Chris Lee, Chief Revenue Officer at Interos, shares how AI is transforming predictive analytics, tools and strategies to drive revenue and compliance, and the critical role clean data plays in effective AI training.
This episode features Chris Lee, Chief Revenue Officer at Interos, a powerhouse with 25+ years in SaaS who’s driven growth at tech giants like Salesforce and Latch through IPOs.
Chris shares how AI is transforming predictive analytics at Interos, the tools and strategies he’s using to drive revenue and compliance, and the critical role clean data plays in effective AI training.
About the Guest:
Chris Lee is a seasoned and proven Chief Revenue Officer with over 25 years in the SaaS industry, Author of the book "The Principles of P.O.W.E.R" - and requested Guest lecturer. Chris has built a tremendous reputation as a high-performing revenue leader with experience in building infrastructure, establishing GTM and assembling a Dream Team of leaders - in order to accelerate growth and drive disruptive technologies through their IPOs. As an executive leader at pre-IPO industry tech giants such as: Siebel Systems, Salesforce, DocuSign and Latch - Chris developed the playbook to SaaS success. His motivating and captivating personality combined with his knowledge on how to drive triple digit ARR is what sets him apart from his peers. Leveraging decades of partnerships and relationships within his SaaS ecosystem gives him the ability to immediately step in and take an organization to their next stage. He completed his Bachelor of Arts in Economics at Villanova University.
Guest Highlights:
“You can have the systems but your data is really the key component to all of it. You can have all the best systems in the world but if your data is not clean and you don't have good data hygiene, that's a major problem.”
“My advice always is to make sure that you have a mentor—somebody that's been through it before, has been through the thick and the thin, and has dealt with potholes."
“Every customer and every company out in the world today has a supply chain. It's so important to get out in front of that and make sure that you're managing those suppliers.”
Episode Timestamps:
*(01:35) - Chris’ career journey
*(08:25) - The importance of supply chain transparency
*(14:25) - Tools and strategies for revenue management
*(39:00) - The evolving role of the CRO
Links & Resources:
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About Accenture
Accenture is a leading global professional services company that helps the world’s leading businesses, governments and other organizations build their digital core, optimize their operations, accelerate revenue growth and enhance citizen services—creating tangible value at speed and scale. We are a talent and innovation led company with 738,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Technology is at the core of change today, and we are one of the world’s leaders in helping drive that change, with strong ecosystem relationships. We combine our strength in technology with unmatched industry experience, functional expertise and global delivery capability. We are uniquely able to deliver tangible outcomes because of our broad range of services, solutions and assets across Strategy & Consulting, Technology, Operations, Industry X and Accenture Song. These capabilities, together with our culture of shared success and commitment to creating 360° value, enable us to help our clients succeed and build trusted, lasting relationships. We measure our success by the 360° value we create for our clients, each other, our shareholders, partners and communities. Visit us at www.accenture.com.
About Conga
Conga crushes complexity in an increasingly complex world. With our Revenue Lifecycle Management solution, we transform each company’s unique complexities for order configuration, execution, fulfillment, and contract renewal processes with a unified data model that adapts to ever-changing business requirements and aligns the understanding and efforts of every team. Our approach is grounded in the Conga Way, a framework of entrepreneurial spirit and achieving together to champion our 11,000+ customers. We’re committed to our customers and to removing complexity in an increasingly complex world. Our solutions quickly adapt to changing business models so you can normalize your revenue management processes.
Conga has global operations across North America, Europe, and Asia. Learn more at conga.com or follow Conga on Twitter: @congahq.
Phil: [00:00:00] Welcome to Revenue Reinvention, the podcast where we get real about transforming business for predictable success. On today's episode, we'll talk with Chris Lee, Chief Revenue Officer at Interos. Chris is a powerhouse CRO with over 25 years in SaaS, known for driving growth at tech giants like Salesforce and Latch through their IPOs. Today, we discuss how Interos seasoned growth opportunities, the evolution of the CRO, How AI is impacting the supply chain and fundamental tools to stay agile during disruptions. Plus much, much more. Let's dive in. Welcome everyone to Revenue Reinvention. Thanks for being here. I'm your host, Phil Dillard, founder of ThruLine Networks. I'm here with Chris Lee. Chief revenue officer at Interos. Thanks for joining us today, Chris.
Chris: Thank you. I appreciate it, Phil.
Phil: Really glad to have you with us. So first things first, let's introduce you to our listeners. Can you tell me a little bit about [00:01:00] Interos and about your role at Interos?
Chris: Sure. So I'm the chief revenue officer at Interos. And we are the global leader in supply chain risk management, and we are located in San Francisco as well as Arlington, Virginia.
Phil: We've had a number of different chief revenue officers on the show, and everybody has a different background that brings them into this role. Can you talk a little bit about your background? And how do you specifically leverage that in your role as, as CRO at Interos?
