Tim Richards, an accomplished revenue leader with experience that spans large media companies (TimeWarner, AOL) and scaled digital organizations (Linqia, Nextdoor, Amaze), shares insights on how CROs can drive growth during periods of transformation and ensure team alignment.
Tim Richards is an accomplished revenue leader with experience that spans large media companies (TimeWarner, AOL) and scaled digital organizations (Linqia, Nextdoor, Amaze). As a veteran change agent, Tim shares insights on how CROs can drive growth during periods of transformation and embrace cross-functional leadership to ensure team alignment and engagement.
About the Guest:
Tim Richards is the former Head of Global Sales at Nextdoor, a position he held since November 2022. In this role, he led Nextdoor's global direct advertising sales strategy and market expansion, with the aim of accelerating the company's global growth and reinforcing its commitment to serving advertisers, partners, and consumers. Prior to joining Nextdoor, Richards served as the Chief Revenue Officer at Linqia, an influencer marketing platform. During his time there, he successfully rebuilt the revenue organization to focus on enterprise brands, resulting in exponential revenue growth and improved customer retention.
Richards has a strong background in sales and marketing, with experience that includes serving on the Board of Directors at Amaze since March 2022. He was also inducted into the Hall of Fame by the Bay Area Interactive Group (SFBIG) in April 2015, recognizing his contributions to industry and community. In terms of education, Richards attended Miami University and completed the Driving Sales Performance program at Kellogg Executive Education.
Guest Quote: “You have to view yourself as the conductor of a symphony. You can't be aligning yourself with the trumpets and the percussion section and blow off everything else. You have to view yourself as a leader and a harmonizer of the whole thing, whether they report to you or not… That is a form of servant leadership because you're not just focusing on your directs or getting promoted—it's about making the whole thing work.”
Episode Timestamps:
*(03:02) - The Evolving Role of the CRO
*(06:50) - Strategies for Market Expansion and Contraction
*(09:25) - Innovative Pricing and Revenue Structures
*(14:35) - Servant Leadership and Team Empowerment
*(30:10) - Future of Revenue Models
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[00:00:00] Phil: Welcome to Revenue Reinvention, the podcast where we get real about transforming business for predictable success. On today's episode, we talk to Tim Richards. Tim is a Career Revenue Leader and CRO. We dive deep into his successful track record with market expansion and rebuilding revenue teams at organizations like Nextdoor and Linqia, as well as his time at scale digital organizations in Silicon Valley startups. You'll hear great advice for CROs looking to change their culture, marketing strategy, and how to bring people along for the ride. Let's dive in.
Well, hello everyone. Welcome to Revenue Reinvention and thanks so much for being here. I'm your host, Phil Dillard, founder of ThruLine Networks. We're here with Tim. Thanks so much for making the time, Tim. Let's introduce you to our audience. Can you tell us a little bit about your career journey and how your sales experience has Led you to becoming a career revenue leader.
Tim: Well, it's great to be with you, Phil, and happy to [00:01:00] talk about this. I actually appreciate the chance to reflect a little bit through this process, but I had the good fortune of my father being a great sales leader back in the Midwest and Milwaukee, actually.
Tim: And I actually started by cold calling. Local advertisers on behalf of his reps, and they would have to, they would pay me by taking me to lunch and taking me on the call so I could learn, but I got into the internet pretty early. I was at Time Warner for a long time when that was the largest media company in the world, worked my way up into their corporate strategy group, and then was recruited over to help resurrect AOL, which at the time was part of a combined company, and that was an incredible ride.
Tim: I worked for Tim Armstrong for nine of those 10 years, bringing AOL back, adding a bunch of companies into it. So I got a great exposure to everything from, you know, video, non reserved business with advertising. com, every permutation of data and so forth. And we ultimately sold that company back to Verizon.
