Eric Gilpin, Chief Revenue Officer at G2, shares insights on the importance of cultural alignment, the concept of “zero-daylight” for executive decision-making, and practical tips for driving business agility and innovation.
This episode features an interview with Eric Gilpin, Chief Revenue Officer at G2 and a tech industry veteran with over 20 years of experience, including roles at Upwork and CareerBuilder.
Eric shares insights on the importance of cultural alignment, the concept of “zero-daylight” for executive decision-making, and practical tips for driving business agility and innovation.
About the Guest:
Eric Gilpin is the Chief Revenue Officer of G2, overseeing global sales and customer success, with over 20 years of experience in scaling technology businesses, including a pivotal role at Upwork during its successful IPO and subsequent revenue growth, while also serving as a limited partner at GTMfund and an advisory board member at Sales Assembly, and being recognized as a top sales leader.
Guest Highlights:
“Churn is not a revenue, marketing, or product problem. Churn is a company problem.”
“All revenue is not created equal.”
"CROs think that they're the sales leader, whereas they are cross-functional execs, and their job is to communicate and advocate on behalf of their customers and their teams."
Episode Timestamps:
*(01:10) - Eric’s G2 Journey and Insights
*(03:25) - Navigating Market Corrections and Innovations
*(09:35) - Aligning Teams for Success
*(20:15) - Building Cross-Functional Relationships
*(22:55) - Leveraging Input Metrics for Success
*(31:55) - Future Trends and AI in Revenue Operations
Links & Resources:
Our Sponsors:
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. Today, we've got a great guest, Eric Gilpin, Chief Revenue Officer at G2. Now, you may know Eric from his leadership roles at Upwork and CareerBuilder, so he's no stranger to driving growth and navigating change in evolving markets. In this episode, we'll chat about leading through market corrections, finding new revenue streams through innovation, And why Eric says all revenue is not created equal. Plus, we'll dive into the importance of alignment in the C suite. Especially, and I love this, the concept of zero daylight between executives so that the company can move at speed and how that can make or break your long term success. Let's dive in.
Phil: Welcome to Revenue Reinvention, everyone. Thanks for being here. I'm your host, Phil Dillard, founder of ThruLine Networks. We're here today with Eric. Thanks so [00:01:00] much for joining us, Eric. How are you doing?
Eric: I'm doing great, Phil. Excited to be here.
Phil: Same, same. Glad to have you. So Let me just jump right into it. You've recently hit your one year mark at G2, coming in with over two decades of experience in scaling major tech companies. How would you sum up your first year and what was it like, what was it about G2 that caught your attention to move there?
Eric: Yeah, no, great question, Phil. I would say, and this probably isn't unique to any revenue leaders in SEED today, but it's definitely been a year of transformation.
Eric: If you think about our unique ecosystem, we work with B2B tech sellers and large service providers, and as the sector has gone through this correction, like we've been navigating this, With our customers at the same time. And so we've had to like double down in certain areas, start new strategies, and pull back on others.
Eric: The last 12 months have been, you know, not just like onboarding at the organization, but definitely a year of transformation, you know, for us, [00:02:00] you know, G2 for me was, Like, I don't know. I feel like every career story I have is very serendipitous. It goes back to a CEO I worked with in the past. He used to always say, Eric, you're going to get where you're going, whether you know it or not.
Eric: And I feel like my story to G2 is no different. And so, you know, being in Chicago where G2 is also headquartered, it's, it's been a story that Anyone in the tech economy has paid attention to as, as they've built, you know, kind of their business and, and built relationships with, you know, tech customers, you know, around the world.
Eric: And, and I was fortunate to, to spend time with our co-founder and CEO Goddard years ago, and then kind of reconnect right before I joined. And, and I would say like the main drivers for me have been, have always been like mission oriented businesses. You know, I've worked for two other large marketplaces that have.
Eric: Really large, not just addressable markets, but market changing missions. And I think G2 is no different. You know, this idea of allowing like David and Goliath stories to play out every day and large organizations to be able to [00:03:00] build their brand and reputation based on true customer's voice versus.
Eric: Maybe the old school kind of analyst strategy of how you built, you know, kind of brand and market credibility. And so finding another mission driven organization, a leadership team with a really strong track record, a great staple of Investors that are also excited about that team and that mission. It was just another perfect fit for me, Phil.
