Philipp Stelzer: Hello, and welcome everyone to another episode of the RevOps Lab Podcast. I'm Philip, and I'm here today with Janis. Hello, Janis. Hey. How's it going?

Janis Zech: All good here.

Philipp Stelzer: Yeah. We are actually at episode eighty six of the RevOps Lab. And even though this is not a very crazy or specific number, it's definitely higher than I think any number that we dreamed of when we first started this podcast. And we thought summertime, so now is a good opportunity to just recap some of the episodes that we recorded these past years, we have to say at this point, just go through them again, highlight them, and maybe one or two of them are worth relistening to. Maybe those episodes actually touching on a topic that you are currently facing. Right? Maybe you're thinking about how should I run QBRs at the end of the year. Maybe you're working on territory planning or some of the things. Right? So we just wanted to go through some episodes and quickly recap them, tell you what number they were, with whom we recorded them. So maybe there's a few nuggets and gems in there worth listening to for you. So, Janis, do you wanna start? What's an episode that got you thinking?

Janis Zech: Yeah. First and foremost, I wanna start with thanking everybody who's joined the RevOps Lab podcast as a guest. I think you were all amazing, so very much appreciate this, and this podcast wouldn't exist without you. So really appreciate you sharing your knowledge and wisdom with the community. Let me kick off with, basically, as someone who's well known, Jakob van der Khoi, who joined us right after writing his book, Revenue Architecture, which I think was also the most mentioned book in the podcast. And our question, what book would you recommend? We went deep on especially the volume metrics and the data model. And, yeah, I think it was a really good episode, and it's a book well worth reading. So, yeah, this is my first pick. It's number thirty two.

Philipp Stelzer: Yeah. Can I continue with another book? Episode forty three, the revenue operations model with Laura Aidan and Sean Lane, both, I think, well known RevOps leaders who also joined, yeah, the group of people who decided to write a book on revenue operations, which I think was fairly needed. It's a book that really covers a lot of important aspects of revenue operations, how to become more strategic, like the strategic role of revenue operations, customer success metrics, board meeting preparations, were some of the topics that we talked about in this episode. It's episode forty three, and I recommend both listening to the podcast episode itself, but also to check out the book.

Janis Zech: Next in line, number eighty, another book, the RevOps pendulum, very hard to pronounce, from Harris Ottobasich. He actually asked a hundred eighty RevOps pros in a survey about various different areas and shared this in his book and then had a practical breakdown of key pillars of process and systems and data. So, yeah, he joined us to share all about his new book, and, yeah, we're so happy that he wrote it.

Philipp Stelzer: Alright. Let's continue with something that was not a book, although I think this person has written so many articles on their Substack that certainly, I think if you would put them all together, it would end up being a book. So we actually did two episodes with him. That's Jeff Ignacio, if you haven't guessed it already. So episode seventy, we did on pipeline management mistakes that cost you revenue. I think really a really really good episode talking about pipeline coverage, but really more importantly, how to structure the pipeline review meeting so that you actually are able to ask the important questions, how to prep your managers, the role of revenue operations in that meeting, in that session. So, definitely, I think an episode worth listening to. And then just to stick with Jeff, there is another episode that we did with him that is number thirty one, and that was how to forecast with high accuracy. And Jeff actually did — I think it was a three part series back then. It's already, like, a little while ago. This was mid twenty twenty four where we did a three part series on forecasting on a Substack, RevEngine dot substack dot com. Definitely worth subscribing to. And it really goes in-depth on, like, the topic how to run, like, a forecast that gives you accuracy and confidence. And, again, I think is a great example of a situation where revenue operations can be, like, a really strategic partner to the CRO, to the CEO, to the CFO.

Janis Zech: Awesome. Yep. Highly recommend it. There's another great episode number sixty two, customer success excellence at HubSpot with Daphne Costa Lopez. We spoke about the evolution of customer success metrics, the importance of onboarding, and strategies to see CS as a growth driver instead of a reactive support function. Well worth listening.