Tim: So that was incredible. So, [00:02:00] over a 17 year run, and I was probably the only one on the planet that was part of Time Warner before the AOL merger and then part of AOL as part of the Verizon sale. So, an incredible ride, but that was A lot of corporate reorg ing, and so in 2017, I made a conscious decision to focus on Silicon Valley venture backed startups.
Tim: Most recently was at Nextdoor, which is the neighborhood platform. I know you're a San Franciscan as well, Phil, and it's all about connecting 350, 000 neighborhoods and hyper local at scale and tapping that high intense signal that people bring to that platform. I'm currently consulting and so right now there's a lot of demand from PE firms that have a portfolio company that's kind of stalled on their revenue and so I help them and there's also a few companies out there that are legacy companies that are trying to reinvent themselves and so I'm keeping busy doing that, appreciate the variety and and the action and there's certainly so much disruption in the market [00:03:00] that it's fun things to work on for sure.
Phil: Well it's such an interesting arc of companies I'm sure like When you're working at AOL and Time Warner and going through all of that, I don't even know if people are really talking about CROs, right? And then coming through these small companies and growing them, you're seeing the evolution of the Chief Revenue Officer and, and The impact that it has on a company.
Phil: So can you talk a little bit about how you've seen the CRO role evolve in recent years?
Tim: Yeah, that's a good question. And I think it comes down to breaking down the silos. So I think the cross functional aspect of a CRO is much more prominent. Now than it used to be. And so I would just as a point of contrast, I think for many years, the revenue organization would be fighting with the product team or complaining to the finance team about their goals or, or not getting enough marketing air cover.
Tim: But I think. The CRO role now has to break [00:04:00] those silos down and I, the phrase I would use is like the CRO has to be an artist, not a critic. So in other words, you have to help paint that picture and you have to put your name on it. So you're not just a participant, you are kind of the author of that thing you're building together.
Tim: And so to me, That's a wonderful evolution, actually, because it gets you to a better place in terms of what you're building for your customers, for consumers, and for your team itself.
Phil: So can we double click into that a little bit? You talk about something that we hear often, how do you break down silos?
Phil: How do you, as a CRO, you don't own, well, some CROs own all of those different departments and some have to influence all those different departments. But because of the expectation of people in the marketplace. And the, and the need to be consistent across all these touchpoints, you have to be able to influence the breakdown status and be successful.
Phil: Like, what are some of the fundamentals that you found for making that successful?
Tim: It's great, it's a [00:05:00] great point, Phil. And I would say. Nine times out of 10, all, not all those constituent groups report to the CRO. In fact, they usually don't. So I don't even worry about that, but it does start, it starts with empathy for sure.
Tim: Like, in other words, you have to walk a mile in the shoes of that partner, of that product leader, of your CMO or, or marketing leader of. The finance guys dealing with investors or the market and so forth, you know, so like I think just starting there and then of course having them walk a mile in your shoes, do some customer calls, get on the systems and see what your teams are using on a daily basis.
Tim: Empathy is for sure is the right way to go about it. And I think the other thing culturally is you have to build a logic based organization versus a rules based organization. So I think a lot of times what happens, especially when I come into a change agent situation, which is usually when people bring [00:06:00] me in, there's a lot of things that are just done because we always did them that way.
Tim: It was kind of the rule and the fastest way you can get people on your side is when you break things down. So it's so logical. That it's, it makes it very easy to kind of get on board with your plan, your vision and so forth. And then the final thing is, you also have to match vision with decisiveness.
Tim: So you have to be reading the market, listening to you, your team, listening to your customers. But also making a call on things. I think people tend to overthink the decision part and, uh, but the decision is as important, or the actions that follow the decision are much more important. So I think you have to, when you're in a leadership role and you're driving change, you have to be decisive in what you're doing.
Tim: So that would be the other kind of component of that answer, I think.
Phil: Sure.
Phil: Let's think about it in two buckets to make it easy. One bucket is the change because of expansion and growth. And the other bucket is maybe the change because of contraction and challenge and [00:07:00] competition. So let's start with like in times of market expansion, right?