Phil: That makes a lot of sense. You talked about market correction, and that can often lead to real opportunities. So coming into G2, where did you think you were headed and how does the radar for the next couple of years look different?
Eric: Yeah, I, I look at as, you know, you could call them corrections. You could call them shifts.
Eric: You could call them. Downward trends, even the word recession, you know, at times, but for me, it's like every business is going to have cycles. And I think about it as like turns on a racetrack. And so how do we make sure that we break early, you know, [00:04:00] obviously get the tires under control so that we can hit that apex accelerating faster than our competition.
Eric: And so to your point, I look at any of those cycles as opportunities to get better. Applying that same lens into this. You know, correction, if you will, that we're, that we're going through, I would say it's been an acceleration of things that are going well, and then a kind of a rethink on prioritization, understanding we're going to have less kind of at bats as companies are rethinking their go to market strategy.
Eric: How do we double down on what's working and better prioritize the things that potentially won't serve us both in this market and potentially moving forward?
Phil: I understand that. Can you give an example of love? Something that, that you've implemented in year one, that is a, that showcases the, either the doubling down or the, or the rethinking, I mean, it seems like this would be a period where there is rapid disruption in terms of what sort of solutions people had been using and thinking about, [00:05:00] should I continue with this solution or should I move to something different and are those things.
Phil: It's, I'm curious if those things are more or less on the platform, if it is what you put on the platform, or is it how to engage with users? Seems like a broad area of what you might rethink if you're trying to drive something, drive something forward.
Eric: Totally. I, maybe I'll start with an internal example, because I think it, it does, tails nicely into the external story as well.
Eric: And so for us, if you think about G2, massive expansion through kind of the growth at all costs and like zero interest rate, you know, economy that we've all lived in as a part of that, you know, we've built this healthy ecosystem of 160, 000 companies that are listed on, on G2 across 2100 different categories globally.
Eric: And. I think a big opportunity to focus and double down that we've looked at internally is around our ideal customer profile, understanding that we can't chase all 160, 000 profiles on G2 the exact same way. [00:06:00] And so we've been, uh, spent a ton of time around modeling, propensity signals, clustering customers based on likeness, NRR trends of these different cohorts.
Eric: And we've made the world a lot smaller, meaning like all revenue is not equal. And so how do we make sure that in alignment with product marketing, all of our go to market teams, that we're chasing the exact same people. And so, you know, it might seem crazy to think that we're shrinking our ICP when the market's harder, but based on the value that we produce in our marketplace, it was a direct signal for us to double down on kind of that account tiering strategy and really, Making the world smaller from a pursuit standpoint, that would be a great internal example of where we're trying to refine kind of our teams.
Eric: I think that also shows up in the kind of product and packaging that we go to market with. And so how do we make sure that we're focusing on customers that can use all of the kinds of value assets that G2 has versus maybe a single product strategy as a [00:07:00] result. And so, as you can imagine, the customers that are in those must win categories.
Eric: As well , leveraging all of G2 solutions has really positive unit economic trends. And so we're trying to put all of our human product and marketing energy at those customers versus we might've chased everyone, you know, when things were going great.
Phil: That's really interesting. And it seems like G2 is a pretty different business than what you came from.
Phil: At Upwork and Career Builder, but dealing with the sheer number of customers and customer types and solutions, there's probably some best practices or trends that have kind of transferred from one to the other. So can you share a little bit about lessons from your time at Upwork or Career Builder that you're, that you're bringing over to G two?
Eric: Yeah, great question. And I think it was one of the reasons that I was excited about G two. They're all, if you think about it, two sided marketplaces, you have buyers and sellers on both sides. Now, the products that we're bringing to market [00:08:00] and the personas that we're building them for might be different, but you still have a demand strategy around how do we get buyers or in my previous life, talent to the marketplace.
Eric: You have to build, you know, relative solutions to the audience that you want to serve. Which would have been hiring managers, but now we call them sellers or companies at G2. And so there's actually a ton of analogous work, regardless of the type of marketplace that is relevant. I would say that the things that transfer really nicely are understanding the balance between supply and demand.
