AMA: Cisco Senior Director, Global Virtual Sales Strategy and Operations, Ignacio Castroverde on Finance / Revenue Ops Alignment

These are few elements I would take into account to o enable our finance teams to understand what SDRs represent and have them play a role in structuring territories & OTE. - Educate Finance About SDRs: It has the crucial job of prospecting and qualifying leads, so it can pump your AEs with ready-to-close opportunities. - Give Them the Numbers: Finance is data-driven. Estimate how many more qualified leads, conversion rates and sales SDRs can bring. For instance, if every SDR is able to produce X additional meetings a month that equals Y total more deals. Be realistic, and make sure you have enough fuel ($s) to feed that engine. - Discuss Compensation and Territories Together: Bring finance to the table when you set On-Target Earnings (OTE) for SDRs, using benchmarks from your industry to back up those numbers. Because your AEs divided the U.S. in half, make it easy for them to win by aligning SDR territories likewise; - Collaborate and Communicate — Always keep the lines open. Financing being involved with these decisions brings ownership — but they also have great potential to provide insights into how budgets and resources can be allocated. When you are able to clearly communicate the benefits and also make finance part of the process, it becomes a whole lot easier for them to get on board with hiring SDRs – but not only that — structuring territories in this way saves your company money too.

How I go about getting budget for these experimental programs really comes down to the CFOs style. If they are risk averse and very data-oriented, I will: - View From Other Side: Imagining their most frequent worry. Do they want numbers set in stone, or are they OK with a potential payoff and some risk? - Pilot: I recommend starting with a pilot. A smaller investment is easier to justify, and we want to get some proof of concept data. – Keep Flexible: In my offer, I state that we are prepared to make changes or temporarily halt the program considering results and proving our understanding of a company's money. When I cater to their style, and try not to get too fancy with the conversation it is usually easier for me to propose my innovations.

If your pipeline and forecasting reports are only out by 20% each quarter better here is my advice on how to give them surgery: - MEDDPICC for Qualification Rollout: This framework helps standardize how your teams are qualifying opportunities amongst everyone. This brings an extra level of discipline to your sales process and means you only move in well-qualified deals, making forecasts more robust. - Revisit Your Opportunity Stages Again — Once more, make sure you have defined your opportunity stages in Salesforce clearly so that it is well understood and used consistently by every sales team member. If this is misaligned, your forecasts are out of whack. - Analyzing Historic Data: go back to previous quarter and see where differences happened. Is there a particular stage known to be consistently overestimated? Leverage these insights to reset or recalibrate your forecasting assumptions. – Weighted Probabilities: Rather than only caring about opp stages use more reasonable probability percentages for each stage that develops based on prior win rates. It puts some life into your forecasts, and accurately reflects the probability of converting deals. – Weekly Pipeline Reviews: Schedule regular calls to review the pipeline in great detail. In this way, it will pick up any discrepancies or apparently merrily deals before they affect your metrics. - Use Advanced Forecasting Tools: You can use advanced forecasting features on Salesforce or third part tools that offer predicative analytics to increase accuracy. With the MEDDPICC approach and a lot of rigour in taking care of data hygiene, tightening this qualification process would definitely lead to better pipeline accuracy & hence forecasting as well.

To rationalize with a cost centric finance team is slightly challenging, but let me give it a try: – List the Advantages: Define how exactly integrating these SaaS tools and switching tech stack will result in increased revenue or better forecasting. Use actual numbers or examples where applicable – it really strengthens your argument. - If you can, I think it's worth stressing that while there is an initial expense with short-term solutions they pay off in the long run. Or it automates some drudge labor, eliminates errors or consolidates several legacy systems and ultimately saves money. That sets the stage for this place in your followup process where you point out any current pain points and gently nudge them to notice that they just might be holding their company back. Demonstrate how the new tools alleviate these pains! Option 2: Suggest a pilot program or limited rollout of the feature. Also, by starting small it reduces the initial outlay and allows their finance teams to understand how they benefit from this move. Align with Company Goals: Your proposal should link back to those big-picture objectives that the company is trying to achieve. Showing how your recommendations help to boost revenue and better forecast accordingly if those are the priorities. – Bring them to the Table — Involve finance people from Day One Input from them may be useful and inviting them might help in making then comfortable with the concept. - Prepare for Questions: Expect them to be worried about price, time needed and risks. Have your honest answers ready, as transparency will help with trust. - Be Flexible: If they are still resistant, start the changes slow by saying "ok, Let's try doing this setup in phases" or pick a couple of most used tools.

How I build a case for more finance resources to support our revenue engine - Connect the Dots: Showed how increasing finance support would lead to more revenue. With more finance folks, we would be able to turn our sales data around quicker and find trends sooner so that we could make faster adjustments. - Show Examples: I gave specific instances where we were hamstrung or lost deals due to capital constraints, There is no better way than real-world impacts to illustrate the necessity. - Relative to Big Picture Goals: I connected the context of my ask with goals that are relevant. So, when we want to drive growth aggressively then it is natural that should also invest in the teams which can analyze and direct this growth. ROI Top of Mind: I explained that this is how ROI would be worth the cost Instead, we might find that it produces cost or revenue initiatives in excess of their salary and therefore another finance team member worth investing in. - Collaborate: I began by working with the very same finance team, to get an understanding of their pain points and desires. His partnership helped in building a stronger case to present it before the leadership. - Simplicity: I tried not to confuse them about anything using jargon or too much technical information. Keeping the pitch simple mattered because it made value evident to all.

Why It's Great: All parties work together on the front end which alows for issues to be identified early and deals close properly. Faster Approvals: With buy-in from all parties up front, there is no greatly reduced last-minute runaround. Lower Risks: Both legal and finance identify potential problems upfront, save you $$$ down the line. Preventing It from Holding Us Back - Define Processes: Everyone should understand the steps and what are they suppose todo to prevent any setbacks in operations. Empower the Deal Desk: Provide them with ability to make some decisions without involving high ranks. Deploy collaborative software that allows everyone to follow the status of each deal in real-time. - Open Communication: Ensure everyone stays in the know to avoid miscommunication or delays And when you thoughtfully set up your deal desk, you can have the best of all worlds — deals are fast and high-quality AND it doesn't bog down sales execution.