Phil: So if you're thinking about expansion and thinking about trying to grow new revenue, how do you frame the change, the logical change that's needed to inspire people to be open to new ideas or to be. Um, more collaborative so that you can take advantage of the opportunities that are on the table.
Tim: For sure.
Tim: So I would start with, you do need to know your own product market fit. I think that's really, really important because I think what happens a lot of times is people will get spun up about their total addressable market. And to me, that's not a great use of energy versus focusing on your total serviceable market.
Tim: And there's a distinction there in terms of like, what group can we realistically service? What group realistically wants our product? And that's very different from the TAM. So sizing the [00:08:00] market in terms of what you're going to focus on is really important. And a recurring theme you'll hear from me a lot, Phil, is focus.
Tim: And so that allows you when you move from TAM to a total serviceable market, you're going to focus on a much better target. So that's a really fundamental piece of this. Then the next thing is, you know, my mentor is a fabulous person named David Bell, and he calls it building the credible bridge to the future.
Tim: So you have to then, once you have your total serviceable market, you have to kind of show the steps. So it's the existing revenue lines and what they have to grow and then all the added revenue lines that you have to build in and how they're going to grow and you map it out. And I'm a big whiteboard person and I'm kind of a mad scientist on this stuff.
Tim: You start drawing it out, but you can paint a picture back to a very logical story. If these things happen, you can get to a billion dollars. By taking these steps, you're not going to get there just by trying [00:09:00] to squeeze the rocks of the existing revenue lines, these things have to happen so we have to add that.
Tim: And that's how it informs your investment strategy, your marketing strategy, your talent acquisition strategy, in terms of bringing people in that can add those lines and so forth. And then all of a sudden you get people buying in like, yeah, that makes sense. That's not just wishing to get to a billion dollars.
Tim: That's building a credible bridge. to get there and then people buy in.
Phil: If I'm thinking about levers to drive those different revenue growth, one of the big ones is probably pricing and pricing strategies, right? Mm-Hmm. , to drive revenue, it would seem that one, one pricing strategy that works for one segment.
Phil: Doesn't necessarily work for another. And that might be in conflict, both internally and externally. Can you talk a little bit about how you specifically tackle pricing and pricing strategy in, in a situation like that?
Tim: First of all, once the genie's out of the bottle. With pricing and lowering your pricing, it's hard to put [00:10:00] stuff back in the bottle.
Tim: So that's an important thing. So you just can't default to dropping prices. And I, I see that less than I used to actually, I think we've collectively gotten more disciplined about that when I see in the industry anyway, but you have to, you know, understand your attribution and how, how your customers.
Tim: Give our product team credit and so forth. And then you do have to do testing on the pricing elasticity itself. And you can, you can do that in isolated cases. Oftentimes it's good to have an alpha group of customers and you call them that. You, you badge them, like you're part of our alpha testing group.
Tim: You're on the sharp end of the spear of everything that we're trying out. We're going to try some of these things. And you kind of create a group of maybe five or 10 customers to kind of try out certain pricing strategies back to being logic based. If your close rate improves slightly and your unit [00:11:00] economics are far lower, it's totally pointless.
Tim: To kind of go do that. You know what I mean? And so you have to kind of keep the kind of endgame in mind when you're kind of looking at that stuff. And it's very easy to get lost when you're trying to make the quarter and you're trying to kind of put numbers on the board, especially if you're parted up.
Tim: Part of a publicly traded situation. So I think keeping the long game in mind while you're trying to kind of hit your numbers on a quarterly basis is crucial.
Phil: I'm wondering if there's a specific story, whether it's something around a transformation or around. Lessons from the market that gave an opportunity to drive revenue by being innovative with, with pricing or with revenue structures.
Phil: Um, do you have a story that might kind of bring home the point that you're, you're trying to make it at one of the companies that you're, you're working with?
Tim: Yeah, there's a couple. So one would be at Nextdoor for instance, Nextdoor's revenue buckets were set up logically based on their old systems, but they, [00:12:00] they were rebuilding the ad stack and, and introducing self serve.
