Connected Revenue with Bruce Scheer and Scott Presse

Bruce Scheer: Well yeah. Excuse me. Joy, I cut that, and I'm I'll start again. Well, welcome everybody. Hey. Today, we've got Scott Presse with me. And, Scott, please tell us just a little bit about you and and how we're gonna, you know, enter into this wonderful topic about connected revenue.

Scott Presse: Great. Well, for over 20 years, Bruce, as you will well know, because a lot of it was us working together. But I have engaged with sales and marketing leaders in helping them implement new growth strategies. And so that's taking me across 300 client engagements in 45 countries to allow me to see in particular, and that's the topic of today, this intersection of sales and marketing together. What are some of the common pitfalls as well as what really is a recipe for bringing them together to pursue revenue for the company?

Bruce Scheer: Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. And just to add to that, Scott and I do go way back. We you know, we've worked together for over a decade and, worked on some of the biggest engagements. Actually, eBay even bought one of the entities that we kinda were working with very deeply their overarching sales system, getting them performing properly, and then they got acquired by eBay just after that called eBay Enterprise, if you guys remember that. And then, Scott and I did a ton of work with Korn Ferry at a global level. So just just a lot of fun working on some, oh, very strategic initiatives for some pretty big firms, but Scott's, worked all the way from start up to scale up to enterprise. And, Scott, as you say, globally, and, I'd say, Scott, you probably impact, you know, thousands of sellers per year, revenue leaders, and and and whole teams, which we'll be talking about as part of this episode. Just talking about this new big idea concept that Scott's been working on, called connected revenue. And, Scott, why don't you go ahead and tell us a little bit about this this idea and this conceptual, thinking that you're bringing to the world?

Scott Presse: Great. Connected revenue is really about bridging the gap between sales and marketing and establishing consistent growth.

Bruce Scheer: I love it, Scott. And especially right now, all the themes are pointing towards go to market success, go to market alignment. How can we be more efficient and effective across multiple parties and how we go to market for impact and growth, consistently, effectively resonating. And, it does require this connective tissue so everybody can work in concert to make this happen. So your topic couldn't be more timely because people are thinking about it, But the problem I'm seeing, Scott, is they lack some of the distinctives distinctions around language, about how do we do this? And that's where you're gonna break it down and make it immensely practical for go to market teams to get their head around this and and figure out how can they align better for go to market success.

Scott Presse: Yes. Exactly. And I think the best place to start is really what's the problem. And some to some degree, why? Why is their disconnected revenue today? And I would say that that, it has been principally present in 80 to 90% of all of the client engagements. So this isn't some esoteric concept. This is ground level typical behaviors in which increasingly in the last few years, we've seen CMOs begin to have accountability for full pipeline responsibility. Right? Previously, they just had top of funnel and then sales took everything after that as if MQLs were the, you know, golden egg when in fact all they are at the start of a process of of making revenue come alive. So with that, they have continued, though, to operate in their sales and marketing silos. And that divergent approach is really creating disconnected strategies in the go to market and really missed revenue opportunities because they're not bridging that gap. They're just proceeding as though it were business as usual and that having some common metrics would somehow make it all work together.

Bruce Scheer: Yeah. Totally. And I still see this behavior. Scott, I I I'll bring a a story into this. A a very large organization that we all know, Autodesk, and and they've kind of, you know, killed it. They're they're one of the global enterprises here. Was working with them. I'm in a workshop with one of their marketing leaders, and I have more sellers than marketers in there. And, their top a e was in there, and he just kinda stretched around like a rock star. Everybody's watching him. You know? He he's magic, you know, Superman as the seller. And I'm like, just going, hey. You know? You know? How's marketing doing for you? You know? What of leads are you getting? How's that working out for you? And, the marketing leader's right there listening, and he's, like, just going, oh. And I I I purposely instruct my SDR to never touch those leads, you know, just without a doubt. It's a complete waste of time. We do all of our own work, you know, work in my book of business, etcetera, territory, but, yeah, we don't touch any leads from marketing. I turned to the marketing guy. I'm like, just going, did did you hear that? What's going on? And and he's, like, embarrassed, turned red. But, you know, like you say, Scott, those silos exist. You know, never should they should they cross over in a line. And it's it's horrible, and I'm glad you're gonna break that down and how to solve for that problem.