Eric: If you think about G2 today, the world's largest software marketplace, we have to make sure that we're constantly building our buyer audience. And so, you know, for context today, we've got about 90 million buyers. They use G2 to make software decisions. And understanding that that is the reason that sellers will always want to list their products.
Eric: We have to have a definitive and ongoing strategy of like, how do we continue to build that audience? of buyers. That's no different than what we did at CareerBuilder or Upwork around building flywheel effects around talent [00:09:00] at the same time. And so even though they're different delivery models and the products are different, the fundamentals of the marketplace are the exact same.
Phil: The fundamentals in the marketplace seem to make sense, right? Buyers and sellers. Somebody's looking for something in a big marketplace and, and then you probably have certain marketplace effects, but from a chief revenue officer perspective, what's different in terms of enabling the organization to actually be able to execute given all the changes that you're making ?
Phil: You had to make a G2 because of the disruptive nature of the, of the time itself.
Eric: I think it starts with a total alignment around this idea of who we're chasing and meaning that if the product teams and the marketing teams and the revenue teams are chasing different customer cohorts, it's like ripe for confusion, dependencies.
Eric: Roadblocks and just a gap in like going to market execution. So I think this idea of who we are chasing and how we are aligning cross functional [00:10:00] teams on those like unique customer subsets and opportunities are number one. I think number two, making sure that everyone's got shared alignment around goals.
Eric: OK, ours, we use the G2 and make sure that there's no daylight. between those organizations. And you might have specific functions that represent different parts of that customer journey, but we need to have a shared vision of what that entire life cycle or pitch looks like with aligned goals. In my opinion, like when things get off track or off rails, it's usually goal misalignment.
Eric: And so as an organization, if you could say these are the customers that we want to serve and why, and here are our teams that are going to be able to represent. Our customers are on that journey. And here's how we're going to measure that full lifecycle experience, both inputs and outputs. You kind of remove the opportunities for goal friction as an organization.
Eric: And so I would say that that would be the kind of key to success. Well, in all times, but definitely something we're striving for at G2 really hard [00:11:00] right now.
Phil: So, and how is customer or stakeholder feedback part of that process?
Eric: So if you think about our flywheel, that customer has to be right in the middle.
Eric: And we need to have really important loops that come in, not only just from the sales and success teams, But how do our product and engineering teams have direct access to those customers? We need to have a strong commitment to innovation so that we can go through different experiments that get us to alpha and then get us to beta before we get to GA.
Eric: And so that we have a commitment to agility by using those feedback loops to be able to not just solve customer problems, but to potentially engineer new solutions that create opportunities. And so in some ways you have to keep the world really small to learn, but then making sure that you have clear Feedback loops and not just the sales team to the product team, like the, the customer interaction directly with the folks with hands on keyboards is incredibly important to make sure that you nail it and kind of solve customer pain even faster.
Phil: So you [00:12:00] go, the customer's in the center, they have some problems. We're experimenting with solutions, listening, and coming up with different options that are out there. So if we're trying to go into the section where we talk a little bit about Predictive pathways. and new revenue streams. How do you actually make that transition from taking all these different points and all these different touch points and then turning them into, turning experiments into something that's actually a new predictable revenue stream?
Phil: Can you talk about that a little bit?
Eric: Yeah, I mean, we have a team here at G2 that's dedicated to this. We call them G2 Labs. Think of them as an innovation arm. And they're really trying to focus on helping us see around corners. And how are we building either new features, solutions, workflows, products that are mapped to our kind of long range plan.
Eric: But there are a lot of things that they're also experimenting with that are like near term solutions at the same time. I would like to have clear goals of what we're working on and why would be number one and being very transparent with the [00:13:00] organization as a part of that. And so even though it might be a team that's, you know, small in kind of size and structure, their impact is really broad.
Eric: And so we need to communicate with clarity, you know, with the organization, what they're working on. I think too, Understanding that the zero to one journey is really important and giving, I would say, both time and patience to test and learn and like iterative feedback is really important. And so in some ways you can easily get in the way of innovation when ideally their job is to kind of challenge the status quo of what we're doing, and be able to incubate those new ideas on behalf of our customer.