Tim: Into the equation. So that started moving. The biggest opportunities into the mid market, which had had resources, but not commensurate with what the opportunity was. So we just moved by shifting more resources and, and, and a better motion toward allowing more partners who want to use the self-serve solution.
Tim: That helped with unit economics too. So that was a fundamental structural shift that we consciously made and it's working great. The other thing that I think about was when I was at AOL, you know, we had a large owned and operated business, which is a higher margin business, but that was shrinking and then we had a.
Tim: A rocket ship of a non reserve business, which was kind of precursor to the DSP world, but at the time it was the advertising. com business that was much lower margin, but growing like crazy. And just by simply understanding and having the team understand the difference [00:13:00] in the margin of the two made a huge difference.
Tim: Salespeople, revenue people are good business people. And they're, again, if they know that a dollar over here and a dollar over there are worth different things. Both are important, but we're not treating that dollar the same as it is really, really important. Even if you don't have a compensation structure that looks at it that way, necessarily, if they just understand as business people, like it's, it's really important to have this higher margin business part of the solution, especially.
Tim: If you know that it works for your, your, your customers as well. So I guess the main thing you'll keep hearing me, Phil, it's like, in all these discussions about pricing strategy and culture, that your customer has to be just in the center bullseye of everything you think about, it always has to work for them and you got to just find those right combinations that are effective that, and then also that you could build a great business around.
Phil: Does that give you an opportunity for creating new packages or Cross sell or upsell opportunities. I mean, what [00:14:00] it seems to me is like if you say, you know, 1 revenue here is not the same as 1 revenue there. Some people who might be front line quota carrying salespeople, they might realize that they need to take a backseat to somebody who's got more of a relationship or something like that and shift around in doing that.
Phil: It seems then that the organization would have to be nimble and the people would have to be nimble. Sharing the same view of a customer, a comprehensive view of a customer or of an opportunity. And that seems like it might be difficult if there's a transition from an old way of thinking things to a new way of thinking things.
Phil: Do you have any tips on how to frame a transition? Or even better yet, measures of when an organization is healthy so that it can, you know, somebody goes, how well are we doing that? How well are we identifying those opportunities? How are we capitalizing on them? How do you know if you're doing that well versus, versus not?
Tim: Well, I'll answer the last question [00:15:00] first, and that renewals are the ultimate metric.
Phil: Measure one
Tim: thing, they'll measure renewals because that means it works for your customers and they're renewing. So everybody. Not only should you be measuring it, but every single person in the company should be able to recite your renewal metrics for your top 50 customers and broadly, because that's, that is, at the end of the day, the ultimate validation of what you're doing.
Tim: I would also say just structurally, A group that often gets lost that I'm super bullish on as it relates to this packaging kind of discussion you were just talking about is these creative strategy teams. So creative strategy teams typically sit in a sales organization. They sometimes are part of a marketing organization, but usually part of a sales organization.
Tim: They're not frontline sellers, but they're elite storytellers. They're creative people. They know how to storytell with data and they [00:16:00] make your, and they also typically make your packaging look really, really good. And I think. That group often gets missed because, you know, your finance team's like, wait, what, don't they have a book?
Tim: Like, what are they, you know, and they don't completely align with a traditional kind of mindset of selling, but if you have an elite creative strategy team, and I had one at filmmaker Next door, I had one at AOL, they make a dramatic difference in driving ideas that your customers, that resonate with your customers, that they want to execute and buy and so forth.
Tim: And so it becomes less about grinding you on, on CPMs and slamming you in a spreadsheet, and a lot more about the idea, about who you're touching, about creating experiences. That is a really, really unsung part of that flip that we're talking about. And I usually, when I show up, [00:17:00] that's the first thing I focus on, actually.
Tim: You'll see it by investing in that creative strategy group, for sure.
