Vulnerability Brings Sales & Marketing Together with Kristin Agnelli & Megan Boone

Trinity Nguyen:

Hey everyone. And welcome to another episode of The First 100 Days. A show for revenue practitioners by revenue practitioners, exploring how to build an aligned revenue engine, one practical tip at a time I'm Trinity Nguyen.

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Christian Kletzl:

I'm Christian Kletzl. This season, we're talking about building revenue alignment by asking high performing teams, how they got it done.

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Trinity Nguyen:

Our guests today are Kristin Agnelli. She is senior global director of sales development at ThoughtSpot, where she works closely with Megan Boone, who is senior director of revenue marketing. The two have only been working together for just over six months, but they have been really busy. Our conversation is going to focus on the biggest project they've tackled so far, revamping their marketing qualify leads, MQL process. Doesn't sound like the most exciting initiative, but they've figured out how to make it fun, engaging, and build strong relationship and alignment throughout this process. Thank you for being here today. I just, to get things started, an easy question. Maybe Kristen, if you can give a quick intro of who you are and then we'll go to you, Megan.

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Kristin Agnelli:

Yeah. So, Kristen Agnelli, excited to be here too. I run our global sales development team, sitting in the sales department, reporting to our chief revenue officer at ThoughtSpot.

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Trinity Nguyen:

Fantastic. How about you, Megan?

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Megan Boone:

Awesome. Yeah. Hey, I'm Megan Boone and I lead our revenue marketing team here at ThoughtSpot, which for us, consists of north America field marketing, demand generation and growth marketing. This is a newer initiative for us, which we're very, very excited about, all focused on revenue.

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Trinity Nguyen:

That's awesome. So you guys at the first pair that we have on this show that are actually working together right now, usually we are trying to get someone who used to work together so we can get all the drama that happen when you guys trying to build revenue alignment. So I'm going to definitely click on some of the things that you guys experience and the initiatives that you're driving and just feel free to kind of share all the dirt. Right now, how big is ThoughtSpot?

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Kristin Agnelli:

What do you think, Megan? We're about 750 employees?

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Trinity Nguyen:

And how big are your teams? The sales staff and the revenue marketing.

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Kristin Agnelli:

So our sales development team is spread around the world, as you would imagine. The biggest part of the team is in the US where we have about 18 folks and then across Europe and APJ, we've got another six or seven people, including leaders and reps and all inbound, outbound, all that good stuff.

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Megan Boone:

And then the revenue marketing side, we're super lean and efficient. Right now it's about six of us and that will be moving to nine very shortly.

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Trinity Nguyen:

Congratulations. So you both joined ThoughSpot roughly the same time-ish, right? About six months or so? No, Megan you've been there for a year and a half. My bad.

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Megan Boone:

Yes. Yeah. So I've had a little bit more time at ThoughtSpot than Kristen and I think it helped because when she joined, I'm like, stack of papers on her desk like here's all the things we need to go solve together. I'm so happy you're here.

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Trinity Nguyen:

That's great. So the initiative that Kristen shared with me is moving from revamping the MQL definition. Can you give us more context of what started this?

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Megan Boone:

Yeah, I can give some more background on that. And it all starts with a shift in our go to market model. So about two years ago or so, we launched in the cloud, we built out a commercial sales segment, we launched a free trial. The other day we just launched a self-service option so if anyone here is interested in trying ThoughtSpot, you can do it for $95 a month now, which we are very, very excited about. But what that means is, for eight years, we had built a business around, really an ABM approach. We were going after large enterprises, we had about 2000 accounts that we cared about and didn't really need to focus on anything else. And so all of our processes and systems were designed for that business model. And so we really had to rethink everything from scratch.

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Megan Boone:

And so we started with the MQL when we saw the conversion rates. I don't know if I want to share the actual rates, but weren't happy with the conversion rates from MQL to what we're looking at for first meetings. And so when Kristen joined, we really came together and said, we got to tackle this, but we know we can't tackle this just from changing the definition of the MQL. We've got to approach this from a couple different perspectives. And for us, that's who we're sending to the SDR team. So that's the definition itself. How fast are they responding and are they enabled to respond quickly? And then what are they saying when they responded? So we've really come together on building a tiger team around that initiative.