Chris: Yeah. So Phil, I always go back to my early stage of selling, which is goes back to selling copiers door to door. So I think that was the master's class of how to sell. And I've taken that through my entire career. I started off in copier sales and went from there to a company called Gartner Group, where we were doing evaluations of software products.
Chris: And I found out as I was there, [00:02:00] what the hottest and latest, greatest software companies were. So I started with this little company called Siebel systems. Which happened to be at the time, a pioneer of customer relationship management software. And I spent probably about four and a half years there. And then I went from that organization to another one that was a little tiny startup called salesforce.com at the time. And again, it was a new paradigm shift in software and technology. And then from there, I went after almost 12 and a half years and seeing Salesforce through to IPO to another company called DocuSign, which was a pre IPO company. Again, a lot of what I've done in my background is the way I look at it, Phil, it's really about.
Chris: It's not necessarily riding a wave of a new software technology, but it's really riding the wave, but really looking back and trying to find out where the next swell is, the next opportunity, the next [00:03:00] change and shift in software and technology. But it was really the, the bones of my, my selling style came from door to door sales and understanding rejection back in the copier days. So fun.
Phil: Well, I love how you started, you know, down in the trenches with the really, really tough stuff and then moved up to, and I love the, also the metaphor about catching a wave, right? Like you, if you're, if for anybody who's ever been surfing or has never been surfing, right? There's always a wave every few seconds, but she have to, there's only so many you can choose to take in a set, right?
Phil: And you got to pick them right along with your ability to get on the wave and stay on the wave. And also to see what the next one is, is coming. So I think that's a really good metaphor. I might try and try and bring that back because you have to have some good means of observing to see. This is worth investing the time and the effort in, and that kind of speaks to how you got here, but also how you drive things forward as a, as a chief revenue officer.
Phil: [00:04:00] So you saw several early companies before they became industry giants, and this is your third time being a chief revenue officer. So what is it that you see about your current company? What is it that you see about interos. ai that makes you think this is the right time? And right place to, to get on this wave.
Chris: The reason why I'm so excited about Interos is because what I'm saying are the same components, the same framework to a future, you know, pre IPO company that's ready to set the world on fire. When I think about Interos, it's where Salesforce and DocuSign were, where you're a product that's in an industry.
Chris: That's probably one of the most relevant, hottest industries and markets today. And you also have a product that is. Easy to use, intuitive to use, simple. We're also easy to do business with, and it's solving for a problem that not only is focused on one [00:05:00] area in terms of vertical, it's actually, it goes across a breadth of verticals.
Chris: And not only is it in North America, but it goes global as well. So where I see Interos today is really game changing. And I can see the same pattern of where this ends up as I once saw from Salesforce and DocuSign.
Phil: So I remember Salesforce and DocuSign in their, in their very early days, but don't remember exactly where they started their beachhead market versus growth. I do remember where Amazon started beachhead market was books, right? And was competing with other booksellers with the intention to be. Amazon, not just a souped up barnes and noble. com. So when you see, see a working a breath across verticals, is there a certain area again where there is a pattern where the company has started and is moving or is it moving faster because of the nature of, of AI in the world today?
Chris: Well, it's, it's a great question. It's actually [00:06:00] moving faster due to AI. We're one of the only companies that actually, as I mentioned before, has that one intuitive view of all of your suppliers. And with that, not only do you have a view of all your suppliers, it's being able to actually have a product that you can look at, it's easy to use.
Chris: It's easy to understand. It's easy for C suite members to leverage it across their organization. And I think that's really the game changer in terms of where I see Interos, but with Interos, you know, the value right now is that AI component, that predictive analytics. So when you think about what we do at Interos, we actually will monitor and manage and track suppliers of every organization across the globe in terms of.
Chris: Any vertical that they happen to be in. And with that, now I can look at, for instance, one of our customers is Disney, right? So with Disney, they look at child labor. So they want to see not only the supplier that allows [00:07:00] them to buy that sweatshirt that has Mickey ears on it, but they want to go back to the supplier before that, that created the Mickey ears and the supplier before that, that found out who was actually sewing it onto the, to the sweatshirt.
Chris: And that's where you want to find out, well, is there, you know, is it an eight year olds or 10 year olds in a sweatshop somewhere, which God forbid. That happens, but you want to get ahead of that. You want to realize what's happening, but that's the model that we have. But predictive analytics will say, Hey, we found this, we've uncovered this, and here's what you should be doing with it.
Chris: So they can give you that actionable steps in order to resolve the issue. And another example is. You know, we, we monitor our storms coming up the coast from a climate perspective. So for hospitals, there's another prime example, a customer, Cooper Medical out of South Jersey, ironically, as you may be familiar.
Chris: So they caught wind of the hurricane coming up. Realize that certain suppliers that were able, that supplied them with the oxygen [00:08:00] tanks and the plastic for, you know, delivering the oxygen, they were a part of that supplier and they had to get out in front of that and pivot very quickly to find out which other suppliers they could go to.