Phil: You know, that's really great. I love where you ended because it gives us an opportunity to transition into how to elevate, innovate, and reinvent revenue. You talked about that. The teams and you're no stranger to rebuilding teams, but you didn't talk a lot about the leader, right?
Phil: So I'm very curious. What's something that CROs are missing? What are some of their opportunities when they're looking at their current revenue strategies and they're trying to identify. Areas for improvement or areas like developing the new team or the new model, what does the leader have to do to actually empower those teams that you're talking about or build those teams if they're not to the level of what you just described?
Tim: Yeah, I'd say the first thing is, again, I don't want to paint everything with the same brush, but usually it starts with some sort of lack of belief. From the team, right? [00:18:00] And so what's stemming from that? And usually it's a lack of buy-in and it stems from a strategy that was born and 9 is we're not listening to the frontline people enough.
Tim: And by frontline people, I'm not just talking about the sales leads. I'm talking about the account management team and the sales analytics team and the rev ops people and the, and the creative strategy team who are interfacing with the world. And the single best thing you can do is, and it doesn't even take 90 days.
Tim: It can be 30 days, but I start with a spreadsheet. Who's in my organization? And then what's the group I rely on? I built a spreadsheet. I have their name, theirs. And I just start meeting with everybody and you start seeing the patterns. Those people will give you the answers to the test. So fast, so fast, if you just listen to them and then a step further if you have to get on your systems yourself, you [00:19:00] have to sell through an opportunity, you have to kind of be an actual part of it and that's the part that surprises me sometimes, Phil, is that there's a lot of people that aren't willing to do that.
Tim: And it's such a simple thing. And I, I'll remember distinctly that I won't name the company, but I remember sitting down with an account manager leader and, you know, working on a sub optimal system and it was probably my third day there and I said, let's fly a campaign. And it was, that experience was so bad.
Tim: It made my glasses fog up. Oh my God. When was the last time a leader at the company. Sat and did this with you. And she looked at me and she said, no one ever has, and this is not like a company that started two years ago. And so to me, it's emblematic that it comes back to empathy and, but it's also not just to be a good person, but to understand the level of the issues that your teams face on a daily [00:20:00] basis.
Tim: And if you just ask them and pay attention and put that in a way and capture those themes, they'll give you the answers to the test every time. Because they want to win. They want to do great work. They want our customers to be successful. And so I, to me, just a very quick, thorough process. And then you play that back in a way that's, that people identify and like, all right, here's what you told me.
Tim: Here's what I understand. Here's what we're going to do about it. Back to decisiveness, and then you get the buy-in, then you get the juice back. And then things start, you start going in a positive spiral versus a negative one.
Phil: And it seems like a great opportunity for you to actually create the influence that we were talking about earlier, right?
Phil: Some of these people, May not report to you. Most of them don't. So they don't have to do what you want them to do. You have a shared desired outcome. You have a shared success for clients in mind, or maybe not. But if you're sitting with them and you're experiencing what they're experiencing, the [00:21:00] challenges that they're going through, they see that you Care about them, and you're going to bring, advocate for them, if I'm hearing you right.
Phil: And then when you go back to your peers, when you go back to others who need to enable a solution, you have a reason for actually making the change. It's not about, it's not about you, it's not about your agenda, it's about a shared agenda that actually Builds a team. Am I, am I hearing that right?
Tim: That's exactly right, Phil.
Tim: And it is not about me. It's about me listening to them. It's about me being kind of like the vessel to get this stuff feedback and taking action. And this is an important concept in all of this is servant leadership. Service to the mission of what you're trying to do. But if you have all your frontline people explaining things to you and you listen to them, that's the best way to serve the mission.
Tim: That's the best way you serve your team. That's the best way you serve your customers. That's the best way you serve your boss. is being an elite servant leader, and I [00:22:00] think you just apply that and, but you're right with, with no ego, like, hey, I have a thesis on this, but I can be proven wrong at any given time.
