SalesTechStar Interview With Rob Rosenthal, Chief Revenue Officer at Bloomreach

Rob Rosenthal, Chief Revenue Officer at Bloomreach has a quick chat with SalesTechStar on what it takes for CROs to drive better alignment and performance in today’s business environment:

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Hi Rob, take us through a typical working day as CRO at Bloomreach?

A typical day includes speaking with a number of customers or prospective customers and partners. I protect time for planning daily, as a key part of the job is working on the overall “machine” that is the field organization. I also protect some time for exercise or getting outside every day. The rest of the day is spent speaking with leaders and members of my team, as well as those leaders the team collaborates with to run the business.

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What according to you are some of the top challenges that keep CROs-CMOs-CSOs of today up at night?

It’s always a balance between short term and long term priorities. For a CRO, it’s thinking about the current quarter execution as well as what is happening two quarters out. I’m also constantly thinking about go-to-market and where we can optimize.

A few of the top B2B Data best practices you’d like to highlight for sales and revenue leaders in tech?

It’s helpful to have tools that help you make sense of CRM data. For example, we use Clari that leverages AI to quickly point out coaching opportunities and help predict forecasting outcomes. If the field understands clean data pays them back in terms of time saved, they are more likely to have great hygiene and make applications like Clari work well to serve the business.

As revenue tech and sales tech redefine the customer experience and the way sales teams manage their processes, how are you seeing the role of the CSO and CRO evolve?

The role of a CRO is much more of a General Manager mentality now than pure sales.  It is about allocating resources and talent against the best opportunities suggested by the data. Having clear, data driven insights into the business gives the CRO a competitive advantage, so proficiency in this area is a basic requirement today.

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In the future, what are some top skills you feel CSOs and CROs will need more of to drive ROI and run / implement a balanced salestech-revtech stack that helps achieve business goals?

Because of the pandemic and the rise of Zoom, the future CRO will need to identify new models of sales territory planning and efficiency. The game has changed and time to value matters more than ever. The motion is changing to product led growth, which is a bottom – up motion. The next gen CRO needs to understand this and adapt.

A few thoughts on what Revenue leaders need to be doing more of today to better align team and business goals? 

Revenue leaders should put a greater emphasis on gaining a deep understanding of what the customer wants and how they buy. They cannot wait for the product organization to show the way. Instead, they must partner with the product organization to gain alignment with the customers. That alignment will help the team hit its own goals as well as those of the overall business.

How do you see the role of the CRO evolving and what would the future CRO look like?

We will see more emphasis in the future on creativity, curiosity, empathy, collaboration, and data driven decision making.

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