Chris: It's life changing. So with AI, it was able to find those other suppliers, be able to direct Cooper to those suppliers. And make suggestions as to other ones that they may want to do in the future with other storms. So they can see that trend happening as well.
Phil: So you make a really great opportunity to transition to our conversation about predictive pathways towards the future, right?
Phil: And then, and maybe we should also take a step back and bring people together to the current state. of supply chain and how it matters to different types of companies. And you started down this path. What I heard, whereas there are business issues, there are some consumer issues, there may be some regulatory issues that are a faster moving and more dynamic in the supply chain that they had been in the, in the past.
Phil: Can you talk a little bit about recent changes in. [00:09:00] Why it's important to have transparency over your supply chain that we've learned over the past few years, that, that, that, that really create this opportunity for your company.
Chris: Yeah. So Phil, if you think about it, it's not only over the past few years.
Chris: Think about what's happening over the past several months, right? There's so many events that are happening every single day that risk and threaten any organization, any business. When you start to take a look at your suppliers, think about all the hurricanes, all the storms that have been happening.
Chris: There's always seems to be another storm of the century that's hitting us at some point. And you want to know and make sure that that storm is not going to affect any one of your suppliers. You may have a supplier, your key supplier that may be in quote, tornado alley, right? So tornadoes are coming. You want to know that you can still get those supplies.
Chris: And that's where you start to see even the strikers, the strike, uh, that happened in, in the ports in New York, you know, that in, in itself was, Hey, where do we now, you know, get our imports from, [00:10:00] or where do we ship them out of already? And also you start to take a look at some of the, the situation that happened in Maryland where, you know, a barge hits a bridge and takes an entire bridge out.
Chris: Well, these are the type of things that are happening on a daily basis that. One, not only do you want to be prepared with where do you pivot to your next supplier, but it's also getting in front of that to say, okay, if an incident happens, what do we do about it? But then you take a look at not only the hurricanes, not only.
Chris: You know, some of the other things, when we take a look at child labor and looking at your suppliers from that perspective, but also you can take a look at the components that we're importing from restricted countries like Russia and China, where suddenly we're starting to find out that there's components in the driverless cars out on the West coast.
Chris: So be careful, Phil. But they do have control over those. And then I've also met with companies that are building satellites that are finding that China's trying to hack [00:11:00] them on a daily basis. And, you know, because they were, had components in their old satellites that are in the sky today that we are using on a daily basis.
Chris: So it's not only what has transported the industry from years ago, it's, it's what's happening today.
Phil: And it's, it's crazy because it seemed like we would have a better control over the supply chain, given things that we were learning and it moved to onshore manufacturing and different things like that.
Phil: But there seems to be some sort of interconnectedness that's even more important. On a regular basis. So I'm curious about this. When you hear from your clients, what does this mean to your clients? It's not just responding because supplier A had a fire, supplier B had a disruption. It seems to be a little bit bigger than this.
Phil: What does this mean to your clients in terms of impact?
Chris: Well, I can tell you that it goes back to. You know, not only it's about your supplier, supplier, supplier. So it's, it's about the, you know, the, not just [00:12:00] your first tier of suppliers. And that's what a lot of customers believe is like, Oh, well, I'm monitoring the first tier.
Chris: But when you look at it. When you take a much broader look at it, the fortune 1000, there's only, there's less than 5 percent that actually even monitor that first tier of their supply chain. And then if you look even further into it, only, you know, 56 percent of the 5% Even monitor the sub tiers, the further, the ones that go further back, the numbers are absolutely astonishing.
Chris: And, and the risk that is, you know, on top of a lot of these companies today. One of the other things I'll mention, Phil, is around what we also help track is deforestation. So customers or suppliers that are, and you know, obviously climate change is a really big issue, but right now, I'll give you an example.
Chris: In the EU, it's become a mandate that every customer must manage or have a tool to [00:13:00] manage their suppliers that so that they can track deforestation. And if not, if you don't have one by the end of this year, then it's a 4 percent penalty on your first year of revenue. So really, really super financial impact there.
Chris: Yeah, it's really devastating.
Phil: Yeah. Yeah. We've covered this in past episodes of this podcast and another one about how the CSRD or the EU's corporate sustainability reporting directive will have broad reaching impact, not only in Europe. But into Southeast Asia, Africa, India, anywhere where people are supporting things down their supply chain, and that's, you know, the environmental component.
Phil: So what I've heard you say is you need it for quality to make sure the supply chain, the supplies you get are consistent. You need it for sustainability. You need it for environmental impact, you need it for any sort of compliance and regulatory, you need it for safety. There are a lot of issues that you need to be able to track.
Phil: And I would expect, what I've learned, big corporations have budgets, [00:14:00] smaller companies have smaller budgets for this, and the even tinier manufacturers have less budgets for this. So you don't have the ability, not everybody has the equal ability to pay. To be as compliant as they're needed to be at the top level.
