SalesTechStar Interview with Andrew Arocha, Chief Revenue Officer at Drift

Andrew Arocha, Chief Revenue Officer at Drift catches up with SalesTechStar to discuss a few of the industry’s top revenue generation and sales trends:

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Welcome to this SalesTechStar chat Andrew, take us through your B2B journey and your biggest takeaways through your time in marketing/sales…

I’m very thankful to have worked for great companies throughout my career. Most recently I’ve had the privilege of being Oracle Marketing Cloud’s Group Vice President where I oversaw strategic relationships, as well as North America Oracle Marketing Cloud’s sales, renewals, and business development. Prior to Oracle, I worked for Adobe where I served as the Group Vice President of enterprise sales for their digital marketing team. I also served as the Vice President of business user sales at SAP.

Throughout my career, it’s been very clear that developing strong relationships is key to developing a strong sales network. In today’s day and age, having the technology to assist you in doing that is key, which is one of the reasons I am excited to join the Drift team…

As Drift’s new CRO, we’d love to hear more about your near term plans/focus areas…

The Drift team has done a fantastic job of building a great company. They have a great team and a great business. It’s very impressive that they became a unicorn in such a short amount of time.

My objective is to help Drift scale. To do that, we are going to honor the foundation that Drift’s founders, David Cancel and Elias Torres, built. Drift has already transformed B2B sales in the digital era and will continue to lead an industry that is changing daily.

In B2B sales today, what should sales teams focus on more of to drive global growth?

We’re in the middle of a digital transformation when it comes to B2B sales. Not only are customers expecting to be treated in a way B2C customers expect to be treated, but the sales cycle is taking place online. The sales cycle now starts when a potential customer logs onto your website and it continues whether they become a customer or not.

At each point of the sales cycle, from beginning to end, businesses need to connect with people at the right time, in the right place with the right conversation.

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The way marketers engage with a prospect at the beginning of the sales cycle versus when they are trying to close varies significantly, and it’s important to customize these conversations based on where customers are in their buying journey.

In a global economy, we also need to focus on adapting our conversations to the markets we operate in. Luckily, technology like Drift allows marketers to better understand the needs of customers in different regions and connect with them accordingly. Drift’s technology also allows marketers to track conversations and gain insight into what buyers want, which in turn, helps marketers deepen relationships and drive revenue. I think the biggest takeaway here is that technology today has the power to make businesses better marketers, while improving the overall digital experience for customers.

What key trends are you seeing in the adoption of AI and Machine Learning across industries and especially marketing/sales today? How does this drive potential for platforms like Drift?

Based on Drift’s recent 2022 State of Marketing AI report, 74% of marketers foresee using AI in the next five years. The report also found that 51% of marketers say AI is either very important or critically important to their marketing success over the next 12 months.

These findings suggest that marketers clearly recognize the value that AI-driven technologies bring to the table. As marketers become more familiar with AI, they will continue to gravitate toward platforms like Drift, making them an even more integral part of the modern marketing toolkit.

A few best practices you’d highlight B2B teams follow to build better end to end revenue systems?

First and foremost you have to find a great tech stack. This allows your team to work at a much higher level and stay as organized as possible. Teams that don’t have a great tech stack are not working very efficiently and end up putting in more time and effort for the same result.

Secondly, it’s very important to have your team understand your tech stack at a deep level. At its best, a tech stack can be used to build deeper relationships with customers and prospects. That said, having a great tech stack alone isn’t enough to create a strong revenue system. It’s getting your team to buy into using it properly that will make your team flourish.

Remember that technology and people go hand in hand—and that synergy is the cornerstone to a great end-to-end revenue system!

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A few thoughts on the future of salestech as a segment and how you feel this space will shape up?

Sales is now a 24/7 industry, and marketers and salespeople can’t do that all on their own. Automation will close the gap for companies looking to protect their teams from burnout, while still facilitating revenue acceleration. We’re still in the early stages of customers making more decisions entirely online. With AI, we are able to connect with those customers while they are doing their research and engage with them via conversation as part of the process.

Going forward, we expect marketing and sales departments to view AI as one of their greatest allies, especially in the rapidly evolving buying landscape.