Philipp Stelzer: Yeah. Nice. Another one from basically, like, a year ago, episode forty two, how to build an effective sales territory plan with Jeremy Donovan. If you haven't heard about Jeremy, worth, I think, following on LinkedIn for sure. A lot of, like, very good postings there. No BS. Right? Like, really straight to the point whatever he's posting. And, yeah, we talked about what is territory planning, why is it important, what are some key frameworks and methodologies that you can apply for effective territory planning. So I think a really important topic — both strategic and tactical. Again, episode forty two. Definitely worth listening to.

Janis Zech: Here's another one, episode forty five, building the largest RevOps community in the world with our friend Matt from RevOps Co-op. Actually, you know, when going through these episodes, I realized that I've met everyone we just talked to one or multiple times except Laura. I hope I'll meet you one day, but Matt is the person who brings together community. And we talked about the mission and vision behind scaling a community of RevOps professionals globally and the role of RevOps in modern organizations. So big shout out to RevOps Co-op. We at Weflow organized, I think, five meetups in Europe. Together with them, we published a RevOps salary report that was, what, eighty five pages with eight hundred fifty people participating. So I think we've done a lot together, and we love helping to build the RevOps community globally because we believe it's a great cause, and it's very important because RevOps teams are small. And as Sean Lane always says, most problems have been solved before. You just need to find other folks who've solved them for you or before you and connect with them. So I think this and WizOps, just to do another shout out because they are also doing a great job on the community side, are really two awesome communities well worth joining on Slack and sharing and learning.

Philipp Stelzer: Yeah. Very nice. I hundred percent and full heartedly agree. Next up, episode from this year, February number sixty eight, turning GTM data into insights with Dan Schoenfeld. I think this episode was near and dear to my heart. We talked a lot about data storytelling, why it matters, why you need to do data storytelling in revenue operations when you communicate both to executives, but also to the frontline managers to the director level. And, yeah, really how to run effective QBRs, best practices there for collecting data, to prepare data when you actually need to start to prepare data. And really just in general, I think we talked a lot about how to build a data driven culture, both in revenue operations, but also how to bring that into the sales organization. Again, I think another episode that is very helpful if you wanna become more strategic, which we know many of you do, and so I really like this one.

Janis Zech: Yeah. Another great one with Mallory Lee, number thirteen, to essentially unlock strategic alignment with a pipeline council. And what we did is we basically talked about why does a pipeline council make sense, who should participate, how long should it be, how do you prepare it, how do you follow-up on it, how do you make it a success. So it's a very tactical episode about this specific topic, which I really liked, and Mallory shared all her experience as she always does on LinkedIn as well. So a great episode. Highly recommended.

Philipp Stelzer: Yeah. Another superstar on LinkedIn, Justin Norris, with him in episode fifty two. We talked about reinventing outbound with AI and signals. This episode was also recorded in twenty twenty four, and I think crazy what has happened since then. Right? I think Clay really broke through, Common Room, so many more solutions that really have, I think, to some extent, democratized signal based selling and building signals with the power of AI. I think that wasn't exactly the situation when we talked with Justin, but what was I think really good in that episode is Justin talked us through how he's testing all these different tools and solutions, like his framework of deploying them in the sales organization, and that is all still very, very true. So I think if you are thinking about doing signal based selling, you know, and you're wondering how to get started here, listen to episode fifty two with Justin Norris.

Janis Zech: And here's another one, episode number forty, strategic board meeting preparations with Tom Van Langan. And, yeah, I think we had Tom on the podcast twice. This one was about the role of RevOps, importance of strong commentary and storytelling in board meetings to ensure that the message is perceived in the right way and how the message differs on the executive layer versus the operation layer. So if you are preparing board meetings, if your CEO calls you on a Friday evening to just jump on it for a Monday board meeting, listen to this one. Really good one.

Philipp Stelzer: God. I hope he doesn't do that. But—

Janis Zech: Well, it always happens.

