30 Minutes 
Mark Lerner:
All right, Michelle. Welcome.
Michelle Pietsch:
Thanks, Mark. Thanks for having me.
Mark Lerner:
Yeah. So before we kind of dive into today’s topic, why don’t we go ahead and tell the folks at home a little bit about yourself and your background and how you got to where you’re at today?
Michelle Pietsch:
Yeah, absolutely. My background is building out early stage sales teams from the ground up. Most of my experience came from Datadog, where I built the sales team from three to a hundred over the course of four years. Went to Drift to do the same thing and then dually. So I’ve seen multiple different stages of growth through scale and focusing on that go, go-to-market builds to see repeatable success. And then a few years ago, my business partner Niche, with whom we worked together at Drift, came to me and said, you’re consulting and advising. I’m consulting and advising, let’s do our own thing, but for many early stage startups. And then we pulled in John Lane, our head of operations to add that third leg of the stool. So right now we work with early stage companies to help them build out that go-to-market function, to see repeatable success as they scale. We tackle a number of different projects and it’s been really exciting over the past almost three years.
Mark Lerner:
And shout out to Sean, a two-time guest on the podcast and a mutual acquaintance who actually I think put us in touch. So thanks for that, Sean. And I think having the opportunity to work with companies at an early stage to kind of get ops in place, build them to scale is probably more important today than ever. But I think one of the things you and I were talking about offline, this challenge of being able to have realistic expectations for revenue operations, like not setting outlandish goals or to really ensure that expectations are and goals and are realistic and can be actually solved and setting people up for success in that. So maybe you can give a little bit of context around the challenge as you’ve seen it in the market where the expectations are kind of outside the scope of realism.
Michelle Pietsch:
Yeah, absolutely. In the early stage coming in as a first time sales leader, typically when there’s less than 15 people, you get that round of funding, whether it’s C, A or B, and then your board and investors, your C level, want to see quadruple the revenue over the next year. And we’re working with a lot of our clients right now on that, and we don’t have rev ops at that point. So Rev ops plays a really, really important role, especially early on to break down those silos and improve the forecasting and the overall accountability on the team. And really just bringing the reality to the table around what is a realistic goal. And most people are just operating independently on that go-to market team early on trying to figure out how you’re going to get to three, four x of that revenue target because your CEO just told you to do that. But rev ops, if you hire them early enough, they bring that collaboration really early on, which makes it successful, and they’re able to help the overall organization identify how they’re going to get to those outrageous targets or they’ll bring some light to the end of the tunnel and say, this is not how we’re not going to get there, but let’s look at the overall playbook and how we can get there from a revenue or metric standpoint.
Mark Lerner:
Yeah, I mean it’s an interesting kind of paradox because rev ops is the thing that generally allows you to have those more realistic projections and ways to get an idea of where to go and how to get there. And so without it in place, it does become a little bit of a guessing game. So it’s got chicken or egg. Do you set those expectations first or do you first make sure that you have rev ops in place? But I’m interested from the perspective that you set working with a whole bunch of different companies, earlier stage companies, founders, have you seen those expectations change and shift over the last few years? And if you have, what has been the nature of that change?
Michelle Pietsch:
Yeah, absolutely. So ops and has been a title that most people don’t really know what they do. And when they hire rev ops, they really do add a different level of expertise in the org, especially when it comes to bringing those different types of individuals together from a marketing standpoint, from a product standpoint and sales in order to see rapid growth and they’ll help you overcome those scaling challenges. What happens now in today’s world, there’s a lot of disjointed communication and misalignment between the revenue driving teams because everyone wants to go this way. Everyone has a different opinion on named accounts strategy or this tool, that tool. And with everything that’s coming out with AI and less hiring but more revenue needs, rev ops comes into play there and they’re really just the ultimate backbone of the revenue focus organization. And it’s not necessarily about driving efficiency across the team, it’s really about fostering alignment and empowering those teams to see that sustainable growth. And that is where I see Rev ops really putting more of a focus over the next several years is really helping that org see that sustainable growth over these challenges and changes that are coming in the market.
Mark Lerner:
And I think we are in a time when there’s the expectation of doing more with less. We were in a phase that was growth at all costs that shifted to scalable growth or efficient growth and looking for ways to do that, to create efficiencies, be that alignment being part of it. But as you said, there’s all sorts of technological disruption happening in our world, and I’m interested when it comes to you bringing up AI when it comes to tools like that. Do you find that your conversations may be early on in your relationship with Customers Shift where there’s more kind of like, okay, we want to do everything with an AI agent or something. Has that expectation come up yet or has it still been kind of tempered?
