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The opportunity to meet and speak with authors whose work I admire has to be a favorite part of my job. Recently, I spoke with David Cichelli, Revenue Growth Advisor for The Alexander Group and author of one of the most helpful and informative books in my collection: Compensating the Sales Force. I told David I have read Chapter 6 (Formula Construction) many, many times.
His newest book, Revenue Growth Model - Chief Revenue Officer's Guide to B2B Sales Success, discusses the role of the Chief Revenue Officer and offers a roadmap for success in this position. He generously allowed me to interview him.
David, how does the role of the CRO differ from the role of the traditional VP of Sales as most of us understood it early in our sales career?
“The VP of Sales historically managed a workforce of salespeople who were allocated to customers. It might have been by accounts and territories. The VP of Sales primary role was to follow a simple sale process, repeat it over and over again, improve the productivity of their talent and instill leadership, the esprit de corps.
They put together the national sales meeting and served as the spiritual leader and guide. Other responsibilities included overseeing: hiring, training, onboarding, compensation, evaluating talent. The VP of Sales primary job: a manager of human talent.
The Chief Revenue Officer uses a different basis of management. They worry about populations of buyers, tribes of buyers. CRO’s take responsibility for all revenue streams and buyer populations; making sure the buyer populations are in alignment as they move through their decision and interaction points.
In fact one of their strengths is not to be held hostage to any one particular access methodology like a salesperson. CRO’s have access to all of the buyer populations, can make judgements about the size of them, group them together and create an ROI.”
What does the term buyer population mean?
“It’s really kind of quirky, because there’s been a whole lot of stuff done on buyer personas and that can misdirect the conversation. The persona is the personality of the buyer. Buyer populations move like schools of fish.”
(A) Self-Directed Buyer
"This buyer says, 'I don’t want to talk to a salesperson; I want you to educate me. I would like to have a fast way of learning about the product. I want an honest digital broker on their website, not to tell me how great they are but to tell me who they are equal to or better. I want to know about what they don’t do well too.'”
(B) Uncertain Buyer
“A company might need to change their platform for this buyer, change an ERP system (Enterprise Resource Planning). This buyer looks for guidance and assurance.”
(C) Fulfillment / Reordering Buyer
"This buyer says, 'I can buy this stuff all day long because I’ve been buying it in the past. I just need a fast way to buy it. I love your salespeople but I don’t need to talk to them.'
The CRO looks at the entire buyer population and says, 'A, L, M and F all can be handled by digital interaction. I also see a buyer population who doesn’t know us. I think we can get their attention through social media.'
CRO’s see and group these buyer populations to whom they can apply different tools: social media, digital engagement, salespeople or customer success managers.”
In the future, do you see organizations having both jobs (CRO and VP of Sales)?
“I think so, yes. Larger companies will have a CRO, the person with authority over sales development reps, digital outreach, try and buy and chat bot people – all of those contact points.
Now let’s say it was a small company. I could call the job a CRO or a VP of Sales, but they’re responsible for everything, all of those contact points with buyers.
In a large company, I would probably have to have a specialist that is managing the marketing demand generation side of the business. I would then need a VP of Sales overseeing the carefully allocated salespeople and VP of Customer Success or Customer Service. My CRO has responsibility for all those people being in alignment and seeing the world as a map of how these different buyer populations are moving through their decision and interaction points.”
Tell me about your newest book, Revenue Growth Model - Chief Revenue Officer's Guide to B2B Sales Success. What was your inspiration for writing it?
“My personal ambition for this book was to create frameworks that enlighten people. So people say, 'Oh, so there’s a series of subcomponents, they all interact with each other, you gotta be good at all of them and they change based upon your growth rate. OK. Now what am I going to do with that? Well, let’s see what tools Mr. Cichelli suggests.'”
David, thank you so much for agreeing to speak with me about your new book Revenue Growth Model - Chief Revenue Officer's Guide to B2B Sales Success and the role of the Chief Revenue Officer at both small and large companies. It was a pleasure.
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