Eric: And so I think you want to be really transparent with what we're doing, but you need to give them the freedom and responsibility. To be able to, to innovate quickly without maybe adopting some kind of core strategies, you know, really quickly. And what I've learned is that even if it's in the, in a, in a labs or an innovation wing of the organization, um, you're still going to want cross functional team members that are a part of that journey that have both awareness and contribution kind [00:14:00] of to those.
Eric: And so in some ways like small is the new big, and so you want to keep it kind of under the microscope, but also cascading that information to the entire company that we're working on, because I feel like that's where innovation dies is like misalignment or mis awareness, or, you know, feeling that like goals are in conflict versus, no, this is our culture, which is a conversation of how we do things around here.
Phil: Well, you touch on a number of really interesting points there with, from G2 Labs to the zero to one journey and the small is the, is the new big. I don't know exactly where to start because there's so many interesting jump off points. But the first thing that comes to mind is saying, when you have an innovation team, They need to move at the right pace and they need to do those iteration loops.
Phil: But at some point, there might be conflict with the growth, existing growth strategy, the Horizon 2 stuff, or the existing cash cow business, the Horizon 1 stuff. So how do you balance the challenge between the innovation team moving it, specifically, Moving at [00:15:00] pace, the frictions in those parts of existing business, and who can actually, who actually leads that when it gets out of the G2 into the, into the real world?
Phil: Cause as you said, there are experts that you would kind of connect with who are in the business. Can you comment on that a little bit?
Eric: As I think about innovation. And it's specific to like go to market motions, which I think most B2B tech companies are rethinking their go to market motion right now.
Eric: And I'm rooted in this idea of nostalgia and denial killing businesses.
Phil: And so
Eric: if you think about this idea of the future versus business model, the future always wins. And if you subscribe to those things, you should be disrupting yourself all the time. As long as it's rooted in customer value and signals that you're obviously getting from either who you serve today or maybe potential markets that you want to serve in the future.
Eric: And so if you have that culture as a company, it gives you permission to kind of play and break things as a part of that. And that, and that requires tops down alignment, but also constant communication [00:16:00] internally of the why, of what we're doing things. And if you can see that as a part of your culture, innovation should be at every kind of decision point in the company.
Eric: I feel like organizations that miss those curves in their business, it's because they have cultural misalignment in like what they're doing and like why they're doing it. I think the only way that that works is like clear, transparent communication of where we're going and why, as well as the so what, who cares, what's in it for our customers when we get there, and then what's in it for you as a part of that.
Eric: I don't think you can over communicate that enough, because if you're clear there, I think you can be clear in like setting expectations and everyone's role kind of in that journey across the organization.
Phil: Um, you hit on a really important point that to me describes how nimble you have to be as a revenue leader, that you need to be able to have a culture that disrupts his space at pace, stays ahead of what's going on in the marketplace and serves needs for, serves needs for customers and for, [00:17:00] and for stakeholders.
Phil: So how do you get there? I don't know, did you walk into a culture that was moving at that pace or have you had to do things to influence that culture? Because. My understanding is CROs often sit in the middle of a number of organizations of which they don't have control. So they have to use a lot of influence and it's very helpful if the culture already exists.
Phil: It's also helpful if the culture is hungry for the change that you're bringing because of the experience you, you, you bring to the table. So how do you navigate that dance inside of your company?
Eric: Yeah. So I think regardless of the functional hat that you may wear. If you're on the senior leadership team, that's your team number one.
Eric: You know, to steal from like Patrick Lincioni, like that is my team, not my direct. My team is the CEO, the CFO, the CMO, and the chief product officer. And like, that is where that zero daylight relationship has to exist. Because if we don't have alignment in that room, nothing else matters. Because we [00:18:00] are going, it's going to fall apart as we try to cascade that through the organization.
Eric: And I think that is like a big struggle for where organizations like to scale. And so if I think about my relationship with the CFO, our chief marketing officer, our product officer, even HR, which we call employee success, like the key is to have alignment there. And if you can get that right, Like, I feel like 80 percent of the work is done because then it's easier to cascade to the folks that are actually deciding what and how, as well as like the folks that are executing on behalf of our customers.
Eric: The whole part of that conversation and alignment at the top is where I think it is like companies either accelerate or unfortunately plateau and decline.