Phil: Can you talk a little bit about tools or methodologies that you use to help understand this, to communicate this to customers and then how to drive that for revenue for them and for the business?
Chris: Yeah, I, listen, I've always said this in every company I've ever worked for Phil is that you've got to get this, the.
Chris: The main foundation for any of the tools for revenue life cycle management. So when you think about it, I always look at an organization that in order to really drive revenue, you need a solid CRM, customer relationship management tool. So you want that one source of truth, the place that you can collect the data, the information, and make sure that everyone is on the same knowledge base as to what's happening in our accounts, what's happening with our customers.
Chris: How do we [00:15:00] supply a better customer service? The other piece is, I also believe that you need to, and it gets a little tricky, but you definitely need a contract management system or solution, right? Something that's being able to help you manage your contracts that are going out, your red lines, making sure the signatures are correct.
Chris: And again, that's just staple in terms of, you know, what you're looking for in terms of some of these tools and then a collaboration tool of some sort, like a Slack where you internally can, can manage your customers and your accounts through your internal processes. Make sure folks are in communication with each other to help, again, provide a nice white glove service to all of your customers.
Chris: So I think they're the, the key ones that I would say when you're thinking about really driving your revenue, you need the foundational type of systems in place.
Phil: And those are everyday tools that people are going to, going to use. And if you have good policies and workflows, I would expect that the [00:16:00] data underneath of the metadata around are both good foundational elements.
Phil: On which to train, say an AI solution, can you talk, I'll tell you
Chris: before you even get started, the key thing is you can have the systems, but your data is really, really the key component to all of it, right? You can have all the best systems in the world, but if your data is not clean and you don't have good data hygiene, that's a really major problem.
Chris: Because if you think about AI, you think about what you're actually monitoring in terms of. You know, where you're, you're pulling the data from, if it's not clean data, then you're not going to get clean results. So you're not going to get that information that's accurate that you like.
Phil: Okay. That makes a whole lot of sense.
Phil: So, I mean, let's double click on that point, right? Let's say we've got the data, right? We've got all of it into our systems. What is it that? And Teros does, once you have that in a very solid, clean basis, and [00:17:00] then how do you extend that to impact for the client and then revenue for the company?
Chris: Yeah. So there's a couple of different things.
Chris: So when I look at an interos, one of the things that we talk about is first party data and third party data. So we're actually providing that third party data, whereas our customers will provide the first party data, which is for instance, so we will give you as a customer, what's happening within your suppliers.
Chris: To the nth tier, but we also will take that data that you may have that you'd like to track your customers or your suppliers on some other type of data. And we can ingest that data into our third party data that we collect and we provide in order to get you even, even more robust type of insight. Into your supply chain.
Chris: So that's one of the things that's really important is making sure again. So if you're using that first party data and make sure it's cleansed, make sure it's clean, [00:18:00] hygiene is great. And then we can ingest that into our third party that we provide to give you an even closer, more accurate view as to your supply chain.
Phil: And then, so the impact of bringing the third party data expands the usability of the, the. of the insights for the, for the customer, does that help them drive revenue and life cycle man has been on, on their end. Can you share an example of how that extends, extends out? I mean, I, I see it in terms of. Gosh, if we're thinking about understanding supply chain, we want to, we want to actually, it seems a little bit, let's say a little bit more defense than offense, right?
Phil: Making sure I can operate regardless of whatever happens versus getting ahead in the business. But I'm curious when you think about revenue life cycle management, when you think about growth, as opposed to, as opposed to just sustaining operations. How does that work out for you?
Chris: You know, it's interesting that you [00:19:00] mentioned it's more defense than offense, because this is the first company that I've actually had to work in that guardrails.
Chris: So it's interesting because when you think about it, you're playing defense and it's not where you're typically in software and you're doing a return on investment. This is really about what. Is it that this software is doing to protect you from a catastrophic or devastating threat to your organization?
Chris: For instance, one of the things I always talk about when folks don't really, it's not connecting to them as to what we're talking about in terms of the value. I always say, Hey, why don't you go home tonight? And rip out your smoke detector and your alarm system, because at the end of the day, it hasn't, it hasn't caught anything.
Chris: So there's no value in it. So just rip it out and see your house is still standing. Nothing's been broken into your family is safe. But the reality is it's that one moment [00:20:00] in time when something does happen, when your family's on vacation and maybe the smoke detector battery doesn't work and next thing you know, nobody could catch it.
Chris: The house burns down. The reality is, is it's really, it's what's the impact of that one moment in time that it happens to lapse and that risk or that threat gets through. And that could be, if you think about this, Phil, think about. What could happen in, and I said, I was with a, a satellite manufacturer out in Palo Alto and they said, Oh, well, we're, we're good because it, nothing's happened to us yet.
Chris: So no yet. And the reality is, is that when you talk about the financials, imagine if China did happen to hack into one of their satellites, it's a satellite that controls everything that we do on a daily basis. Or, you know, what happens if that hospital didn't. You know, catch the fact that these hurricanes were coming up along their supply chain.