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Kristin Agnelli:

Yeah. We actually have a Friday MQL tiger team is the name of the meeting.

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Megan Boone:

I'll quote Kristen. She says it's her favorite meeting of the week.

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Kristin Agnelli:

It is my favorite meeting. We have a ton of fun. There's a bunch of us in that meeting that are in a bunch of other meetings throughout the week, but that's the only one that we're all in and it's on Friday so everyone's in a good mood. It's awesome. But I would add too, from the sales side of the project and the stuff that we've been working on, and Megan's an amazing partner and we definitely push each other and it's been really, really fun. She helped interview me. And then she's also been one of my biggest partners in crimes since I got here. So we're having a lot of fun, but on the SDR front from an MQL perspective, the culture was kind of... And it's not wrong, but the culture was very much like, well, outbound's better than inbound, right?

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Kristin Agnelli:

I got it myself and we all know that's harder, but we've had to kind of say, actually an MQL is equally as important as you going and doing outbound because we were seeing, SDRs weren't following up on stuff as quickly as they should have been because they're too driven to go find the outbound stuff since that's what they were kind of being pushed to go do. Right? So we had to kind of level set with the team. That's like, Hey, MQL are just as important. Those are high value folks that are raising their hand and we're spending a lot of time and resources creating them and so you can't let them sit there. And so there's an accountability that we've put into place that I don't think was there previously.

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Kristin Agnelli:

And then just a clarity of, there's inbound and outbound reps and I won't get too deep in the weeds, but outbound reps do get MQL for accounts that they're working and stuff, which is okay, but it's like, Hey, you got to jump on these too. So a lot of that is just the philosophical stuff of the team on the sales side and making sure that we're being good partners to the marketing organization.

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Christian Kletzl:

How do you do this? Because I think there's obviously education, but I feel like there's more thought into this to make sure that everyone follows that.

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Kristin Agnelli:

So you can't do it in a day, right? It's not something that you just say, no, this is what we're going to do. And they're all like, okay, I'll go do that now. It'd be great.

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Megan Boone:

Just a slack message is all it takes.

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Kristin Agnelli:

Yeah. One slack message and it was done. Yeah, no, I wish that was true. When you come in and you're kind of rebuilding an SDR work and putting in, which is what I've been working on. And I've been here for six months and just trying to put new rules of engagement and reprioritizing their work and the way that they think it's just a culture shift. Right? And so some of it as boring as documentation and saying, here's kind of the ground rules and the rules of engagement and the things that we do and don't do. Right? The things we tolerate and don't, and then there's just setting expectations consistently. You can't communicate something once. Megan and I were talking yesterday, internal communication I think is often any company and any part of an organization of every company's biggest challenge.

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Kristin Agnelli:

Right? So can't say it once and then assume that it's going to happen. You have to repeatedly hold people accountable and we've done things like, Hey, if you don't follow up on your MQLs within the SLAs we put in place, we're going to reassign them to somebody else. And then we go do that. And then that person gets to book a meeting and create an opportunity where the original SDR should have. So to be frank, if you hit them in their pocketbook, that hurts. Right? So it's a matter of saying, hey, this is the behavior we want, incentivize the behavior that you want and then de-incentivize the behavior that you don't.

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Christian Kletzl:

I want to be part of the tiger team meeting. I think that sounds fun. So what are we doing next week? Just being really creative and then implementing and testing next week or following up?

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Megan Boone:

I mean, I think that was the core learning for me, especially before Kristen got here, I was like, coming in hot, we're going to change this. Here's what we're going to do. And didn't bring people along the journey and hit a wall really, really quickly on that. And so that's why we formed a tiger team of experts to say, hey, let's say, where do we want to go? And let's all work together to get there versus in a silo, defining the entire thing. It's a really hard way to get things done. I don't know anyone who does it successfully that way. So the tiger team make it fun and people will show up weekly and then you get it done faster.

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Trinity Nguyen:

How do you make it fun? I guess we're getting really tactical but now I'm curious. Friday meetings talk about conversion in pipeline and you guys love it? I need to know the secret.