Phil: That makes a ton of sense, and
Eric: Can I give you an example? Yeah, please do. So, like, all of our customers, G2 included, everyone's dealing with probably more churn than they want to right now.
Eric: And I see a lot of organizations start, well, who's in charge of churn? And [00:19:00] you get this movement, where everyone points at everyone else. Like churn is not a revenue problem. It's not a marketing problem. It's not a product problem. Churn is a company problem. And like all folks across all different surface areas should be empowered and accountable to help our customers win.
Eric: And if you don't think about things like that, that way, that's where people in a CRO role, unfortunately, find a lot of failure because they're not necessarily fulfilling their cross functional requirements and how companies have to work together to win on behalf of their customers. Or when for their customers.
Eric: I think churn's a great example that a lot of B2B companies are feeling right now.
Phil: So you've, you, you clarified the churn a bit and actually you put out some really interesting tips. So I got tips for aspiring CROs to include first, you know, C level engagement, that alignment, I really like how you anchored that in the zero daylight relationship.
Phil: between the other C level execs, super important, right? Clear communication, clear [00:20:00] identification of the what's in it for me sort of scenario. Is there any other advice you'd give to CROs or aspiring revenue leaders about crafting the strategies for growth in such an environment?
Eric: Yeah. And I think it goes back to the alignment piece.
Eric: And I get that like CRO means a lot of different things for different organizations. And it also means different things for different stages of organizations. But I think in order for me to build really strong cross functional relationships, I need to know their love languages. And like, I'll give you an example.
Eric: Scaling organizations, you know, had this experience at Upwork. I have this today at G2. I need to understand the same way that our CFO is thinking about unit economics, if I want to build a really strong partnership. We need to be able to speak the same language as we think about the rule of 40 or top line or bottom line growth and sales and marketing net efficiencies and all of those things.
Eric: If I want to build a strong relationship with the CMO, I need to understand how she, he, or she, she, for example, here at G2, [00:21:00] how are they being gold? And how are they thinking about their assembly line of how they show up for the customers? If I want to build a world class relationship with R&D, I need to understand how we think about our development sprints and what are the ingredients of a squad or scrum team and how do they make priorities, prioritization decisions.
Eric: And I think a lot of times CROs think that they're the sales leader versus they are a cross functional exec, you know, that sits at the top of the organization and their job is to communicate and advocate on behalf of their customers and their teams. And the only way to do that is to have a shared language.
Eric: And I feel that's where a lot of. CROs missed the next step in their role. It's like, I went from a sales leader to now I'm basically an operator. And now those operations require a ton of unlocks with our partners, but they don't take the time to put themselves in their shoes and they end up not moving as fast as a team as they could.
Phil: You know, you got me thinking about a sports analogy as you were talking. It's almost like, it's like a player coach. Who has to adjust his [00:22:00] or her style to the team that's on the field, and when team members change that you need to adjust that style again, because you need to keep everybody on the same page, right?
Phil: And there's, you know, you could use it in a number of different ways. Sports, but it just seems to be that sort of, that sort of role. You mentioned some philosophies. Are there any particular tools or methodologies that help you to navigate the broad flexibility that's required? Or is it just that you must be conversant in all the different ways that your, your partners operate and see the world?
Eric: So, yes, and, I think that you should be intentional in trying to learn, like you don't need to be a subject matter expert, you just need to understand at a decent level how their function operates if you want to be a good partner. But I think the things that help you connect the dots and close those gaps, one tool I use is around the idea of input metrics.
Eric: Everyone's looking to the revenue organization for a strong forecast of what's going to happen in the future. [00:23:00] Many organizations are going through planning right now, and they're trying to figure out where they want to invest. How do they want to structure their teams? What big bets do they want? And they're relying on the revenue team's forecast to be able to cement those plans.
Eric: And the only way that you get to a really good forecast is understanding all of the inputs of those motions. And so having strong rigor and communication around, if you think about revenue happens. You know, everything that I do today at G2 is going to pay me 90 to 120 days later. And so I need to understand, in order to have an annual forecast, I need to have really strong cohort analysis like the quarters.
