SalesTechStar Interview with Todd Barnett, Chief Revenue Officer at Drift

Todd Barnett, Chief Revenue Officer at Drift spares a few minutes discussing why sales and marketing teams should lead with better insights to face today’s B2B audience while sharing his experience since joining Drift this April in the midst of the global Covid-19 pandemic. Catch the complete story:

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Can you tell us a little about yourself Todd? You joined Drift at a time (this April!) when several countries were in lockdown mode due to the Covid-19 pandemic and this time has been challenging for several businesses – how has it been so far and what are some of the biggest highlights of being here today.

It’s been an interesting ride joining a new company and onboarding with colleagues I’ve still yet to meet in person. That said, it’s an incredibly exciting time for Drift and it’s been a fantastic experience helping our customers adapt and succeed during a challenging time for all of us.

In terms of the biggest highlights: two months after I joined, we launched our first product built uniquely for Sales, Drift Prospector. As somebody who has worked in sales for over 22 years, it was really exciting to take part in bringing this new product to market. For me, it involved a lot of candid conversations with our customers about what modern CRM platforms are missing, and informed how we could build a single platform capable of addressing these pain points. Moreover, our Drift sales and marketing teams were able to take a look at what we want in an outbound product and think about how we could remove friction from that process.

It was a great experience to work closely with our product-development and marketing teams. It allowed us to build a really great rapport, despite the fact that I joined the company in a fully remote capacity. Lastly, about 90 days ago we completely shifted most of what we were doing in terms of go-to-market. In spite of that, the team was able to quickly adapt, helping break company records for performance in Q2 202.

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What are some of the biggest challenges in sales and revenue teams in B2B / Tech as a result of the pandemic that you are noticing? How are you seeing teams try to address them?

Some of the biggest challenges for revenue teams right now is just understanding how to reach prospects when everything is so fragmented. Sales teams have been hit harder than most by the pandemic, with some of the world’s biggest companies laying off substantial portions of their sales teams. Combine these smaller teams with the fact that record unemployment numbers took away relationships and forced sales teams to pivot to new prospects at organizations. This alone could push outbound sales efforts by months. And despite these challenges, teams are largely being held to the same goals and quotas laid out pre-pandemic. With little room for error now, we have had to adapt quicker than ever to keep hitting these targets.

In this digital world, all of the prospects are actually on our websites — but the issue is getting them connected with the sales team. Gone are the dinners and events we once relied on to build pipeline, so we have to utilize new ways of engagement that many traditional companies never even considered. In this new reality, businesses need to make their websites relevant for both current and prospective customers, find ways to be available 24/7/365 and figure out how to have personalized interactions (like through Video prospecting) to differentiate from the competition and cut through the noise of email and cold calls.

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How would you advise B2B and tech sales teams to revisit their overall sales and revenue generation processes during a global downtime caused by a health pandemic?

This is a fantastic question, and one that’s hyper-relevant for sales teams right now. While I’ve never known sales teams to truly embrace a slow time, I think the current situation is forcing them to reevaluate their existing sales funnels. Right now, the emphasis is on digital engagement. Sales teams are working remotely and reaching prospects that are also remote.

In terms of strategy, we now need to lead with insights into their customers’ pain points — and why now is a good time to change — before presenting your product or platform. If the customer doesn’t resonate with the problem you are solving from the beginning, then your pitch is a wash.

Lastly, in this new age sales cannot just wait for marketing to throw leads over the fence. I’ve spoken to many CROs who say “that’s marketing’s job.” Yes, that’s part of it. But in this new digital age, the go to market teams need to work TOGETHER to think about conversion through digital channels — and CROs need to understand the end-to-end flow and see how we can optimize those connections and get qualified prospects into the conversation with your sales team as quickly as possible.

Moreover, there needs to be visibility into how these leads are finding their way to your site, and where to best meet them to engage with them virtually. Drift has been thinking about this for a long time when we created Drift Audiences, which provides that much-needed visibility across sales and marketing channels to understand what’s working and what’s not. We combine this visibility with action by notifying the SDR or AE where their prospect is on the site so they  can engage them via chat, email or video to kick start the conversation.

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B2B sales is known for its long sales cycles – during a downtime, long prospecting cycles or sales cycles can burn resources more; what would you share with teams in SaaS / tech when it comes to shortening the lifecycle of their sale while selling remote?

Our company was founded to meet the customer where they are on their terms; however, In the omnichannel environment of today, this goal has become more elusive. There are so many means and platforms through which sales teams have to operate and engage customers. It also means that the customer is central to dictating the buying process, not the company with something to sell.