Chris: This is the problem is that, Hey, those are [00:21:00] millions of dollars. What if. Right. So again, this is the type of thing that you can't really say, Hey, here's the ROI. It's the, what if, what if that risk gets through? I
Phil: mean, we've seen a number of examples in recent months and years, whether it's a cyber attack, whether it's a bad push of software, whether it's a storm, but just, or, or a fire that have disrupted.
Phil: Major industries and global repercussions have had global repercussions, right? The shutting down of the chip fabs in, during the pandemic had major repercussions for the prices of vehicles for years that followed. It's, it's probably really hard for people to think about ensuring for what might happen because when the, when the unavoidable unexpected actually does happen.
Phil: You know, people need to be prepared. I'm curious how you position that then, you know, from the perspective of [00:22:00] you've got to get people not to think about it as a, in a way it could be an insurance product, right? But it's, it's, there's so much more value addition than just the cash to recover from rebuilding the fire, right?
Phil: There's so much more to it. There's so much, seems like there's a whole lot of education that you've got, you've got to deliver. And I'm curious, how much of that is people in process or how much of that is the, in the tools? Like, do you actually use AI to help people understand the potential impact on their revenue streams or the potential impact on their, their business, or like, how far do you go with that and bringing the AI into the, into the sales and revenue lifecycle of the, of the business itself?
Chris: Yeah, that's a great question. So the way that right now with Interos, you know, it's easier when we have an example of it, right, where folks realize that could be me. So one of the things that we've done is we've won, you know, we've got customers across every [00:23:00] industry or vertical, as I've mentioned, we've got, you know, all of the.
Chris: The United States Navy, Department of Defense, NASA, JPMorgan Chase, you know, when we take a look at, you know, Cooper Medical, you've got the largest organizations across, you know, each one of those major verticals. And what we typically do is we'll also find whatever that situation, example, case study happened to resonate back to the others in the industry, right?
Chris: So I look at it as a. You know, a bird's in the feather, right? So if I am one of those folks in one of those verticals, I want to know what did interiors do to protect or save that company from that risk or that threat. So that's one of the things that we really, truly focus on because it's really difficult to say, Hey, be careful.
Chris: Because this could happen to you, you don't believe it until it happens. And you'll believe it when the person next to you or your competitor went through [00:24:00] it. So you'll say, Oh, what would, what would that mean to me? If that risk had had come to our organization. So that's one piece of it. The other piece of it is also around.
Chris: Yeah. So the AI side of this is playing a huge role. Everything that, that we're doing across the industry and from an AI perspective. It's just, again, giving us that, those insights as to, and the trends as to what's happening that we're seeing over and over again. So it's a little bit more of the crowdsourcing.
Chris: It's using our tool and it's also really leveraging what we're seeing in the industry to give customers a better insight as to their supply chain.
Phil: It seems like the AI can then help you tell that story in a more tangible way, right? It could say, this is what happened with this group. This is what's likely to happen with you, given what we, what you saw.
Phil: It's not just my, my, my friend, the CEO down the street said, yeah, this was a really, really bad thing that happened. It's, [00:25:00] it's extrapolating over insights. You cited the hospitals and the department of defense places where they think a whole heck of a lot about. The worst case scenarios because they need to be able to operate in those worst case scenarios and some folks don't.
Chris: What we're seeing also is that it's that AI component, which it's starting to get more and more intelligent as to, Hey, what's the pattern here? So when these storms come up this coast and there's this many suppliers or what suppliers framework should we be moving you to that's in this area, or do they have the right trucks that can also now deliver those supplies?
Chris: At a cost effective way. So it's taking all of the information and it's learning every day so that when it makes those more actionable, insightful recommendations, then it's more accurate as to how you should take that next step or pivot should that risk or threat happen.
Phil: So I'm going to like shift gears and [00:26:00] two quick questions before we change to the next topic.
Phil: And it's like taking that to the next step. You only have so much capacity on who you can focus on. You can focus on a certain number of customers, right? You can just focus on a certain number of, of clients. How do you know you're spending time on the right deals and the right customers? People who get it versus those who won't, so you can continue the growth at the pace at which you need it.
Chris: I think there's a few different things that I think about when this happens. I'm thinking more about the qualitative and quantitative metrics that we, we factor into it. We look at the customer segmentation, you know, so when I look at, for instance, qualitative and quantitative, I think about more about the strategic fit, what the ideal deal size is, the potential revenue.
Chris: When I look at customer segmentation, I'm thinking more about what are those high value targets that we're looking at versus spending our time on some of the smaller ones. I'll look at the sales pipeline. I'll analyze that to find out [00:27:00] what are those deals that. Are faster to close, which ones are the ones that need more, you know, love and nurturing and more creativity.
Chris: And then I also lean in on what I talked about earlier, which is the CRM, which is that the forecasting and leveraging predictive analytics on, you know, what is it that we're seeing, what's the pattern in terms of the, the customer base and segment that we're working within and try to. Get as close as I can to what is the norm so that we can rinse and repeat throughout.