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Megan Boone:

It's a really good group of people who have a lot of trust and care deeply about where we're going, but I don't think anyone takes themselves very seriously. It's not the cliche of leaving your ego at the door, but it also is. I mean, we've got some pretty experienced people in the group who come, they're open, they listen, and they come with ideas. And so I think just the fact that everyone's heard and respected and I also think I'm pretty funny, which helps. But maybe that's a personal thing. But I think doing it on Fridays too, people have less of a schedule. We do a Friday morning west coast hours. And so I think people feel a little bit more free to speak their mind.

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Kristin Agnelli:

We joke. Because we work with each other so much in the group, just to break it down, Megan is funny. So, but we do have, it's like sales ops, marketing ops, some additional layers of leadership kind of at the business operational level that is there most of the time, but then you've got myself, Megan's, you've got a good mix of people at varying levels that, to reiterate Megan, just really sharp, really dedicated to working with each other. And I think we've built an environment and it's Megan's meeting, so we'll give her all the credit for this where, healthy conflict is welcome. And this is something that, and I'll give Megan all kinds of credit here that we've actually never talked about, but she's really good at owning what she's great at and where we're still working on things. Right?

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Kristin Agnelli:

And so then it creates an environment where everybody feels vulnerable enough to share that too, so that we can say, we're really good at this, we're really bad at this. Let's talk about these things in a cross functional way, and that's how we're getting better. If we all walked in there, ready to go and just talking about the easy stuff, we wouldn't be solving a lot of these problems and it wouldn't be as fun.

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Trinity Nguyen:

It's really interesting that you pick the word trust because we interviewed another pair from Drift and Terminus and they used to work together and that was the key word as well. But they worked together for four years, at least. Megan and Kristen, you guys just met six months or so ago during the interview process, right? How did you build a trust in such a short time? Besides Megan being really funny.

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Megan Boone:

That helps. No. I mean, I think it's, Kristen's right, I think it's being vulnerable and saying here's what's working and here's what's not, and I need your help to go fix that. And then just being really clear about what it is that you're going to do together. And I mean, I have total trust in Kristen and I hope she has total trust in me that when we have a conversation, we're both aligned and then we're going out and having those same conversations with our department leaders and the people that matter. And it feels like it's amplified, that work versus having to go do it all alone, which is really hard.

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Kristin Agnelli:

I think it's that. I'm a big believer in, if you're vulnerable right out of the gate, that allows the other people around you to be that way too. And Megan's been that way with me since day one and I try to be the same and we've just built a really great rapport and trust in each other. And we're honest with each other and what you can't ask for more than that, as far as this kind of relationship goes.

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Megan Boone:

Totally. And I do think part of it is, you can't always do this if you're not interviewing someone, but being really transparent about what the problems are if you're interviewing someone coming in and saying, this is what you're walking into, let's not pretend that everything's perfect because we all know it's not. So being really transparent, like, do you want to come solve this with me and with the team? And so that person then comes in and they're like, okay, but I was expecting this so I'm here for it.

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Christian Kletzl:

I love this. This is also what I'm thinking about when we are hiring, like we are a startup. This means you're coming in and there are really good things. And there are really bad things in terms of like, the processes that don't exist. This is great that some don't exist, it's bad that others don't. So just being very transparent and finding the person that thrives in this environment or that wants to have that environment is just key there.

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Trinity Nguyen:

Megan, I want to double click on what you said earlier. So you tried doing this initiative before Kristen joined and you mentioned that you tried and you couldn't... I think you said, couldn't bring the team along. Can you share what happened there?

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Megan Boone:

I'll just say, I came in hot. I wrote this document, I said, here's all the problems that I see. It was very me-centric. I was like, here are the problems that I see. Here's what I want to do. And everyone's like, okay, slow it down way, way, way, way more. Because people are going to be then on the defensive, why are you coming in? Why are you changing processes? What's wrong with what we currently have versus saying, hey, let's get buy in on where do we want to go and what do we think good looks like? And then do that work back plan to be like, okay, well we're going to walk back and we're going to realize that the MQL definition is kind of the start of all of this.

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Megan Boone:

Do we all agree? And get that buy in every step of the way and I think we do that well in our weekly meeting, which is, doing those gut checks, people can be really quiet on zoom meetings and making everyone talk and saying, what is your perspective? And noticing the signals where someone cringes or their body language is holding back and giving them runway to voice their opinion.

