SalesTechStar Interview with Josh Kanagy, Head of Revenue at Hightouch

Josh Kanagy, Head of Revenue at Hightouch talks about some key revenue tactics that can enable better sales processes in this SalesTechStar catch-up:

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Hi Josh, tell us about yourself and your sales journey, if not in Sales, what else would you have rather done?

Like many, I am an accidental salesperson. I took a field sales role right out of undergrad thinking I would take a year to make some money and then head to law school. I had success and fell in love with the control I had over my earnings. I started out in the construction supply industry before moving to lead sales at a manufacturing company and then a clean energy company.

Finally, I made the move to SaaS in a bootstrapped ed-tech start up. In 2013, I made the move to Salesforce where I really earned my bachelor’s degree in the world of SaaS sales where I was fortunate enough to work for people like Ryan Barretto and others that have gone on to massive roles in public companies.

After 5 years, I moved on to Sprinklr where I got my masters degree, and was there as the company rebuilt its GTM function under Luca Lazzaron and ultimately leading to an IPO in 2021. I was given the opportunity to solve bigger problems with an ever increasing remit. That brings me to my time at Hightouch.

I am still waiting to take the LSAT…

What do you feel modern-day Head of Revenues need to do on a daily basis to ensure constant growth goals are being met?

I am a firm believer that you have to work ‘in the business’ in order to work ‘on the business’ in a meaningful way. The path to your goals as a revenue leader runs through your customers and ecosystem partners. Doing that with your various teams, from SDRs to Sales to Tech Architects will not only give you insight into the market, but also allow for the other key to ensuring growth goals are met, and that is coaching and developing your people to get better each day.

You also have to really look at the metrics by which you track the business. If you don’t have a sense of the required throughput and leading indicators, you will find yourself reading the news and potentially wondering where things went wrong.

We’d love to hear about some of your core revenue strategies and the revtech and salestech you’ve used over the years to power sales and revenue generation processes?

I think core revenue strategies are fairly simple, but often way overcomplicated. As a leader, your job is to simplify the seemingly complex path to revenue.

Assuming you understand the dynamics of the market you serve, have strong PMF and understand your ICP, then it’s about leveraging your people against the center of the ICP bullseye. Money gets spent to alleviate pain, go find the pain in an organization. Then find the change agents that can marshal the resources required to make

You should also consider how the various production lines in your revenue factory uniquely function. What works in your SMB or Commercial business may not apply in your enterprise business. Here, revtech that provides instrumentation around your process is critical. Make sure each employee has a purpose built scoreboard that allows them to self assess their effectiveness.

Revops needs to have powerful analytics tools to study patterns and ensure the hypotheses you built your factory on still hold true.

As a leader, I have really come to appreciate tools that shine light on performance of your factory from a pipeline management and forecasting standpoint. Machine learning allows us to spot trends early and sound the alarm earlier and earlier.

Call recording tools that allow you to get access to many more conversations than otherwise possible are great for deepening your understanding of both your customers and your teams’ ability to execute. If you aren’t listening to a sampling of calls and sharing the gold as well as coaching, I think you are missing an opportunity.

There are two other pieces of tech that I am bullish on, airplanes and whiteboards. Get in front of your customers and be able to illustrate a point in a way that human brains are wired to remember. Slideware becomes a crutch to deeper understanding.

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How have you been using AI-powered revtech and AI-powered salestech to further growth goals?

I mentioned using tools with ML to help with pipeline and forecasting, but I also think there are some really great tools that serve up knowledge to employees at the right time, essentially cloning your best and brightest. I am excited to continue to experiment with AI enabled tools, but I will remain focused on AI that deepens people’s ability to do their job.

What about today’s typical B2B Technology Sales cycle needs to change? As a sales leader, how do you implement these changes?

Fundamentally, I tend to see sellers overly focused on their solution and not the customers’ business problems. I get it, there is a lot of cool tech out there, but if you can’t frame it through the lens of your customer – good luck.

For sales leaders, making any change has to be done with care. You can’t flip a switch, rather you need to focus on the 2-3 things that yield the greatest results and continue to train those fundamental skills or you run the risk of never developing the mastery required to truly affect change.

For revenue and sales teams who are looking to scale output and ROI quicker than before: what top tips come to mind?

There are only two levers a revenue leader can pull to scale and drive ROI from the team; capacity and productivity. Capacity became the go to lever in the ZIRP era, often at the expense of figuring out how to maximize rep productivity. So how do you drive rep productivity? You have to hire and recruit great talent, then you have to inspire and develop that talent. This requires the use of frameworks

Outside of enablement focused on vocational skills, ie, selling more effectively, you really have to enable your front line sales leaders. Leader training is woefully bad, often relegated to an annual offsite. As a result, leaders fall into the trap of being deal closers or are forced to perform acts of heroics at the expense of developing their team and themselves.

The other thing worth calling out, is you have to understand the ecosystem in which you function. Complex customer problems require complex solutions, if you don’t understand the ecosystem in which you are trying to work, not only are you flying blind, but you are not credible.

Five daily/weekly habits you feel everyone in sales/revenue teams needs to maintain to ensure constant progress in numbers?

1. Set an intention for the week, as an Account Executive or front line leader, everyone should be laser focused on what moves the needle on a daily or weekly basis and be focused on that activity.
2. Invest in your own learning, and develop a growth mindset.
3. Block out time for pipeline generation and treat it like it’s a 1:1 with the CEO.
4. Celebrate the little wins, big deals and big goals are achieved by stringing together a lot of very seemingly inconsequential small steps. Celebrate a great disco call or a great implementation kickoff, amplify the best work.
5. Everyone has a coaching focused 1:1 with a preset agenda, don’t leave this to chance.

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