Are You Producing Outcomes, or Outputs?
I recently read a book by Joshua Seiden, one he wrote to help software product teams better prioritize their work according to its impact on the business.
In “Outcomes Over Output: Why customer behavior is the key metric for business success”, Seiden argues that while software teams are often focused on trying to ship as many features as they can, they should instead be focused on shipping the right features. They should prioritize the Outcomes, which Seiden tells us are “A change in behavior that drives business impact”.
And then it hit me.
This book is about Revenue Enablement.
Think about it. If changing behavior to drive business impact doesn’t describe our job in one sentence, then I don’t know what does.
So many Revenue Enablement teams struggle to prove their value because they stray too far from business impact. They create decks. Put on another training. Maybe they even roll out a cool new tool, or the latest product updates to raving fans (LOL – a girl can dream, right?). But with each step we take back from directly affecting behaviors that drive revenue, we take a step further away from our value to the organization.
But how do we determine the behaviors that drive revenue? You guessed it… DATA! We have data coming out of our ears, and most of it is now tracked without salespeople having to lift a finger. Every email, phone call, and touch base with a prospect is tracked inside of CRMs. Call intelligence tools even tell us what top performers are saying and how they’re communicating with prospects throughout the cycle.
There’s gold in them there data hills, but it’s our job to go digging. Want to go find the behaviors that drive revenue? Here is an over-simplified step-by-step that will at least get you started.
- Inventory Your Data
What data do you have available across all of your different tools? What is the one unique identifier you can use to pull it together and associate it with your AEs? Hint: it’s usually their email. Once you figure out the data points you have at your disposal, it’s easier to start to find patterns and associations between top performers and behaviors. Think outside the CRM. You can look at activity metrics, scorecards from CI tools like Gong or Chorus, learning data, and more! - Benchmark Your Revenue Levers Across AEs
Take your average deal size, win rate, average deal cycle length, and number of opportunities in a given time period (ideally a complete fiscal year) and see who sticks out above or below average. Who has crazy high close rates, or an absurd number of opportunities? Sometimes the numbers that “stick out” are actually showing flaws in the data. However, sometimes those things that “stick out” are actually indicators that someone is doing something different, but GOOD. Go dig in and figure out the behavior behind that above-average performer. - Map the Behaviors that Accelerate Revenue
I like to do a “swim lane exercise”, as Joshua Seiden mentions in his book. Mapping the consumer journey across the top, you can map the behaviors driving revenue at each stage below. One of the best things about mapping behaviors this way, is that you can have a lane for AEs, SDRs, Sales Engineers… anyone who touches the revenue cycle. Once you have those behaviors mapped, look at which ones impact revenue most. Then, it’s time to enable! - Stay Laser-Focused on Outcomes
I admit, it feels good to get things done. To produce the battle card, or complete the product rollout. It can be truly difficult to stay focused on outcomes. But the minute we in revenue enablement take our eye off the ball… that’s when we get sucked into the requests. The one-pagers (*shiver*). The “just need one more training” pleas from stakeholders. If we can only stay focused on the solutions and work that drives our behaviors tied to revenue, THAT is when things get real. THAT is when we prove our value.
This is high-level, general guidance to get you started, but I hope it at least has you thinking about how you might begin to shift priorities in your work around Outcomes. Learn how to analyze and interpret data if you aren’t comfortable with it yet. ChatGPT is your friend and will help you with whatever math or formulas you might think are too hard to conquer.
I believe in you, my friend. Now go get those Outcomes!