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Trinity Nguyen:

Yeah. That's incredible. I feel like that's advice that applied, not just revenue alignment, but any new initiatives, any kind of project. So has there been any conflict? Because naturally, it's a push and pull. So has there been any major conflict and how did you guys resolve that?

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Kristin Agnelli:

No, I was trying to think about it too. We talked about it yesterday and we were like, we got to have something. It's not all puppy dogs and rainbows all the time, right? And I don't know that... I'll answer it, probably in a little bit of a different way. I don't think Megan and I have had conflicts that goes beyond your typical, healthy conflict of agree or disagree and then still commit to whatever the decision is. But I think there's been conflicts along the way of moving the organization in a different way, helping the organization of either the sales culture or a marketing perspective or not all MQLs are created equal and that's something that Megan and I agree with, but not all marketers agree with that, right? And so it's trying to change the board a little bit to come along with us on the journey of what we're trying to do.

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Kristin Agnelli:

And I would say that there's been some conflicts with that along the way that are more in alignment with just change management conflicts and helping people understand and communicating out those changes. And then certainly, bringing the STRs along to say, this is where we're going, and this is how this is going to impact you in a positive way in your workload and in what you're doing. And so I would say there's been some of those kinds of things, but in general, I wouldn't say it's been full of any sort of big conflict.

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Trinity Nguyen:

So sounds like ThoughtSpot, historically, the go to market motion is very much account based. You mentioned like 2000 accounts and that's why the team is very outbound centric. And now that initiative you're both driving, the MQL is kind of like the inbound motion to supplement that, right? And that's a new motion for the team who's been outbound for so long.

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Megan Boone:

Kind of. Kind of. We've always had an inbound motion and marketing's always been a big driver of pipeline for us, but the way we do that is very different than the way we need to do that for our commercial segments. And so for us, the hot term of the day is PLG. We're very much embracing the PLG mindset, but with that comes a lot of challenges. When does the SDR reach out when someone signs up for a free trial? What happens on the pricing page? Really putting that user first and making sure their experience is gate kept as much as possible is really, really hard because everyone has these aggressive goals internally. So I think Kristen's alluding to change management conflict and sometimes that's really where it comes from is this massive shift of well, how do we serve all of our customers really well? And they're all really different. So it ends up being complicated, there's a ton of teams involved, whereas before it was a little bit more traditional marketing sales and the rest of the teams are doing their thing.

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Trinity Nguyen:

Got it. I was kind of guessing it was PLG, but I didn't want to assume because I saw the announcement. So my background was also in analytics space before User Gems. So I saw, I think Scott Holden, is the CMO. I saw the announcement. I'm like, oh wow, they're doing PLG now. And so, oh now this makes sense. So this is an MQL definition tied to the PLG.

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Megan Boone:

A little bit. We've got the complicated product qualified lead coming into that MQL definition, but our MQL definition, because we were only focused on a small number of accounts was really, really wide. We're like, we'll talk to people if they're interested, and now we're trying to say, ideal customer profile is where it's at. Let's try to refine this because pitching our own product, we've got a really, really compelling value prop. We're trying to make data accessible to every business user at every company. And so everyone is interested, but we really want to focus on who are the people who are going to buy now, who are going to buy quickly and be really successful using our product? And then hopefully become champions of us. That's where we really want to put all of our eggs in. It's complicated now that the signals are completely different.

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Trinity Nguyen:

And Kristen, I think you mentioned in a previous call that you guys also used ThoughtSpot to find out who's the right customers or the type of leads that you should prioritize, right? Can you share a bit more? I feel like data kind of like, what ties it two teams together because you guys looking at the same data.

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Kristin Agnelli:

Yeah, absolutely. So we're big on drinking our own champagne to the extent that even our internal instance at ThoughtSpot is called Champagne. So Megan's got a lot of great demand, Jen live boards. Because we believe that data should be live and in the moment versus, these dead dashboards that live for a little while and you got to refresh them all the time. We look at them constantly to see what personas are converting and not just converting from MQL to a meeting that an SDR is setting up but to what Megan said earlier, what's converting to actual sales stages and pipeline and ultimately revenue? Because we can meet with anyone, right? We can meet with a product person and we can show them ThoughtSpot because we have an embedded analytics capability as well. And so, and that's great, but are they going to be empowered to go buy something?