Scott Presse: Yeah. And let's almost put the, magnifying glass on it. So, sales is very focused on engaging decision makers, typically more senior decision makers around the issue of change. Why should they change? Now maybe the topic of conversation is external, a combination of internal things, but it's around why change and why now. At the same time, marketing is pursuing building brand interest and awareness. And how are they doing it? What's their favorite topic? Why us? And they're trying to create differentiation by highlighting the new capabilities or features or essentially if they're a market leader and really a, a new entrance, it's look at all that we have. So you've got and it typically is whether it be a seminar, whether it be a campaign or an actual event. The idea is how do we really differentiate by focusing more on what's unique to us. And the audience is predominantly more technical people. Now it may be senior technical people, but they're they're they're interested in how does it work. And so in the software industry, of course, you know, free downloads and create a a play box in which to test and validate. Could this fit in our environment? How easy is it? What's the user interface? Are all the things that marketing loves to do and that in their mind is the result of top of the funnel building. However, it's 2 really different audiences with 2 different conversations. And what that means is that there's a conversational divide. A conversational divide that really means missed revenue.

Bruce Scheer: Oh, I completely agree, Scott. And you and I have kinda spent a big chunk of our career trying to master for that, that early conversation, the high conversation, the high and early conversation with with true decision makers. And how do you how do you resonate with them, get them excited about change? And and like you say now, that's typically led by these rock star AEs trying to get into that executive suite and have conversations like that. Meanwhile, weirdly, marketing is focused more on the how and the what, the stuff, I might call it, that might resonate, you know, lower and later in that buying journey with some of those, you know, scouts and tire kickers, making sure everything kinda is really good. But it it it it should almost when I was looking at your your concepts and your great, you know, your your great framework, Scott, I was thinking there needs to be a flip almost. It's just bizarre where marketing needs to be resonating more, you know, upstairs, if you would, where decision makers are. And you're at that point, you're not talking about the stuff. You're talking about why change, not not why us and and look at me. Yeah. You know, it's look at you, and here's why we need to be changing.

Scott Presse: Exactly. Exactly. And it it's historic patterns. Right? And it's the rare scenario where the 2 come together, and and that really represents the go forward position that I wanna, put out today during our conversation and hopefully in the future with, decision makers that would be, intrigued by our conversation and wanna start. Well, how can we make that work in our world, whether they be sales or marketing leaders? So in the connected revenue model, it really means, refining or maybe initiating a new go to market strategy. Now it may be a core effort around land and expand, and maintain. And so it's not really a lot net new, but maybe there's new emphasis and priorities in that go to market strategy. However, it may be more opportunistic in which it's a new market industry. It's a new buyer. It's an expanded platform or set of services and capabilities that they're bringing forward. And so that go to market strategy is what begins to define in a collaborative way between sales and marketing What really is the brand promise that we're going to take to this audience in the greater sense of of companies and buyers? What is that brand promise that is embraced by both sales and marketing? And that is bridging the divide because it is addressing real customer needs. That ideal customer profile and those ideal buyers that we want to influence that are more senior in those organizations addressing their needs at a business level. So it's not the what and the how. It really is the big why. Why change? Why now? That's going to impact your business. And and that really becomes the unified value proposition that, creates a consistency, a consistency of message. And marketing loves this concept of a singular or unified voice. And I think whether it's a campaign or it's a conversation, that unified voice is what creates trust. Trust with both technical and business buyers who are ultimately going to be engaged in that buying cycle. But we wanna be generating more of those ideal conversations via the campaigns and then followed up with a unified message so that there's a sense of you're really in this together and your primary focus is on me. Right? Because every buyer wants to believe that that engagement is going to be very customized and unique.

Bruce Scheer: Yep. Absolutely. Yeah. I I love what you're saying, that unified voice, unified message, everybody on that signal. I would almost think about that, Scott, as the backbone that's you know, that that conceptual backbone that's gonna be, you know, consistent across each of these conversations, across that buying journey where everybody's on that signal, consistent around that, impactful around that, making sure everybody's getting on the bus so the buyer can buy.