Eric: Which means I need to really understand what's going to happen in the month, which means that I have to be able to win the week with certain accuracy around inputs to do that. And so if you can align the organization to be just as rigorous, if not more rigorous on inputs versus outputs, you gain a lot of trust and transparency because you're kind of building relationships.
Eric: And, and unlocking dependencies before you need them. And so I can tell you right now, do [00:24:00] we have enough of a funnel to hit two quarters from now, which means the relationship and conversation that we would have with our marketing teams is very different if I'm two weeks till quarter close and I'm behind.
Eric: And so getting really strong instrumentation around the inputs of the business, I think helps build trust. And relationships with cross cross functional partners, because they're not showing up with like, we're way behind and I need something immediately. You're constant, even if it's bad, you should know what's going to happen in the future.
Eric: And so I've always used input metrics as an alignment for the whole company so that we can better prioritize, strategize and allocate capital based on the needs of the business.
Phil: It would seem that those metrics are, I mean, they're going to be good. Guideposts, but it seems that it also might be a little more complicated given the size of the sales team.
Phil: I mean, you'd lead a global sales team of over 400 people. I don't know how big the team is at G2, but does it really matter about the size of the team? Or is it, is there something [00:25:00] else that is a key limiting factor in being able to stay ahead of the curve or be responsive like you described when you said, when you find yourself too behind with two weeks to go to the end of the quarter.
Eric: G2's team today, we have over 200 sellers, both in the U. S., EMEA, as well as APAC, and so still a large go to market organization. But I would, I would challenge myself to, to even think about, we won't get to 400 sellers, 500 sellers, 600 sellers without this, like, strong DNA of input metrics, because those have to scale.
Eric: Otherwise, you're not able to see around corners, and you can get ahead of your skis, or you can move too slow on certain things. And so, I think you have to lean hard into your rev ops. team. You have to lean hard into your kind of partnerships with FP&A. You need to lean in hard to your partnerships with the recruiting team.
Eric: So you always have a funnel of candidates. We have the option to speed up, slow down, go sideways, whatever you need to do. And so I don't, I don't see a world where We get to our peak, meaning like our next summit, without [00:26:00] really strong implementrics as a business. And there are tools that can help.
Eric: There's ways to automate a lot of that kind of insight and learning. And it's part of the transformation work that we've been doing our first 12 months, or at least my first 12 months here at G2.
Phil: Well, we've talked a lot about a number of different parts of the organization, but we haven't talked about one, and I think it's really Critical, critical services provided and probably critical to information inside, and that's the customer experience part.
Phil: So can you talk about the, I mean, the strengths of being a CX platform, if that's how you might define it. And then some of the other challenges and opportunities you have from being so CX driven towards your, your revenue.
Eric: Yeah, so I actually think that G2 and we have our challenges like everybody else, but we also still have this really interesting meet the moment opportunity.
Eric: And so if you think about the world of go to market today, everyone's trying to figure out how to reduce churn. Everyone's trying to figure out how to get leverage either through AI or [00:27:00] consolidation of tools, and everyone's trying to figure out, like, how do we continue to narrow in our ICP so we can grow revenue at the same time?
Eric: And if you think about G2's platform today, not only do we help you build your brand and generate leads. We're also the largest signal company to tell you what your current customers are doing. And so a lot of the things that we focus our customers on today are around churn prevention. Meaning that if you sell marketing automation software, I can actually tell you when your current customers are shopping for new products.
Eric: Marketing automation software. And so that you can give those signals to your CS team or CX team to be able to do proactive and preventative outreach and prevention tactics, if you will, before churn even exists. And so if you think about consolidating tech stacks, like G2 is a workflow tool. We're not trying to add another interface.
Eric: We want to be able to put our data in your CRM, in your account based marketing platform, in your ad campaigns, in your own CX platforms. You know, that you [00:28:00] have, so that we're not another UI that you need to navigate. We're just another signal to enrich. Your go to market motion so that you can get leverage so that you can consolidate potentially, but more importantly, we can help you compete in your ICP, but more importantly, like help you understand what's going on in your market and your current customers to get ahead of churn.
Phil: And when you talk about knowing when your customers are looking for a competitive solution, is that like actual customers, because there's so many people on the platform or is it indications across the, this, the, The sector that say, when people start doing this, the likelihood is that they're going to be searching is tipping up.