Philipp Stelzer: Yeah. Well, like, fingers crossed for you. This doesn't happen to you. But yeah. Who knows?

Janis Zech: Yeah. Next episode was episode fifty nine with Mikael Jordan, CRO at AggieCap. Typically, we don't really talk so much about specific companies in RevOps Lab. We rather talk about, like, the people, the processes behind it. In this case, Mikael was very open to talk about, you know, AggieCap's growth journey from three hundred thousand euros in ARR to fifty million, sort of like the whole, you know, funding boom in twenty twenty and twenty twenty one, the aftermath of this, and then sort of like the shift to efficiency and, like, the lessons they learned and, like, the tactics that they applied to grow more efficiently and scale to where they are now. I'm sure they are, like, well over fifty million at this point.

Philipp Stelzer: Yeah. A really good episode that I think goes back to fundamentals and basics to some extent. Right? Like, thinking about upselling, basket size, CAC payback periods. This was like a huge topic in twenty twenty three, twenty twenty four, and I think the episode with Mikael really, like, sums it up perfectly.

Janis Zech: Yeah. Absolutely loved that one. It was very actionable, actually, and some things that you should just do always to build a great company. So highly recommend it.

Philipp Stelzer: Yeah. Episode eighty five. So one of our most recent episodes on how to align RevOps and FP&A. This is a recurring theme, actually, and we had Thes London from Meltwater sharing his experience as he's basically been in FP&A and then transitioned to RevOps. And so we talked about why most planning processes break down between FP&A and the go to market RevOps function, how to align, you know, what are the ownership models, what metrics should be owned by FP&A, what metrics should be owned by RevOps, and how does joint planning really look like in practice and how to make it a success. So I think really nice episode about RevOps and FP&A to become really strategic in the planning process, but also in the, you know, general management process of the company. So, yeah, highly recommend it.

Janis Zech: Yeah. Great. It's like another episode that touches on RevOps and finance, episode fifty with Ben Murray, founder at the SaaS CFO. Again, like, a good one to follow on LinkedIn. And, again, really, like, I think goes back to basics, so understanding, like, some of the key financial metrics in SaaS, like bookings revenue, MRR, the role of revenue operations and forecasting and planning, the relationship between bookings and revenue recognition, just some general best practices for revenue forecasting that I think, like, are a really helpful addition to the other episodes that we did, for example, with Jeff. But there are more. Right? So if you Google for RevOps Lab and forecasting, I think you'll find multiple episodes on that topic. And the one with Ben Murray certainly is a great one.

Philipp Stelzer: Yeah. Another one from last year with Ryan Milligan about comp planning for high performance revenue teams, episode number thirty five. We invited Ryan because he runs revenue at QuarterPath. And so he shared, you know, how to essentially create a compensation plan that helps, you know, high performing revenue teams set their strategic goals, you know, basically some pitfalls, and how to set up an effective compensation plan, and how do you also communicate and review comp plans in a specific cadence. So if you are into compensation planning, well well well worth listening.

Janis Zech: Yeah. And Ryan is, like, a special breed, if I may say so, because, like, he's one of the few people who are both, basically, VP of sales and revenue operations. Right? So he really, like, understands sort of, like, the pain points, I think, on both sides. I think at this point, he's a CRO at QuarterPath. Not a hundred percent sure. You need to fact check that, but also a great person to follow on LinkedIn for sure.

Philipp Stelzer: Yeah. Okay. So, yeah, I don't know how many episodes we just promoted, but there's obviously many more with many more great guests. And if you have any guest recommendations, please reach out to Philipp or me on LinkedIn. We would love to hear from you. We're always looking for people who are very good at what they do, who are passionate about a specific topic. And that said, we have a great lineup for the coming months. And I really appreciate you following this podcast, listening to us, and bearing with us. So we'll continue this, and thank you so much for being part of it.

Janis Zech: You can bear with us, and you can bear with us. Both is good. Alright. Thank you all. Thank you for listening, and see you all soon.