Scott Presse: Yeah. And and I think it's important that you mention the buyer journey because that's where I think naturally sales and marketing can speak the same language. Right? We have often engaged sales forces and sales leaders to say, we know you have a sales process. Great. However, let's begin to understand more intimately how do customers buy. What is that journey through the classic decision making cycle? Big companies, small companies, Europe, APAC, North America, there's gonna be variations to it, but there are rather consistent patterns. And that often is what marketing is very clued into because they're doing research, They're engaging in all sorts of debriefing of win loss analysis and and, market, customers through their advocacy or advisory groups. And so the buyer journey can be a way in which that unified voice via campaigns and conversations can be delivered that build trust and just consistency of message. And here's really the bottom line is top of funnel MQLs. So we see marketing building potential in the overall pipeline on the basis of ideal customer profile and ideal target buyer with business issues that then lead to a almost a interlock with sales who are now engaging them, but those buyers have interest. They are aware, and they believe that you're already contributing with a sense of thought leadership, and it's gonna continue.

Bruce Scheer: Absolutely. Yeah. This all makes sense, in in how to drive that alignment across that whole spectrum of that journey and the alignment, between these these any any types of handoffs, if you would. Right. Right. Really well stated. Scott, do you wanna get into some of maybe some of these, you know, the the practicals around it?

Scott Presse: Yep. Perfect. Perfect. So that was the theory. We talked about the problem and why it exists. We looked at the nature of the connected revenue model anchored around a go to market strategy and a unified voice. Let's look at how do we practically enable both marketing and sales to begin to execute at the campaign and conversation level. And that's through cross functional content development. Right. You've got sales, you've got marketing, you've got services, you've got customer success, you have the team. There likely are some product. There may even be if you're in the tech space, you're your technical people. But the point is that we really need to have the end customer now with a a focus on the content that we're going to create either for the campaign or the sales conversation. So what are those industry pressures? What's causing, the overall market to move or at least flash the red, the, you know, the red notice? Hey, danger. Beware. Things are shifting. The plates are shifting. And so, this is consistent across a variety of markets. It is bringing into a level of clarity what are those prioritized customer challenges in their current state. In other words, what's gonna drive them to do something different? And what are the risks if they just maintain that status quo? Right? That's the combination of doing something different now with a rationale, but also with an urgency in which to act. And so as content and tools are built, they're really being built on insight. Tell me something I don't know. And in many cases, sellers and marketing have exposure to 100, if not thousands of customers. And so it's very easily in a collaborative fashion to begin to build out that insight and then to turn it into practical sales enablement tools, talk tracks, and usually visuals. Now that's on the sales side. Right? I get ready for a meeting. I have a series of talk tracks, questions, points of view, insightful statements, statistics, even stories that I'm gonna tell. And I may go up to a whiteboard or I have an animated PowerPoint in a virtual environment, but they're classic sales enablement or sales support tools. But what I find is that if marketing and sales build it together, now sales knows how to extract from that content. Okay. This would be great for this campaign with this buyer. Where they might be doing a whiteboard in sales, that would be a perfect infographic that we could make as one of the assets that we're building. So cross functional content development really fuels both sales and marketing in that unified voice and that, aligned go to market strategy.

Bruce Scheer: I I love it, Scott. Gosh. You you make me think about, the initiative we worked on, together with Workfront before they were acquired by Adobe. So we were doing cross functional content development, but not you know, you and I weren't knocking out infographics. You know, it started with, you know, conceptual big ideas, insights, as you say, into that buyer's world and how can we look different, sound different, and and be different based on the capabilities we have behind us, in terms of the the the product and services that Workfront we're bringing to market. But we we had marketing in the room. We, you know, we we had their core leadership team, but representing marketing, product, you know, their their chief product officer was involved, Scott, another Scott. You know, multiple different factions came together, and we were pulling the best ideas across that functional group in order to craft their messaging and their, ultimately, their sales narrative. And, Scott, based on that, you know, they manifested explainer videos and, you know, they redid their website, etcetera, messaging from a marketing and sales perspective as part of that whole go to market movement. Pre acquisition, I'd I'd love to thank, Scott, that we had a hand in getting them acquired. But, you know, it

Scott Presse: I didn't realize I didn't get a percentage. Did you get a percentage?

