure our customers get maximum value from, from their solution? What are the sets of activities and what sort of ratios should they be spending that, that time to, to maximize value on the, on the end for the customer?
Ian: anything cool that you're doing with data, uh, or any, any insights that you've, you've got in the past year? Something that stood out.
Sid: Yeah, I, it's, it's building really that, I'll call it the fit, intent and propensity engine to give us a, a real sense of what leads should a, should a rep be prioritizing.
Where in, in their broader territory or or set of accounts should they be spending time on just proactive prospecting. So really putting the science underneath that and identifying what are the variables and data points that give us the best sense of that prioritization. Just, I think it's just a huge opportunity to take, uh, a lot of inefficiency.
Just wasted cycles out of, you know, a rep's day. So it's something that we've been spending a lot of time on. Um, and I, and I think you said it earlier, I don't think most reps do not enjoy prospecting, especially when it's a, you know, an undifferentiated list that's without a prioritization. So the easier you can make it and the more, um, curated that list can.
You certainly have time savings, but you also create a higher likelihood that those deals are gonna progress and have higher win rates and ultimately, uh, turn into revenue, and then ultimately commissions for the rep. So, That's why I think there's so many positive benefits from getting that right and being more, more data driven in that approach.
All right. Let's go to our
Ian: next segment. Quick hits.
Sid: Quick, quick.
Ian: They're quick questions and quick answers. All right, Sid, are you ready?
Sid: I am ready. Let's do.
Ian: If you could make any animal any size, what animal would it be and how big would it be?
Sid: I think it would be an elephant that could, um, you know, be the size of a domestic pet. So something that would fit in my house.
Like a, like a dog, dog size
Ian: element, elephant. Got it. Size .
Sid: Exactly.
Ian: Do you think there's misconceptions about rev, rev ops or perhaps the biggest misconception.
Sid: Yeah, there, there are a lot of misconceptions cause it's, it's a, it's an evolving field. I think the biggest misconception is that it's sales ops part two, and it, it couldn't be farther from the truth than that.
It's, it's really a horizontal connected, go to market, uh, approach. As I mentioned before, it touches marketing customer success as well. Do you have a favorite
Ian: movie character All time.
Sid: Ferris Bueller. Ooh,
Ian: that's a good one. What about a revs prediction for next year?
Sid: So, I don't know if it's a rev prediction for next year, but it's a rev prediction is that Rev becomes a C-Suite role.
Ian: Couldn't agree more. What would be one piece of advice that you would have for someone who is newly leading a Rev team?
Sid: I, I would say focus and alignment. It's to not as be really clear on what you're trying to achieve and making sure that the entire go to market, um, team is aligned to, to those areas before trying to tackle things in silos.
Last
Ian: question here. Sid, I'm curious, you know, you work in a large, uh, revs organization. For someone who is in a smaller rev organization, you know, a couple person shop, uh, any advice that you would give to, to those folks who are, who are lean and mean?
Sid: Yeah, I, I think it's, I would really say start with establishing a strong data foundation.
It's one of those areas that is harder to do later once your business starts to grow and scale. And the complexity, the variety, the velocity of your data starts to really take off, um, easier to get that, decide earlier on what that's gonna look like and start building it from the ground up and make it a lot more efficient later.
Awesome.
Ian: Sid, thanks so much. For listeners, obviously you can check out hubspot.com to learn more about HubSpot and all the amazing stuff that they do, and for any other stuff you can check. Sid on LinkedIn or, or, or wherever else. Sid, any final thoughts? No, just
Sid: thanks sir. Thanks for listening and, uh, excited to share more with you about the Rev journey ahead.
Ian: Awesome. Thanks so much, Sid.
Sid: Thank you for listening to Rise of RevOps. If you enjoy today's episode, please leave us a review and subscribe wherever you're listening. This podcast was created by the team at qualified the pipeline cloud is the modern way B2B revenue teams generate pipeline. Learn more at qualified.com.