Phil: You know, it seems like that another interesting aspect to dig into is how much you're able to control in the organization versus how much you're able to influence. The folks we interviewed as CROs have had a varying ability to have a certain size of a team or have certain reach into other departments.
Phil: So can you talk a little bit about. How you can control versus influence internally and who owns sales velocity in terms of picking [00:28:00] these clients, like who's going to make that final decision and how do you make sure that that portfolio decision.
Chris: Well, it's interesting the way I look at it, Phil, is I always talk about it takes a village.
Chris: I think it takes every one of your departments to one work an opportunity from beginning from you think about the customer lifecycle, right? When you start thinking about, well, we created an opportunity, a lead, that lead would come into a business development rep. Yeah. They would qualify it, then it would go to a sales rep, sales rep would work with a solutions engineer, and then they would move that to, you know, a, you know, trying to help close the deal, then you bring your services team in to help deploy it, and then once it's deployed, customer success will also be working kind of in the sales.
Chris: And deployment stage where they're starting to get introduced. Now they're working with the customer. Now they're a customer making sure that there's a quarterly business review, making sure that that customer is happy and [00:29:00] then renews. And then that cycle starts back around. You have your support in there as well, but that cycle starts back around.
Chris: Right. So it is like, what I always talk about is it takes a village, if you will. And in making those determinations. I'll leave it up to myself and my sales leader, in addition to my head of customer success. Because the, when I look at it, I'm looking at one, what's the model of the current customer base that's coming in the front door, right?
Chris: So in other words, it's like, okay, so what is that ideal customer and, and how are we selling them? What's the model? And I'll work with my head of sales, global sales in order to get a better gauge on that. But just as important as the business coming in the front door is the business going out the back door.
Chris: So I make sure that my head of customer success, who's in charge of looking at retention. Thinking about the churn and the attrition and a lifetime value. The three of us will take a look at [00:30:00] that along with operations to find out what's the area that we need to truly be focused on.
Phil: So for somebody who's starting down that journey, or maybe he was moves.
Phil: Down that journey in there in the, in the thick of it and seeing how difficult that can be. Do you have any other advice or tips for revenue leaders about finding predictable revenue streams or, or creating that village that you were talking about?
Chris: So for one, I would say really taking a look at the rinse and repeat.
Chris: So for me, it's, what have you been successful at selling to? So what's that segment we just talked about in terms of where do we really focus on that? The area that I like to look at is what I always call birds of a feather. So my whole goal to try to find those additional revenue streams are one, I look at trying to get the leader in each one of those verticals and then what I do is then we market back to through webinars, through conferences, we'll go back into those.
Chris: Areas, those [00:31:00] verticals that the competitor is in that area. And we're trying to also say, Hey, if you want to be like Mike years ago, there's the Michael Jordan, be like Mike commercials. It was like, Hey, if you want to be like Mike, be like the leader, here's what they're using as a solution, as a tool. And then from there, I always look at it as, all right, and what's that second tier, what's that mid market look like that want to try to elevate themselves to be that global leader or to compete in that next enterprise space.
Chris: So they want to know what that is. So for me, it's establishing the, the, the bulkhead in each one of those verticals. Finding and identifying who their competitors are in that space, and then also finding out what that next mid mid market tier is because they're the next level of growth for you as well.
Chris: So it's just taking those he wins across and then now taking it global. So now you're looking at these customers now saying, okay, which are the ones that we've established in a North America, [00:32:00] which ones can we now take globally? So it's just literally getting those beachheads and then being able to expand them out, I think is really, really critical.
Chris: That's one component. And the other component is really about looking at your current customer base. What is it that you can do to upsell, cross sell additional business? So when you're taking a look at those additional lines of business, or how do you drive more revenue, one is going to be going to new business, but the other is really driving the current customer base.
Chris: How do you expand the footprint? How do you convince those that there's value now it's time to expand globally.
Phil: And you've started to go into what we call the next section, which is that elevate, innovate, and, and reinvent, right? So. If you're trying to, but first I heard, establish a beachhead, figure out where you can get some traction, make something work, then look for lookalikes and look to expand it, both through upselling cross seller or extensions [00:33:00] globally.
Phil: It makes a lot of sense, but it's now complicated by the fact that you might be a bit of a victim of your own success. You have to grow the team faster and you have to grow the breadth of those teams across a lot of different boundaries that make it, make it difficult. So. If you're going to talk about, you know, growing this village, now it grows from a village to a small town or a, or a small city, right?
Phil: You have to handle the people and you also have to handle the breadth of product growth. It seems like a multidimensional growth. Picture, can you give an idea about what have you found to be the most effective approach for fostering sustainable growth, given all of those challenges?