Michelle Pietsch:
It varies depending on the organization. I will say some of them are afraid to have their employees use AI and use AI tools, especially as they’re scaling and growing the team. They don’t want any of their data out there. They want the team to be more genuine and personalized in their approaches. So when they’re looking at an AI tool or AI chat, they’re a little bit hesitant and we like to get them to think about how they can be more efficient. So for example, rev ops, they’ll look at the success of the sales team or the BDRs and identify that they’re not working as fast as they should. So what tools can we put in front of them to make them more efficient as well as more efficient and just get to where they need to be faster without all the guesswork that is typically at an early stage. What is the value proposition? What is the ICP? You could use AI and tools to help you get there a lot faster.
Mark Lerner:
Yeah, it’s interesting that you’re seeing that because it’s been my experience that the larger or more established a company is the greater the hesitancy is. And I kind of chalk that up too. There’s more to lose reputationally. So I guess the inverse isn’t necessarily true that the smaller and earlier on a company is the more comfortable they are taking those risks, which is an interesting kind of phenomenon to maybe explore in a further episode. But when you’re working with a new customer, let’s say, or a new client, an early stage company and you want to get them on the road to sustainable growth, which is the expectation today, what’s the roadmap? How are things set up to create that sustainability and how are the expectations that’s going to be put on the rev ops org aligned to reality?
Michelle Pietsch:
Yeah, that’s a great question. First, what we specifically do, or Sean from a rev ops standpoint and Rev ops that I’ve hired very early on, they really focus on the impact that the company needs to have across all different teams in order to start to chip away at some of those major initiatives for the year. So for example, implementing the OKR framework, making sure that we have all of the data and tools in place in order for us to understand what’s working and what’s not working. And then looking at the sales and revenue side lead scoring, what tool sets do we need in order for the team to start to see some success from an outbound approach? What rev ops projects need to happen in order to impact on revenue, have that positive impact on revenue. So really starting at that OKR model right out of the gates, when I hired Rev Ops super early at one of my orgs, that was what we implemented because we were all working in many different directions. So products coming out with a big release, we don’t know what impact that’s going to have on pipeline gen. We don’t have pipeline gen marketing. What are you focusing on sales? What are you focusing on? Rev ops comes in and implements accountability across all parts of the org, especially at that C level VP and down to the individual contributor level.
Mark Lerner:
Yeah, accountability. I like that. But I would imagine not everybody loves accountability, right? So do you have some challenges, some hesitation from different parts of organizations or generally in my experience, they’re at least in previous companies with sales for example, they have a very set way of doing things and they don’t really want to change because they’re in their flow. So you’re adding this new thing, you say it may help, but in the short term, it’s going to take me longer and I’m going to maybe miss my quota or something. So I mean are those challenges there and how do you deal with that?
Michelle Pietsch:
Yeah, absolutely. And we see it when there hasn’t been rev ops for quite some time. So then you have these really bad habits and if you wait too long, then it will take two years to unpack those bad habits and then create those really good habits that need to happen, like an operating model, operating meetings that you all look at what’s working and what’s not working. It is better to just rip the bandaid off knowing that it’s going to take a little bit of time for the team to adopt the new motion or these metrics that you’re expecting them to be able to articulate back to the org about what’s working, what’s not working. I think that’s where RevUps comes in. They need to be able to provide these agile metrics at any given point. Pick three, just pick three to start with and just outline why it’s super important for the team to adopt these. So improve operational efficiency, which will then lead you to build more pipelines to close more revenue to hit those targets and get to your quota versus we have no idea where we’re running, we’re just closing deals. We don’t know how many leads marketing is going to bring to the table and having those silos across the org.
Mark Lerner:
Yeah, I mean I think some people like their silos. They find them very comfy and warm,
Michelle Pietsch:
Right? But in order to get to the next level, you can be comfy and warm, but are you going to get that next round of funding? Are you going to be acquired? Whatever your goals are, you need to be able to change. And that’s where I think rev ops has helped me and the orgs that I’ve worked in really started to bring that to light and the importance of it.
Mark Lerner:
Yeah. So you talked a bit about hiring or bringing on an ops function early on and that you’ve done it in previous roles and that’s kind of the focus in your current one. How early are we talking? Is there some sort of threshold or marker that once you’ve crossed that now it’s time to implement rev ops? Or is it the kind of thing where you’ll only know that you should have done it six months too late?