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Kristin Agnelli:

And so there's always that push and pull between the buyer and the seller, right? The STR saying, hey, we can book this meeting, but I know this one's going to get disqualified because they're not going to actually buy anything. But we try to use those things as, how can we learn about the company and learn about what they're doing and still kind of plant a seed and create a little bit of a ground swell within the organization. But that's where the model that we're trying to build and implement out into the organization is helping us to say, okay, well these are great people to maybe have a conversation with, to learn from so they could still MQL. But these aren't necessarily the people that we are going to call a super high value MQL that gets flagged immediately for follow up because we really want to make sure that we prioritize the SCR's time in the most effective way so that they're going to those decision makers first and that those are the low hanging fruit and that's where they go.

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Kristin Agnelli:

And then using our own data internally to say, these are the validated points that we're using as we're building the model and that the SDRs are acting on them at really rapid pace and get sort of called out in a public positive way of, hey look, this SDR did this and it was amazing and they get to kind of share that on sales, all hands and all kinds of other fun things to celebrate those successes.

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Trinity Nguyen:

Because a lot of time people talk about alignment is the data. Sometimes in a lot of companies, marketing lives in HubSpot and Marketo, sales and Salesforce, different metrics. That's when you kind of, what is going on? Sounds like you guys already tie all that, kind of a unified data view. Is that kind of like what goes on in the tiger Friday meetings?

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Megan Boone:

Absolutely. I mean, we can't move any projects forward without data that we all trust. And that's what we're really trying to solve is, break all of this data out of its silos, bring it together so that when Kristen and I are talking, we're sharing the same views of data and she can see everything that's going on in my world, I can see everything that's going on in world and really democratize that access. I mean, not to just use... I think everyone says that but we very much believe, we've got all these sources of data, we've got to bring them together we have to give them to everybody so they can do their jobs really efficiently. That's how you build alignment and trust is, this is what we're working towards. And this is what we know. This is our reality and you all have access to that.

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Trinity Nguyen:

Well, that's great. And I think, well, ThoughtSpot definitely has that democratizing data for everyone. I think that makes sense, because we can search, you're just typing normal human language instead of SQL of Python and gazillion other things so I believe in that.

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Megan Boone:

Exactly. And that's how we do it. It's not just bringing all the data together in one unified view, but making it really easy for us to access too. And that's the Google search component of it, which is, we all search in our everyday lives. Why shouldn't we be able to search for answers in our data? And so you just have to come with the questions, that's all you need.

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Christian Kletzl:

And I think Kristen, in your team, does the data sometimes say different things than the experience of the SDRs?

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Kristin Agnelli:

Sometimes. Yeah. And I mean, you also have to think about your SDRs that are in different parts of the world and some of them just because of the nature of where we are in our journey in that region. Right? So in Australia, we have one SDR, Maddie, who's amazing and she's incredible, but she's hybrid. She's handling everything, right? So she's handling inbound free trials and the follow up there, she's handling them MQLs that are coming in for the region and then she's doing, strategic outbound and alignment with her AEs that she supports as well. So she's wearing a lot of different hats. So the data always tells the truth, but the experience of the SDR does vary a little bit based on what they're having to handle. So hybrid SDR, the data will say, even though their hybrid, that a lot of their work is actually marketing sourced and that's good, right?

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Kristin Agnelli:

That's okay. And we say some of that marketing source and Megan and I talk about this and Scott is a big believer in this too, that outbound SDRs create MQLs. Right? And so when you have them doing work and they've got outreach sequences that are pointing to marketing content or events or programs or things like that, they're going to create kind of self-generated MQLs, which shows that it's SDR created, but it's marketing source. And it's just a really good partnership of how SDRs should work in tandem with the marketing programs and campaigns and content and things that Megan's team is putting together. So the data will tell us that it's actually heavy marketing source when a lot of times that, not a lot, but sometimes that marketing source is a combination of the outreach sequences and things like that, utilizing marketing programs. So one nuance, I would say. But otherwise, it's always right.