Tim: I'm just going to listen and not be wedded to my own ego or own my own point of view. That's a really, really important concept. Because the other thing is, you have to, there's usually a shot clock on this thing, right? It's not like you have unlimited time. So, it's, it's the pace in which you can implement the change in a way that doesn't break everything.
Tim: That's the platform that I'm talking about here. You can't, you can't be so disruptive that everything breaks. Because again, that would be pointless too. And you can't be so slow that the parachute didn't open in time. You have to, you have to move with urgency and purpose, but also be extremely thoughtful about everybody with whom you're working.
Tim: And it just starts with being a great listener and serving the mission.
Phil: I'm with you on that. I love the concept of servant leadership. You know, when I was in the Navy, I [00:23:00] went on one ship and literally we went from being the lowest ranked ship in the fleet to the first ranked ship in the fleet Because of one guy, because of the change of the CEO who brought in a different mindset, there was an outstanding servant leader who empowered people and got out of their way and then encouraged them to be successful.
Phil: It was like people were asking, what are you guys drinking in the water over there that makes this a great place that everyone wanted to come and learn in this leadership lab? And the CEO had built a set of tools and processes and methodologies that he built. Employed seemingly effortlessly to make this happen.
Phil: So, I guess my question to you is, what sort of tools
Tim: That's a great story, by the way. It's a fantastic story. And you probably felt that when someone says the officers eat last, he or she meant that.
Phil: Yeah, sure. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. You know, [00:24:00] we went down and served the crew, the food in the galley, not so much as some sort of performative thing, but as a thing to say, you know, we're eating up here, they're eating somewhere else.
Phil: There's a separation just because of logistics, but you know, are people enjoying the food? If you talk to them while they're having lunch or dinner. What sort of things do they talk about? What do they share? So thinking about that, Tim, are there any particular tools or tips or methodologies that you've used or experimented with in the past that you'd like to share with CROs out there that might want to, wanting to implement best practices of servant leadership?
Tim: Well, there's, there's a couple, you know, thinking about our conversation. One is, you know, there's no substitute for IRL or in real life, and that's true with your customers and that's true with your team. So whether your person lives down the hall or lives in Denver or lives in New York [00:25:00] or South Bend, Indiana.
Tim: You need to go see them in person. And to your point, like your analogy was what you just said about you, that's where you see the people who mean a lot to them, their, their photos are like, tell me about your family and like, tell me that story and all these things. I have photos behind me. That was, those are paintings from my daughter who lives abroad now, and I miss her and like, you know, there's an opportunity to kind of get to know people and I think when I'm counting sales calls, I actually count IRL, 5X.
Tim: What I, as a zoom call, because it's that to me, it's that important in making it a point of emphasis. And then the other thing, just back to tooling, you know, we talk, we hear a lot about AI and what should I do with that? Like what, what's the, what's the application? What are the permutations it's taking that help like a sales leader?
Tim: And I think the biggest one that I see right now, that's in practice, is the notion of. Natural language processing. So I think of a tool like Gong, for instance, [00:26:00] which, you know, people have gotten very comfortable with, and it creates game film for you, your meetings that you have with partners. And so if anybody who's played sports knows that like the film, film don't lie.
Tim: So you can watch, you know, game film and it's, but it's not meant to be, it's actually not used properly when you're just trying to be critical of people. It's actually not the best use of it, but what it does is it allows you to bring a product person to show them like, look, here's how they're responding.
Tim: And here's like our five top customers kind of responded the same way about this change that we made. Don't take it from me, take it from them. But the magic. If you have a large sales organization, you're doing thousands of these conversations, the natural language processing that's AI driven allows you to identify patterns, themes, insights that would be impossible to codify any other way.
Tim: There's just no way you could watch that much game film. To kind of pull those themes out, but allowing you to do that. And then what it also does too, [00:27:00] is it takes the pressure off of, you know, a sales leader having to rely on notes that a person puts in the CRM tool, which as we know, is highly variable to be kind.