Michelle Pietsch:
Yeah, that’s a good question. I think it depends on the success of the company. Are you starting to see repeatability in revenue? I was tasked with doubling my team, but no one knew how we were going to get to those numbers. So that’s before I hired 10 more reps. I need rev ops to then help me identify what are these territories, how are we getting the leads? Are these goals attainable? How can we hold each other accountable across the organization, just not on the sales side. And at that point, it’s usually just me building the dashboards and the reports and everyone’s using different spreadsheets and different tools to track their own success. But when you get that, if you’re going for that other round of funding or you just got a round of funding or you need to hire, I think it’s really important to identify that revenue rev ops title and get them in there sooner than later. Super early.
Mark Lerner:
Yeah. I think one of the challenges that a lot of revenue folks I’ve talked to over the last year and change doing is that they experience their peers’ experience. You mentioned that rev ops is often ill-defined, vaguely defined differently by different people. I know Sean in that book you have over there, he talked about a solid definition. But the main challenge that comes up is that there is a natural tendency for a company that maybe didn’t have rev ops before or people in the company to treat rev ops as a service function as a CRM admin, as a person that creates a dashboard as opposed to a strategic proactive role where you sit down and you set the strategy for the go to market and this is how we are going to break down the silos and align and this is how we’re going to have that predictability. And so I would imagine that getting in early on is probably a good forcing function to ensure that that mentality doesn’t take hold, but this challenge about being a service function rather than strategic.
Michelle Pietsch:
Absolutely.
Mark Lerner:
How do you see that broadly and what are some ways that someone may be in a role like that who’s starting to be pigeonholed to just being an admin? How can they break out of it?
Michelle Pietsch:
I think I actually had to do that when I hired Rev ops to tell people what this person’s role is. So they’re not going to just tweak that one Salesforce report for you. That’s not their role. I think being really open and outlining their specific goals and what their focus is on a day-to-day is super important right out of the gates, people think that rev ops will be that catchall for all of the issues that the organization has, but ultimately their goal is to really help streamline some of these issues that you all have and foster a unified focus across the overall org. And that’s not busy work, like little admin tasks that some people have. Then you build out another role for Salesforce admin or sales operations that focuses on building those dashboards. The rev ops for me is I think of them as my partner in crime when it comes to scaling an efficient go-to-market org and working very closely with C-level and all of the other department heads with product and marketing, sales, cs, everyone that is also gold at the higher level as well. So I think it’s really important to outline this is their job and then everything else Rev ops has reported to me. So everything else would need to go through me if it does not align with the outline I gave you.
Mark Lerner:
One of the interesting trends that I think I’ve observed that other people observed you’ve probably observed as well is that along with this transition from growth at all costs, maybe a lot more leeway on budgets where you’re in a world where every kind of subdepartment got their own kind of tool that they wanted to whatever you wanted, it created this kind of tech debt bloat of connecting things. And we’ve come to a place where it seems like both purchasing is being much more looked over and there is a level of consolidation that seems to be happening that a lot of those point solutions are now gone. And either you just got to make do with the consolidated tool if there’s something you can do there or you just got to figure it out on your own.
Michelle Pietsch:
For sure.
Mark Lerner:
So I would say one, have you seen that play out and does it exist in the startup world as well? And two, do you think that that creates a challenge, an opportunity or both from a rev ops perspective?
Michelle Pietsch:
Great question. Yes, we see it at all different levels across our customers. Less is more these days. So I think it does put a little bit of a challenge on the rev ops function because people are used to let me buy this tool, I’m going to see a demo of this tool, and then next thing you know, you have that bloat, but now Rev ops is pushing back and saying, what are you going to accomplish with this other tool when we have a free version of this that does the exact same thing as that tool? Where we push for less is more, to be honest, because change management is extremely difficult. And then what happens is it’s pushed on rev ops. Well, rev ops half my sales team isn’t using that tool anymore, but I want to go buy this one and guess who’s going to do the research on it and implement it?
The rev ops. So they’re fighting that constant battle internally. I can speak really just for the sales team because they’re hit up by different sales reps to demo this tool and that tool. But I think the new way is going to be less is more because of the lack of change management. They can only focus on so many things. So what’s another tab? What’s another tool going to do? Is it going to help generate revenue? And I think there’s going to be a lot more business cases that need to be sold internally across many different functions, not just ops in the future.