Bruce Scheer: Yeah. But but I did bump into their CEO in the airport, and he was still grateful. So Oh, that's Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The other thing, Scott, just to just to bring this to life, with Tableau, I had, they brought us in to work with, on building their their message strategy and and sales narrative, for both their commercial segment mid market and enterprise. They were trying to get into the enterprise at the time. This is right before they had their IPO, a $1,000,000,000 IPO, back when a $1,000,000,000 was a lot of money. But, we, the the cool thing is we had product sales, their CMO, etcetera, everybody in the room working super hard together. But the ultimate narrative that we crafted you know, I can still point to, you know, their, he was VP of product development. He had a great idea that came into that narrative. Another one of their rock star sellers, he had a big idea that came into that that that ultimate narrative. So it just came together, bay based on insight, this is multifunctional insight to the ultimate assets that they went to market with.

Scott Presse: Extremely successful. We we we've all had number of situations where that's happened because we just realized, that collaborative, content development is so critical because what it does is is not only it brings the best thinking together, but then it fuels the natural ownership by marketing to generate awareness and interest now around why change and the urgency of that why now in their campaigns. And at the same time, sales knows that they're getting top of funnel, top of pipeline, MQLs, that they're going to spend time. Their SDR and or they as AEs, AMs are gonna spend time because it's going to very quickly lead to engaging effectively with stakeholders around why change, why now, and why us? Because in almost 90% of the cases, we're seeking to equip complex b to b buying cycles. And that is moving from 1 person to 5 people to up to 10 people now. So the seller is going to have a complex orchestration of getting stakeholder buy in, across that using the unified voice of the go to market strategy and the assets that have been being built.

Bruce Scheer: Yeah. I I agree. Yeah. And and and like like you say, it even extends into getting other buyers on the bus, other key stakeholders, and and and the big challenge sellers are having doing that, which is even getting, you know, worse. You said up to 10. It's even more than that, Scott, based on some of the recent stats I've seen. So buying is getting even more complex as we move into 2025. But, yeah, let's talk about what good looks like, Scott, in terms of unified messaging delivery.

Scott Presse: Yeah. And and it really is that combination of sales, marketing, service, all, coming together. The graphical image that you have on screen for those who are viewing, really represents that that apex of a point of message being delivered consistently across all channels. Now we could even say omnichannel in that sense because it really will be going across all of the various channels to deliver on, overall pipeline and ultimately connected revenue.

Bruce Scheer: Scott, I got one for you. Tableau, we recently had her our their CRO on on our, on the ValuePro show, so I'd encourage everybody to check that out, you know, in terms of, gosh, the impact that comes when you have that unified message and and everybody's delivering against it. But a hilarious story, this woman who worked in their training function at Tableau landed an opportunity. She's using the the unified message that that everybody was trained on from the chairman down to the frontline and and and and and managers across all functions. It would became a whole company sales narrative that everybody embraced, but even somebody in training was knocked down a deal leveraging the unified, message.

Scott Presse: Yep. And and I will because I'm sure we're gonna have a a a diverse audience. While most of your illustrations have been technology, much of my recent work has been with industrial companies and getting sales and marketing in the room together. We've even we we've even gone back to this very age old idea of account based marketing. So we're creating conversations in an expansion mode, content for expansions that now we can begin to really pursue those buying centers that are completely, untouched. And so often that is a big problem. So whether it be industrial companies or whether it be technology companies, it is a B2B environment and it's bringing together all of the dimensions of customer success for expansion of sales and marketing, for new logo and expansion around all of that. So let's let's kind of get specific now in terms of what are the things that you've got to do to activate this connected revenue model through a unified message delivery. Right. Having the intention in and of itself is not enough. And so there are going to be and for those of you that are watching this particular or you can go, those of you who are listening can go to the YouTube channel and see this after the fact. We've got a basic model that's summarizing this overall connected revenue model. And on the right hand side, I want to draw attention to really 3 components of activating these sales conversations. The first one is is that the content and tools is built into a video based playbook. So whether it be as part of onboarding, whether it be part of a manager preparing and coaching a seller or a seller who's on the train or on a plane and getting ready. They wanna watch video. They wanna see what good looks like. They wanna hear a story told by a peer. That's the video based playbook that we think is so important to activate this conversation and really be tied to, and serve as the curriculum for experiential training events. Face to face, virtual, or a hybrid of all of that. It needs to be experiential, which really means current accounts and live opportunities. Because that's how particularly sellers, adult, in general, but certainly sellers, is that the the the the unit of measure for them is what accounts am I managing that I need to grow? What opportunities do I have in the pipeline that I need to win? And and so taking the playbook and translating that into experiential learning is so critical in the training and enablement lifecycle around all of that. And really the last thing, and this is coming full circle because this was the topic in our previous podcast around value is coaching. The value that coaching brings in terms of activating new behaviors by sellers. And we could even say from marketing, because as we have done this in a larger transformation program, training the marketing team in their campaigns and in their field marketing events so that that unified voice was once again being consistent and creating trust across both technical and business buyers. And those three components, and we don't have time to go into all the details of that, but Mhmm. Nevertheless, that really is how you implement and bridge the gap between sales and marketing for consistent growth.