Chris: Yeah. So one, you really have to understand what your product market fit is and making sure that your product is solving for what many of these companies are looking for in that area that you've identified as your sweet spot, if you will, and then the, not only is it having that product market fit, but I think it's also being [00:34:00] able to.
Chris: Optimize customer retention. So making sure that you've got a white glove service. I've always talked about, Phil, it's not about just bringing a customer on board as a new customer, but it's that life cycle that, or that you're able to maintain that it's a customer for life, if you will, and making sure that you are providing that white glove service at all times, I always talk about being in the foxhole with them so that they understand that.
Chris: I'm with them. We just didn't run, you know, sign a contract and run for the hills that were in it with you. So customer retention is really, really critical. And if they know that you're by their side throughout, that's really, really critical. And then it's also about, you know, adopting a scalable business model.
Chris: So understanding what that recurring revenue is looks like. And then also what is it that the segment of the customer base that you're working within? So I think it's understanding those key three things that I think is really. important to foster that sustainable growth.
Phil: That makes a whole lot of sense.
Phil: And definitely about, you know, getting in the, [00:35:00] in the foxhole with them and being alongside perfect thing for, for veterans day. And I'm going to pull that thread a little bit farther because it's like. It's one thing if I'm doing this for somebody in the Department of the Navy because somebody somewhere else in the Department of the Navy or the Air Force says, Oh, that's really cool.
Phil: Let me do that too. It's going to help me improve execution on the mission. They're going to like to see that someone else who is a potential competitor for your attention is bringing a solution. But if I go to say, I don't know, the shipping industry. One group might say, well, don't bring this to my competitors.
Phil: I want some sort of exclusive, exclusivity or something like that. How do you deal with challenges that might be able to, might be limiting your performance in this segment because someone wants to have you as a competitive advantage?
Chris: Yeah. So, you know, that's the age old story in software. I think it's an age old story across sales overall is that customers want to buy your product and then they want to.
Chris: Be the only ones that can leverage it and use it as a, [00:36:00] as a step up over their competitors, but we're not going to sign any exclusivity deals to, to any one customer. The great thing about our product is that it's customizable. So what one is using the tool for, or use case that they're using it for, chances are, it's not going to be identical anyway for that other customer within their space.
Chris: They may have some similarities, but there's definitely going to be a difference. One, not only is. It's the use case different, but it's also going to be, you know, how do they react to the information and, and what are the steps that they take? And listen, I always talk about, you know, you know, my alarm system goes off in my house and the police show up.
Chris: That's great. The alarm system caught it. The police showed up, but the control that I have over what the police do from there, you know, so in essence they get the data, they get the information, they show up. You're not relying on them. Right. So it's like, Hey, whatever they do with the information, we can make a recommendation, but again, [00:37:00] it's, it's what they do with it, but being exclusive is not something that I don't think any software company wants to do.
Phil: Sure. But it's a really good question to ask because I feel like there's, there is a pressure, especially in the early stages, there's going to be the pressure of. You know, give me this great capability. So I have an advantage. And I actually think what's even more interesting is if I look at some of the companies where you've been in the past, they've grown to the point where having them is, is table stakes, right?
Phil: I may not need what all of what Salesforce offers, but some ability to have a solid CRM system so that you can communicate across people in a team and have a single source of truth. It becomes table stakes once other people are starting to leverage that you have to grab it to keep up. And as you were talking, it, it kicked to me that key point, right?
Phil: A new capability now. It might become table stakes in the future. And that's probably part of the pattern of what you're talking about and what you see in choosing that company. Did you care to comment on that a [00:38:00] little bit?
Chris: Yeah. So, you know, it is about the evolution of a company as well, right? For instance, you know, like you said, right, you may have a CRM that a company wants and, and that's basically all they need.
Chris: There's other areas that they've moved into that. Their competitor may say, Hey, we're going to leverage this other piece. And then in combination to our own internal systems and what we're doing now, they all have one leg up over their competitor. So it's about the evolution of a, of a software company becomes so important to the industry is just making sure that you're constantly changing for each one of those verticals.
Phil: We only have a couple more minutes before we run out of time. I know we could keep going for a while, but I want to squeeze in a few more questions. That are just extensions of that one. You talked about the evolution of the company. Can you talk a little bit about the evolution of the chief revenue officer?
Phil: Specifically, how agile does a revenue leader need to be in terms [00:39:00] of innovating or launching new models in order to see some of these growth opportunities you're talking about?
Chris: So I would tell you, Phil, the role of the CRO has evolved significantly and transformed over the past several years alone. You know, when you think about the CRO, you know, you think, Oh, it's just simply about the revenue and driving revenue and you think sales and that's it, but it's really looking at all facets of the organization and driving revenue.
Chris: So, you know, you've got to be a leader. That's also focused on the market dynamics and the ever changing customer expectations. So be ready that if anything's moving at that point, that you're ready to adjust the pricing or the product. So any economic shifts that you may have that you're ready to pivot as an organization and maybe provide new packaging, new pricing, new marketing style, new view on what use cases that you're solving [00:40:00] for, and it's also about.