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Trinity Nguyen:

But it's true. Right? The last point, I mean that by a journey is not a straight line. So just on one, see an ad or get an SDR outreach and then they... You just can't map it. So everyone who works together because the buyer journey is not straight, they don't make a decision just because of one thing, it's a combination. So it's actually, we should work together, essentially.

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Megan Boone:

Hundred percent. And I mean, that's why it's so important too, that there's no ego involved in where things we're being sourced from. We're looking at opportunity source, we simplify it to marketing SDR sales, but we're just trying to crack the net of, where should we spend our time and money and just keep doing the things that are working well versus trying to take credit or ownership for something that occurred?

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Christian Kletzl:

Even though it very much feels like, if I'm the SDR and I write an email and they respond, it certainly feels very much like I sourced it, yeah?

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Megan Boone:

Hundred percent, and one way we tackle it, it's not perfect, but it's just in the attribution of it, which is, we build specific pages for the SDR sequences. Now, separate thing to tackle is making sure everyone's using the right sequences the right lane, so I won't say it's perfect by any means. But then saying, it then does becomes sales source but we want to know that, that marketing campaign or that message was the hook, but still make sure that the SDR is getting the credit or we're putting where credit is due.

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Trinity Nguyen:

Christian loves to claim credits. We have a demo request comes in and it's like, yeah. Is this from ABM campaign? He's like, Nope. I talked to this person at a field event two years ago.

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Christian Kletzl:

I was at that conference and I remember, okay? That's why they came back.

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Megan Boone:

This is why attribution is so sticky too, because it's oftentimes those in-person conversations that you can't track back to. This was a LinkedIn ad that went out this day. I mean, it's what a mess.

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Kristin Agnelli:

Attributions. We could probably have a whole nother podcast just on attribution. Because there's all kinds of philosophies.

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Trinity Nguyen:

I feel like it's more like a therapy session.

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Megan Boone:

I think it's a therapy session.

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Kristin Agnelli:

Is it last touch, is it first touch? What happened? And how much time in between? Are you still allowed to... Oh yeah. All kinds of fun things.

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Trinity Nguyen:

All that. So to wrap things up, so it sounds like you guys went through a lot in terms of changing major motion. This is a huge initiative. It's a different way of doing things for the SDR team and the hand out between the two teams and then building the alignment and you guys just start working together. So there's a lot of newness in this. So for other revenue practitioners that are going through the same experience right now, what would be your top three advice or tips that they could keep in mind as they kind of figure that out?

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Kristin Agnelli:

Bringing the teams along and the organization along, they have to know why, right? Why are we trying to change the process? What's in it for them and why is it good for the business? And so just being really transparent about, these are some of the things we're trying to change, here's why we're trying to change them. Here's the benefit to you. And from a sales perspective, here's how it's going to impact you positively in your commission check, all of those things. Right? And so I think just, over communicating and communicating along the way of what we're trying to do, why we're trying to do it, where we are against that, and then taking it a week at a time, a month at a time, a quarter at a time, because sometimes when you make big sweeping changes like this, that where, you get lost in, this is really big, how do I actually go tackle this?

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Kristin Agnelli:

And I think using Asana and meeting every Friday and having that cross-functional alignment and accountability lets us move things along on a consistent basis in a way that doesn't feel so big and overwhelming that we can't do it. Right? And so I think it's those things too. I don't know how many of that counts as, but probably a couple.

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Trinity Nguyen:

That part is so true and people don't talk about it enough. I think it just culturally, people just don't talk about the incentives, but I really think it is true. And we just have a new SVP of sales on CS join. And I told him on day one, I'm like, I'm comm-ed on revenue. So we are on the same page. I'm with you. So yeah, that's a really good tip. I like that.

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Christian Kletzl:

That's awesome. You should share this before every meeting. Okay. Here are the things I hear about based on my compensation structure.

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Kristin Agnelli:

Yeah.

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Trinity Nguyen:

This is great. Well, thank you so much, Megan and Kristen. This is really, really fun.

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Kristin Agnelli:

We really appreciate you having us on, this was lots of fun. Thank you guys.

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Trinity Nguyen:

Thanks for joining us on this episode of The First 100 Days. Be sure to hit that follow button as we get more revenue teams to share their stories.

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