Mark Lerner:
So I have this hunch and I have yet to see it play out beyond what I’ve been seeing and doing, but I feel like the ground has been seeded because these point solutions are now more often than not, no longer available to folks to meet their specific use case. And they either have to potentially fit a square peg into a round hole of their CRM or whatever that leaves an opportunity for ops to create an incredible amount of value for their own role in the company by focusing on bespoke internal tooling. And I think previously that was probably more of a bottleneck because Rev ops is less of a developer. But in my experience, there’s some AI tools out there now that have really shrunken the gap between someone who can think technically and someone who actually has technical coding skills. So I mean, just as an example, I as whatever, I kind of sit on both sides of growth marketing operations that sit across all of it. I’ve been doing a lot of this. Hey, we have a gap here and we’re not going to buy a tool for $30 a month to fit that gap. I’m just going to kind of go on Claude or VO dev or cursor and create an internal tool, which I’ve done. And you can’t really tell the difference. Obviously it’s taped together with duct tape in certain ways, but it feels like that’s the ultimate use case for rev ops to kind of be the hero. Do you see that as the potential near term future?
Michelle Pietsch:
Absolutely. So you have a tool, there might be a small gap, but is there a workaround or is there a fix within that tool that you have today? And if you do buy another tool for that $30 a month, is it going to actually be used in the capacity that the person internally is trying to sell you on? No. But will the bandaid approach that you can build that will do just fine and no one will actually notice the difference once they get used to using it. There’s workarounds and a lot of these tools. If you buy one, you have an API or there’s a workaround or anything that you can find.
Michelle Pietsch:
I suggest trying to think outside of the box and a little bit more creatively before you go spend another $15,000 a year when no one’s half the team’s going to use it.
Mark Lerner:
Right. Yeah. I find it to be an incredibly exciting time because there’s so much, the moat around knowledge from a technical perspective has decreased a lot.
Michelle Pietsch:
Absolutely.
Mark Lerner:
Yeah. And it’s not to say that every Joe and Jane out there can pull up Chachi PT and become a director of rev ops or a developer or whatever, but if you have that kind of systems thinking, if you kind of think things through in that technical way, you’re really able to do a ton of stuff. I’m interested in the last few minutes that we have here. We’re in January of 2025, so early in the game, who knows what we’ll be in January, 2026. Hopefully we, I’ll still be here and healthy. But looking through the lens, a very narrow lens of the go to market, the go to market tech stack, the revenue organization as we go through this year, where do you see the potential, maybe not black swan events, but the potential things that might throw a wrench in more rigid annual plans that have happened where people should need to prepare to be a little bit more flexible? I know it’s tough.
Michelle Pietsch:
I think, yeah, I think what we just talked about, right? So for example, we’re looking at a lot of marketing funnels right now, or lack thereof when it comes to their annual plan.
How can I make my SDR team and a team more efficient with less is more? So getting really creative with some of the tools that are out there that are either free or ai. And I think that will blow some people’s minds what is actually possible once they start to implement it. And it will take some time for individuals in the org to adopt it, but the success will be there. We do it pretty often with some of the SDR teams that we work with. They didn’t even think that some of the messaging and the techniques were possible. They’re manually going through some of their tasks throughout the day. But if you take the time to get a little creative and start to think outside the box how you can be more efficient, I think in the next several months you’ll start to see people, SDRs or AEs who are doing it. I’m just using outbound prospecting as an example. It’s top of mind for me right now. But doing that becomes a lot more efficient and successful compared to what you’ve seen in the last several years, just with what is out there today. And when you’re looking at your annual plan, how are we going to get there? You’ll look back and see the small changes you made by thinking outside of the box and getting creative. And in June, wow, look, we were able to accomplish this outrageous number from a marketing standpoint with the small team being more efficient using free tools or ai.
Mark Lerner:
Well, I think that’s a perfect place to put a pin on it. Hopefully in June, we’ll be able to have that conversation. I hope so. I know, I hope so. That would be ideal. Michelle, before we say goodbye, maybe, is there anywhere that the folks at home can go to learn more about what you’re doing with the folks you and the rest of your team are doing, website, LinkedIn, something like that?
Michelle Pietsch:
Yeah, we’re at beacon gtm.com and I’m on LinkedIn. It’s Michelle Peach Beacon, GTM. So feel free to reach out.
Mark Lerner:
Alright. And we’ll put that in the show notes. With that, Michelle, thank you so much for joining us today. Hopefully maybe in June or January of next year we can have a follow up and kind of see where things played out in some of the positions.
Michelle Pietsch:
Yeah, for sure. Thanks.
Mark Lerner:
Bye.
