Throw the book… at the playbook!
Socrates is known as the “Father of Western Philosophy” for his contributions, which laid the foundation for Western thought. Socrates believed that a good life was guided by virtue, reason, and moral principles, and that introspection and critical thinking were essential. He said, “Virtue is knowledge” and that an unexamined life was meaningless.
Why am I citing Socrates in a Revenue Magazine?
Introspection and Critical Thinking are essential skills and modalities for the modern CRO.
Especially when it comes to ‘The Playbook”
What is your playbook?
I read an article by a prominent SaaS influencer that got me fired up!
“The old playbooks are dead” and “If you are a SaaS CRO and you are not writing custom GPT’s, you are a dinosaur” she wrote.
Come on people. The concept of a ‘proven playbook’ has been dead for a while. The mystical old playbook that ‘worked’ for you all that time ago was redundant a long time ago.
But a custom AI prompt aint’ doing it either (yet).
A CRO’s journey to find the optimal Product-Market-Fit, Strategy, People, Process, Systems and Metrics is a constantly evolving journey. AKA – the Playbook.
You cannot think that, in this day and age you can download some rando’s Playbook and expect it to yield amazing results. Thats absurd. You have to work for it.
Same for Comp Plans – I was talking to the CRO of a SaaS scaleup recently and he was telling me how the old comp plan that worked so well in his prior company wasnt having the intended effect in his new company.
“No shit” I said. “What behaviors are you trying to drive?” was my first question.
“…….” Blank Stare
Turns out, everything was different about the company he was now leading, however there he was, trying to shoehorn the magical comp plan down the throats of his new team.
And the same is true for the playbook.
Every business is different and has nuances that put wrinkles in everything you know.
You have to SEARCH for it. You have to be in a constant state of experiment. As Socretes says “Introspection and Critical Thinking” are essential.
I worked for the CEO of a Unicorn that scaled well beyond $200m ARR while I was there, who had this concept of ‘Bullets and Cannonballs”.
The bullets represented experiments – small bullets to see if you get a breakthrough. When you did and it was sustainable, with the data to back it up…..
…. BOOM CANNONBALL! We went for it!
One of the reasons I dont like the current crop of ‘Sales Influencers’ is because they speak in generalities.
Embrace the nuance, go on the journey. Experiment. Dont buy some rando’s playbook for a grand and expect it to yield.