For a long time, we relied on sales forms to create a query for a SDR follow up to schedule a meeting. What Drift does in this process is allow for immediate gratification, where a prospect can visit the site once and leave with a meeting scheduled with the right SDR or AE for their needs. This real-time engagement expedites the sales process and keeps interest levels high, without having to wait days or weeks to hear back from initial inquiry.

We’ve even shifted our focus to streamlining the follow-up process beyond the initial meeting. Let’s say you connect with a sales prospect through a video conference, sometimes the follow up can be the most challenging part of the equation. Using Drift Video, and our integrations across Zoom, SDRs can record important parts from those meetings and follow up to the prospect with them. Drift Video even gives your SDRs the chance to see when your prospect views your follow up, so you can be there to answer any questions and provide clarification in real-time. Again, capitalizing on interest when it’s at its peak. These efforts in total are helping to shorten the sales process and create more efficiency within sales teams.

What are some of the ways in which you still see marketing and sales teams in tech not utilizing the full capability of their sales and marketing automation to target the right clients at the right time…how would you tell them to address this? More so, how would you advise them to optimize their martech / salestech further to beat common business challenges arising as a result of the Covid-19 spread.

The B2B sales structure has historically operated from nine to five. This model has been changing over the past decade or so to reflect our always-on mentality, but since COVID-19 has moved us all remote, this shift is accelerating ahead at record pace.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the model of sales has become a 24-hour process where your key prospect might be online checking emails at 11 at night, or an international customer could be engaging with the brand while you’re sleeping. This has created an all-hands-on-deck mentality wherein the AEs that close sales are being asked with prospecting more to supplement the SDRs. The problem is that AEs are interrupt-driven. They prospect for an hour per day, or in a large block once per week, and the rest of their time is built around meetings with leads.

With the turn away from traditional forms of selling, AEs need to know “when” their prospect has taken the initiative to return back or to respond. Many times, the response is not to the email they sent. They might come to the website for research and never respond to the email. Having this essential visibility through capabilities like Drift Audiences notify the AE at the moment someone is interested.

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As a tech leader, in a challenging environment due to the Covid19 pandemic: what are some of the ways in which you are enabling a balanced remote work culture while maintaining motivation levels?

Maintaining motivation and drawing boundaries between work and life has never been more important than it is now. At Drift, we’ve been working hard to make sure these lines are drawn and our teams feel supported. We’ve moved a lot of our important employee engagement programs to virtual experiences, including Monday Metrics, when teams can reflect on progress and outline clear priorities for the week. We’ve also shifted events like our annual Friends and Family Day to be virtual, so our employees (and their families!) can connect and meet in a non-business setting. These are experiences that you miss working remotely, but they’re essential tools to build that sense of camaraderie and team.

How according to you will the face of marketing and sales now completely change because of the ongoing pandemic? Sum up marketing and sales in 2021 in one line!

If I had to sum up sales and marketing in the future, I’d say: “Engage meaningfully, share results, and think about your impact on the bottom line.”

For sales teams, we’re always thinking about how we can impact sales and generate revenues, but we’re finding that with our adaptations to life online, all departments need to embrace revenue as a key performance indicator. As behaviors change permanently and customers continue to crave digital brand experiences over traditional ones, the tactics that started off as patchwork will become permanent fixtures of sales organizations. As we prepare for this long-term shift, it’s going to take a concerted effort from teams to focus on the end result, revenue, in everything we do.

Drift is continuing to work toward this with its slate of solutions that blur the lines between sales and marketing tech, providing tangible links between outbound tactics and how they help revenue teams meet quota.

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Before we wrap up, we’d love to hear the highlights of Drift’s latest announcement and plans in store for the near future?

It’s an exciting time for Drift. In July, we announced a new business category, Revenue Acceleration. The thinking behind this was years in the making, but truly reflects how COVID-19 is changing business priorities.

Years ago, Drift created the category of Conversational Marketing to reflect how our chat solutions were creating new capabilities for marketers. What we learned later, after building new products and solutions, is that we developed a platform that was much more than a marketing tool. What we were really doing was building a buying process that puts customers at the center and provides them resources to dictate how and when they make purchasing decisions. Our customers have told us we were the first marketing platform built for sales, which is especially relevant now as brands realize both teams need to come together to win.

Now more than ever, companies today need their go-to-market teams to be united around a single goal: revenue. Revenue Acceleration brings together Conversational Marketing with Conversational Sales to deliver real-time, personal engagement across the complete customer lifecycle of closing, retaining, advocacy, and expansion. As we adapt to remote selling environments, Revenue Acceleration engages buyers instantly with real-time, personalized experiences and connects go-to-market teams with the highest intent customers to increase productivity.