Phil: Or is it both?
Eric: I would say that we have a sector trend analysis for sure. I mean, if you think about AI. We've added hundreds of categories, you know, almost 10, 000 products in the last 12 months. And so we have a, we have a read on like what is happening in the AI category today, but we can definitely do it at the account level.
Eric: And so if you think about it, like we have a number of IP matching [00:29:00] technologies, a ton of like partner data that we use, as well as, you know, when buying B2B credentials. And so I can tell you that customer A. is shopping on G2 and they're comparing you to competitor B. Now we don't give them the actual contact level data, but you can work with ZoomInfo or LinkedIn to be able to, you know, kind of add those prospecting networks, but I can tell you at the company level for sure that you may be at risk or on the flip side, they, they may be a new customer and they're considering you at the same time.
Eric: And so it's, it's, it's kind of the same, same pool, different tool.
Phil: That's super powerful, right? The message to me is that if you're paying attention and you're listening as an organization to what G2 can provide, you shouldn't be surprised. By turn, you shouldn't be surprised by customer risk. You shouldn't be surprised by market trends because you have the tools that give you the ability to stay ahead of it.
Phil: Now, it might lead you [00:30:00] into a different challenge. Like, how do you understand, how do you help customers understand situations where their customer acquisition costs might outpace their lifetime value, or there might be changes in some of the fundamental assumptions of their business that might make it untenable to do some of the things that they've been doing in the past.
Phil: Do you get into that with them?
Eric: We do. I mean if you think about it, like all customer revenue cohorts aren't necessarily equal. And as companies think about multi product strategies as well as Multi go to market motions. Like you may have a PLG motion. You may have an eco led motion. You may have a direct sales led motion.
Eric: And so kind of understanding the unit economics of all of those are definitely conversations that we have with our customers. For example, you know, PLG and self serve buying is. It's really popular right now. And so we allow customers to be able to sell directly on G2. And so if you've already built credit card plumbing, you can actually put those offers called G2 deals right on your profile.
Eric: So if you have an eco [00:31:00] led strategy, like how do we make sure that we show that your partner Or your product integrates with all of the different partners in your ecosystem so that we can connect the dots for channel sales for you. If you're a direct selling motion and you have a really strong ICP, great.
Eric: How do we make sure that we're making sure we get those leads from G2 right into the hands of your sellers and maybe a Gong or a SalesLoft platform. And so depending on how they want to go to market, we will map. Our G2 kind of delivery model or motions that are most relevant to them.
Phil: That sounds incredibly powerful.
Phil: And I hope that our listeners, if they're, like me, are really impressed with what you're able to do on the platform and how they might be able to expand their business. Cause I'm just thinking about some of the conversations that we've had and some of the challenges folks have had and how this actually might open up the businesses to move more quickly and more nimbly.
Phil: Like we anticipate they should. Now, I don't know where all the time has gone, but we only have a few more minutes left. So before we go, I definitely want to [00:32:00] have a chance to talk a little bit specifically about future trends. You talked a little bit about AI, and we know that there are a lot of things that Artificial intelligence can do and a lot of that they can't.
Phil: Can you talk a little bit about what you're seeing, where you think it's headed and where there's a lot of opportunity that maybe people are missing or or that's particularly valuable to the CRO as you see it?
Eric: One of the things that's top of mind for CROs is this idea of like autonomous AI SDR agents, and there's this big debate of like, you know, are they going to replace SDRs?
Eric: What's working? What's not working? And it kind of goes back to that comment around like future versus business model, future always wins. You know, I've spent two decades now in the kind of internet economy where We all opened up our internet experiences on sites like MSN, AOL, and Yahoo, and then Google came in and did the whole page ranking, you know, piece to like, kind of disrupting how we look for content.
Eric: Fast forward to social media and like [00:33:00] how LinkedIn and all these other platforms have changed communication styles. You know, the rise of mobile. Now you've got not just generative AI, but like autonomous AI agents from every major software company in the world. My message to sales leaders is like, just get in the game and just assume things are going to look different and challenge your own like status quo and experiment early and often.
