The Future of Sales Execution - with Manny Medina, Founder and CEO Outreach

**Ray Rike** (0:00)
Hello, I'm Ray Wright, Founder and CEO of Benchmarkit, and your host of the Metrics that Measure Up podcast. We talked to a wide variety of the top B2B SaaS and Cloud thought leaders, CEOs, executives, investors, and people just like you to discuss the metrics and benchmarks they use to make metrics informed and benchmark validated decisions. Now, on to today's show.
Welcome to today's episode of the Metrics That Measure Up podcast. Today, we're joined by Manny Medina, the founder and CEO of Outreach. We'll be covering four main topic areas with Manny today. First, how B2B tech sales has evolved in 2023, and what does 2024 look like? Second, the evolution of sales technology beyond volume and velocity. Are we heading back to value? Third, how AI will impact B2B sales today and tomorrow? And then I'm going to ask Manny to bring out his crystal ball and do the top three productions for the B2B SaaS industry heading into 2024 So with that, Manny, can you please take a moment and give a brief overview of your journey to becoming a guest here on the Metrics Measure Up podcast?

**Manny Medina** (1:25)
Thank you. I was just cold hard to get, which is too much for me to bear because I feel like I'm easy to get. So I apologize. I didn't get back to you before. We started Outreach back in when we pivoted from the previous company back in 2014, 2015 And since then has been a journey about creating sales execution workflows that reps use to improve themselves, to unlock their fullest potential, and then for organizations to really get the most out of the people that they already have and continue to drive performance up and to the right. So it's been our vision all along to unlock the selling potential of every individual in the organization. And it continues to be so irrespective of the time and respect of the economy. So we're super excited to be here and be able to help.

**Ray Rike** (2:12)
Well, increasing sales productivity, that's right there with revenue growth efficiency, the mantra of 2023 But we benchmark thousands and thousands of B2B SaaS companies. And 2023 really hasn't been about increased productivity. CAC payback period has gotten longer. CAC ratios are higher. So I guess I would love it from your perspective, because you see hundreds, if not thousands of your customers. How have you seen sales productivity evolving over the last 12 to 18 months? Have you seen it improve or is it tough out there?

**Manny Medina** (2:47)
It's tough out there. It's definitely tough out there.
And the companies that are putting big numbers out there right now, they're doing mostly on the back of fairly secure segments. You will see service are doing really well in federal. You will see Salesforce upselling to the larger customer base that they have. But in terms of acquiring new logos, it's becoming increasingly expensive. So the CAC payback periods, especially in enterprise, are becoming incredibly long.
But that doesn't mean it isn't worth getting. What that means is that you're going to have to really focus in the few areas in which you know you can win, and instead of stop getting after every single account on the hopes that an inbound lead is going to turn into a sale, and all of a sudden you're going to go make it. I think that this is a theme that I've seen all along, not only in our own industry, if you would, but outside of our own industry, in that this need for efficiency means that efficiency shows up in the way that how you spend your time. You see, at the end of the day, you're paying for an individual's time, and how you spend your time is very important. So if you spend your time prospecting willy-nilly across many different disparate set of books of business, or you're not spending time researching and being value-added to your prospect and your customer, you're not going to get really far in this environment. For two reasons. One is really noisy out there. But two, people are scared. People are not willing to make moves to make bets to be bold, because budgets are getting tight, are getting constrained. And there is reductions in forces in layoffs everywhere you turn. So the hesitancy of buyers to make a choice and make a decision is being elongated. Now, the other dynamic that is really interesting in this market is that no one can really claim a position anymore with marketing. So, anyone can say, I have AI. And there is nothing to disprove it, right? Or like anybody can say, I'm the fastest, the best, or the whatever, I'm the first. And the next competitor can come and say the same thing. So, this dynamic of like telling the truth via marketing has been changed, if you would, by the rise of messaging. And as a buyer yourself, you sort of like become inundated with information and signals that prevent you from really making a decision. So, all that is showing up in sales cycle.