Bruce Scheer: Yeah. Brilliant, Scott. So just just to summarize as well, just to anchor on this, what Scott's talking about. Some of the some of the key ways to operationalize this is playbooks. Really good experiential training, you know, where people do practice with that message and and figure out how to tailor it for different context and and really become comfortable with it. You know, they they indoctrinate that, you know, to to really make it their own and and be effective around that. And then coaching and and to and as Scott had said, you know, we Scott and I did another episode together around how to deliver more value as a coach, but that's one of the key levers that makes this whole thing work. You know, training your managers, making sure they're really, you know, you know, leading by example, and then putting them in a you know, posturing them as a value added coach, you know, and and really doing their job to help the people reporting to them be on message and and get better results. Exactly. Well, Scott, this has been a a beautiful episode. Just anything on your mind that we might have missed, be before we we, break?

Scott Presse: I guess I would say is I've never seen this happen without a third party engagement. And so not to create a promo for you or I, but rather to say navigating this cross functional, it just takes a lot of time, effort and their politics internally. And so it's very, very hard for this to take place. And so I encourage you, whether it be us or others that you pursue, those individuals that are skilled and experienced in facilitating the go to market strategy, in bringing the teams together and creating those assets, and then implementing that with you so that it really is a accelerated pathway to connected revenue versus a long winding road that may in fact get nowhere. And by the way, we got a day job, so let us do the heavy lifting.

Bruce Scheer: Yeah. And and also, Scott, I was even talking to, you know, the the former, CRO of Tableau, and her last position was immediate past president of, Gong dot io Right. When they're valued at $7,000,000,000. And she sits on multiple boards, but we were talking about pitfalls. What you're talking about here with connected revenue is incredibly strategic, and it actually becomes a bit of a cultural shift within the organization. It's not just another quick little campaign by marketing, see if we get lucky and drive some more leads. No. It's it's foundational. And, some of the biggest pitfalls is delegating this down to maybe a junior manager or even an individual contributor who might have time. And and, you know, typically, they might be in the marketing department, and they run around, try to make something happen, and then it just dies on the buying. Nobody adopts it. It's like a a bad organ that doesn't doesn't make its way into the body. That's one strategy. The other key pitfall that I often see is, hey. Let's outsource this. Let's bring in a brand agency. Maybe they can help us figure it out. I I've rarely see that being adopted, especially by sales. You know, it's it it was kinda out here. It doesn't hit the mark. It's not built on real insight. And and, again, it's like a bad organ. It doesn't come into the body. So, you're so right. I've I haven't seen it either where it's, being managed internally, but it's a strategic. So I would argue, leadership, even like in Tableau, I had the CMO in the room. You know? They they've gotta own this at the end of the day. It it's that

Scott Presse: strategic sponsorship.

Bruce Scheer: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Well, no. Great point, Scott. So, hey, just to I'd like to, you know, highlight for everybody listening and watching. Scott's been around the he's run this railroad multiple times. You know? Please reach out to Scott. Scott, how do they find you on LinkedIn?

Scott Presse: Yep. Yep. So, by name, all they have to do is do a quick search for that. And and then also on the Value Pros website where this video will be hosted, you can reach me in either of those two places.

Bruce Scheer: Absolutely. Yeah. Just look for the good looking guy. Exactly. Scott Pressy. And, everyone, thanks for, tuning in. Always appreciate your time. Scott, thanks for, delivering the value. Connected revenue, I believe, will stick, and it's it'll be so strategic as we move into 2025 and beyond.

Scott Presse: Excellent. Cheers.