Eric: Every day I learn about some new AI tool that's not just like a chatbot anymore. It really is like autonomous learning and I'm fascinated. I'm excited. You know, I've, I've been in like the talent economy for a large portion of my career. And when jobs are cannibalized or destroyed, like 10 other jobs are always created.
Eric: And so I look at it as like, it's not an if, it's a when and sales leaders should get engaged and learn and figure out what's relevant for their own business. But I think the debate is over and it will just continue to accelerate faster than anything we've ever seen.
Phil: Yeah, you know, you don't see a whole lot of people saying that we should [00:34:00] go back from Google to the days before Google.
Phil: Right. So, you know, and we're seeing these agents everywhere. And I think it's just how might we, how might we employ them is probably the smart question to ask. So before we go, what do you think? Just a comment, a step back comment about the role of the CRO, the changing revenue model and that sort of thing.
Phil: How do you think this role will continue to change to evolve business going forward?
Eric: Yeah, well, as I mentioned before, like CROs have like a number of different flavors based on the industry, the company, the size. But I would say that the cross functional nature required, the acumen required cross functionally will only continue to go up.
Eric: As a lot of the transformation that companies are going through are not just selling motions. They're not just going to market motions. They really are company motions. And so I, I especially think as organizations scale, the role of the CRO will be more cross functional than ever and more operational. You know, I, I, I wish I could spend more [00:35:00] time always in front of customers, but I'm, I'm constantly deciding, you know, how to kind of build relationships before you need them, help prioritize kind of the company roadmap, you know, advocate on behalf of like common themes that are going on.
Eric: And so I, I. I feel like the CRO role will continue to become more operational over time, especially as you work with larger organizations. And that would be very different than maybe your chief sales officer or your SOP of sales that may have existed, you know, five to 10 years ago.
Phil: How do you avoid being too abstracted from the customer, right?
Phil: I mean, by that, I mean, if you're up, if you're focusing on operations or executive level things too much, It can be, it can be, you can be too far from touching customer, maybe a little, I don't want to say out of touch, but it was something that moves so quickly and changes so quickly. How do you, how do you maintain the balance between having enough touches to keep sharp?
Phil: But also to work on the things that are required at the C level and at the operational level. [00:36:00]
Eric: Totally. And I would tell you that like, you have to be very intentional. I do it with blocks and I also do it with prioritization. And so there's not a day if I'm not traveling that I don't have some sort of customer interaction.
Eric: That could be through a partner, that could be through a prioritized account that's on our Big Bet strategy. That could be through listening to a gong call that was shared that was really interesting, but you have to prioritize it and you, and you have to like, be very transparent that you're prioritizing that.
Eric: Cause I agree with you, Phil, the moment you stop contexting matching, like what you hear outside with the inside, like that's where you like, like diverge and like build things that customers don't actually need. Or you go down a path that you have to end up creating a ton of rework as a result. But you have to prioritize your time and block your calendar to do it.
Eric: And I think that for CROs, there's, there's always ways to do it. Like you're going to have marquee accounts that you're going to spend time with. You're going to have either event strategies or kind of customer venues that are going to allow you to build those with all of the call recording technology.
Eric: Like you can just load one up in the car or on the Peloton and [00:37:00] you can listen to it. But if you're not intentional and block your time, Like, that's your biggest competitor, time. And if you're not filling it with that, it'll be filled with something else. And so you have to have conviction and high intention on it.
Eric: But it's also like the best way to run your day. Like, there are a lot of things internally that suck, but I've never been on a call with a customer that I didn't find value or learn something from. And make it a goal. Make sure that goal is known and understood and don't sacrifice it.
Phil: Well, that sounds great.
Phil: That's a great tip and a great way to close out, right? Always remember who's at the center of the flywheel and figure out a way to touch them every day. I love that. So thank you so much, Eric, for joining us today. We really appreciate your time. And thank you listeners for tuning in to another episode of Revenue Reinvention.
Phil: You can also watch these episodes on YouTube. You can find us at Revenue Reinvention and subscribe on your favorite platform. So until next time, thanks so much. And we'll see you around. Thanks again, Eric, for your time. It was really great. And there's so much good stuff in here. I hope people will get a lot out of it.
Phil: [00:38:00] Yeah,
Eric: no, great to be here.
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