Tim: Right? Um, this completely takes the pressure off of that. They don't have to worry about it. They, we, we can get that information in a much more accurate way. That's not as biased. And we're like, no, no, no. I, I heard, I heard what she said.
Phil: So if I'm hearing you right, going back to your analogy of, of, of game film, right?
Phil: You're not just getting game film, right? You're getting game film. You're getting practice film, you're watching film in every phase of the game, and looking at what everybody does on the team and saying, not only, how did this person do well, where did this person make a mistake, but what can we change strategically in the way that we're doing this so that we can work better as a team in every phase of the game.
Phil: And it seems like what you're saying is, The artificial intelligence helps you pull together the statistics, right, [00:28:00] over a bunch of practices, over a bunch of games, and to really look at this. So we know what it can do, what does it not do? What, like, what, what are you, what would you suggest people not over index on the technology to do that has to be done by people or process or, or, or something else?
Tim: Yeah, for sure. The creative process, the ideation process. I think back to, we were talking about the IRL aspect of, of meeting people in person playing back. And I think, you know, if you believe in the notion that people don't remember what they say, but how you made them feel, that's a really, really important concept, you know, that you can deliver a lot better in person and a technology can't do that.
Tim: And, you know, versus like an anodyne, technically factually correct, but soulless. You know, solution, and we're still dealing with humans now, and I think that's been a consistent [00:29:00] pattern since I started, which is a long time ago, and there's always been these threats of technology taking over and taking jobs, and it never kind of goes down the way people think it is simply because the human element is so important, and your relationships are so important, and the trust that you build and you earn over time is so important, and when you're working at scale, and you're working with it.
Tim: A lot of fragmentation. Mistakes happen. Always happens. And it's all about being great at Handling it, solving it, being, owning it, making sure it doesn't happen again, and, and being that, that person that people can count on. And in fact, I would, I would say, Phil, unequivocally, some of my best relationships that I built in my career in the industry Started with solving some sort of problem.
Phil: True, right? Robots can enhance humans, but they can't kind of replace them, right? Yeah. And it's interesting, you're ahead of the curve again, because I was going to ask you about what sort of advice you had for businesses, or what sort of tips [00:30:00] you've had, but what I heard you say was, Take a lesson from the challenges, take a lesson from the problems, build on them, build better relationships, and then build better processes and systems.
Phil: So, taking that tip, I want to say, I want to ask a question before we have to wrap up, is to say, how do you think the CRO and the revenue model will continue to evolve? To, to, to change business going forward.
Tim: I think it's going to, it's, it's just going to be about harmonizing. Right. And so I kind of go back to like, you have to be, view yourself as the conductor of a symphony and you just can't be, you know, aligning yourself with the trumpets and the product percussion section and blow off everything else.
Tim: You have to view yourself. As a leader of the whole thing and a harmonizer of the whole thing. And whether they report to you or not, whether they're part of your organization or not, you have to adopt that mindset. And I think that's what [00:31:00] real leaders do is, is in there. That is a form of servant leadership, by the way, because you're just, you're not just talking to people.
Tim: focusing on your directors or your org or getting promoted. It's about making the whole thing work. And that to me is a, it's a different mindset than a revenue leader used to have, in my opinion.
Phil: Well, extending that metaphor, if you're the conductor, the harmonizer, who's the composer?
Tim: The client is one, the people are the other.
Tim: I love Elite product teams and love elite engineering teams who are builders and can put products together that resonate with clients. But maybe the other kind of tip I would definitely have gotten so much mileage out of, it's not a novel idea, but it's an important one is the notion of really, really strong client advisory boards.
Tim: Building these boards of people that you can have a trusted [00:32:00] extended discourse with. Where you can show things that are less than perfect, where, you know, the cement is still wet, and you can get their reaction and get an honest point of feedback, understand, like, the competitive positioning and so forth, and they're, they're with you for the long haul.