Chris: Making more, more intuitive data driven decisions, right? And it's about how quickly now as the chief revenue offers that you can pivot from, you start to see these changes in the environment, the economic downturns or whatever, and trying to figure out as quickly as those are happening, what are your options?
Chris: What are your alternatives? And I think that's where, when you think about how agility, how agile you need to be, I think they're the things that are helping and causing that transformation Chief Revenue Officer. But I do think a lot of it is more about a role that has to be tied closer to that data driven.
Chris: Decision making and you're also looking at a role that, again, I mentioned earlier that they thought about it from, Oh, that sales side, what's the new business coming in, but the chief revenue officer needs to take a look at that whole customer success. Facet customer retention side of it. So it's not only, [00:41:00] like I said earlier, watching the business come in the front door, but it's also making sure that the business isn't going out the back door at the same time, then there's a huge problem with that.
Chris: But it's also what I'm finding also in this role, especially at Interos, as we continue to grow, we're leaning more heavily in on our partnerships or strategic partners like Dun Bradstreet and. MasterCard and Accenture and really leveraging those to not only expand and augment the product, but to also expand our feet on the street to drive additional revenue.
Chris: So strategic partnerships are really critical as well for us. And just overall, again, once you bring a customer on board, it's that it's a customer for life, right? So you have to manage that customer success, the lifetime value, and making sure that you're doing everything you possibly can to ensure that customer stays with you for the longterm.
Chris: And that's where you start to see [00:42:00] that evolution of the chief revenue officer, I think.
Phil: Well, I think you make a great description of it and give people a conceptual picture of what they need to understand. I don't want you to give away any of your secrets, but I would just ask this, other than this podcast, of course, where would you recommend people go to gather a solid grasp of some of these principles you're talking about or, or to stay informed?
Phil: On some of the issues that are going to matter most to an evolving CRO.
Chris: So to an evolving CRO, my recommendation always is that there's super successful CROs out there as well, and CEOs. And I always, my advice always is to make sure that you have a mentor. Somebody that's been through it before has been through the thick and the thin, have dealt with potholes, they've seen it through.
Chris: And I've had a, I've been very, very fortunate in my lifetime to get some of the best of the best in the industry. In terms of chief revenue officers, like I I'll mention a gentleman by the name of Dan Daldigan and [00:43:00] Jim Steele and Frank Van Vienendal and Joe Fuca. And this list goes on and on. And, and Ted Krantz, who's my CEO of today, which I'm learning things today that I've never, I couldn't even think about thanks to Ted.
Chris: So these are the things that I think one, in order to, to gather that data, that information, I think it's, it's. You know, looking at, like I said, the customer life cycle and seeing all the components that you need, meaning your part, your strategic partnerships, your customer success team, and making sure that you've got all the right players in the inside.
Chris: So I think it's really about understanding your market and understanding the direction where it's going and getting ahead of that and making sure that you're constantly challenging yourself.
Phil: Well, that sounds like a very good tip for people to have. I hope they can cultivate some helpful mentors because we know, I know personally how much that really matters.
Phil: I want to thank you so much for sharing your time and your [00:44:00] wisdom with us. Last question, where can people find you? Is there anything you'd like to plug before you go?
Chris: Yeah. So I would love to plug interus. ai. And like I said before, every customer, every company out in the world today has a supply chain.
Chris: And it's so important to get out in front of that and make sure that you're managing those suppliers, because at any point. Whether or not it's a supplier that you're using for your own products or it's a supplier that you're leveraging to, to grow your business in any facet that you need to know that, again, that they're financially sound, that they're not in, in track of a, of a, of a hurricane or a storm somewhere that they're, you know, abiding by sustainability rules and mandates.
Chris: And making sure that they're not on the restrictive list. So all of this is happening, but it's very important that, because it could be devastating to your organization if you don't have that product that's monitoring like an Interos. ai.
Phil: [00:45:00] Well, it's a pretty solid, it's pretty solid plug and it just sounds like a pretty solid company for, for an area that we know is increasing in its importance.
Phil: Daily and weekly in an ever changing environment. Well, thank you so much, Chris, for joining us today. And thank you listeners for tuning into another episode of Revenue Reinvention. You can also watch these episodes on YouTube. Find us at Revenue Reinvention. Also, you can subscribe on your favorite platform and we'll see you next time.
Phil: Chris won't be here, but thanks so much for sharing with us, and we hope to see you around soon.
Chris: Thank you so much, Phil. It's been a pleasure.
Outro: Revenue Reinvention is brought to you by Accenture in partnership with Conga. Discover how Accenture and Conga are reshaping the landscape of revenue reinvention. Their unique collaborations Merges Accenture's deep transformation expertise with Conga's market leading technology solutions to redefine effective revenue lifecycle management. Together, they're not just facilitating growth, they're [00:46:00] engineering it. Join them in this journey towards sustainable and scalable growth.