Tim: So, you know, you meet every six weeks or once a quarter, With the same group, they, they, they keep you honest on measuring your progress and so forth. And when you have really, really strong engaged client advisory boards, it makes a huge difference in terms of making sure you're, you're on track and focusing on the right thing without, incurring too much risk of putting a finished product out there that might not fit, if that makes sense.
Phil: Sure. Do you have any tips for how to identify who should be part of those boards? Get back to the, how are we focusing on the, on the, on the right folks and not over indexing in particular direction?
Tim: Yes. [00:33:00] So I think I love having people who are actual practitioners and doers that I love senior people for their credentials and, but the people who are the actual practitioners.
Tim: Oftentimes that have their hands on keyboards, that are feeling the pressure of managing, you know, one client success is, is really important. I also like the rising stars in the sense that it's a nice badge for them to have. It's like, Oh, I'm on the client advisory board of this company or that company.
Tim: And it's a nice thing to say. It's a part of their own professional growth. And I do think so. You know, creating a great experience for them where they're, they're getting something out of it. I felt like we had a really, really strong program like that at, at AOL, where it was kind of talking to rising stars and so forth.
Tim: And Nextdoor had a very active client advisory board that they really care about. And I think that's, that's a really, really kind of valuable tool that I think [00:34:00] people don't, but it takes investment. It takes investment of time and money to do that. Because lots of people have them, but a lot of them are kind of half assed.
Tim: And you have to have buy-in, not just from the revenue organization, but the product organization, your executive team, and you have to be willing to hear very pointed, direct feedback that's not all positive. But it's, to me, like the best way to kind of grow, and it's the best balance of pushing things, but also balancing your risk, you know, on some of these things.
Phil: Before we go, just curious, you know, is there anything you'd like to plug or share, or can you tell us where people can find you if they want to get more wisdom from Tim Richards?
Tim: Yep. Thank you. I, well, I live in Tiburon, California, which is in Marin County, just north of the Golden Gate Bridge. If you're in the area, come out.
Tim: I love talking shop, usually over a coffee or a glass of wine. And one thing I wanted to take the opportunity to do is to commend the people that are focused on the importance of [00:35:00] news. So like there's a, there's a, there's a big backlash on news and everything's so fragmented and there's a lack of trust.
Tim: And there's people, industry leaders like Lou Pascalis or Matt Prohaska and the Prohaska Consulting, or even the folks at Yahoo News. They're doing a really good job of making sure that we live in a world where news remains a priority. Trusted and important and encouraging people that you can have a sustainable business around that.
Tim: And so there's, there's systemic problems that, that face that, but I, and, and, and all sorts of things to overcome, but there's a, there's a number of people out there that are being very, Selfless about devoting a lot of time and energy to that. And then the final plug is like some of these companies that I'm very close to that either advisory positions or board positions on like, like Amaze software, social commerce has been an amazing ride and doing really great things.[00:36:00]
Tim: Linkia for sure is, is definitely the most contemporary thinker in the influencer space. And so if you want a way to think about not only getting people to Influencers connecting, you know, brands connecting to consumers, but also the content and the assets that it creates. Linky is fabulous. And then Nextdoor, again, doing something very unique in terms of the novel approach to, you know, local at scale.
Tim: They have a very cool solution and great people working there. And I would say that about all of those companies, but that that's it for now. But anyway, Phil, I love talking shop with you and I, hopefully I can see you in San Francisco sometime.
Phil: Yeah, I definitely would look forward to it. I'm going to dig deeper into Alinkia and Amaze, and I hope people do as well.
Phil: So thank you very much, Tim, for joining us today. And thank you listeners for tuning in to another episode of Revenue Reinvention. You can watch these episodes on YouTube. You can find us at Revenue Reinvention. Subscribe to the show on your favorite platform, and we'll see you the next time around.
Phil: Thanks so much for your time, Tim. [00:37:00] And I'm looking forward to hopping the ferry over to Tiburon and having a drink at Sam's or something and talking more.
Tim: Sounds good. Thanks, Phil.
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