147: Lynn Powers of Clari: How Lynnergy & Resilience Help Her Overcome Adversity

0:00 Scott Ingram: This episode is brought to you by QuotaPath, Vidyard, and the Sales Success Summit. To learn more about them and all of the sponsors who so generously support this show and this community, just click over to top1.fm/sponsors. You're listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast, where we deconstruct world-class sales performers to provide insights and strategies to help you improve. To learn more, visit us at top1.fm. Here's your host, Scott Ingram. Today on the Sales Success Stories podcast, my guest is Lynn Powers. Lynn is the top sales director at Clari, and she also serves on the board for Women in Revenue. Welcome to the show, Lynn.

0:48 Lynn Powers: Thank you for the warm introduction, Scott. I'm happy to be here.

0:52 Scott Ingram: So glad to have you here. And we're going to kick things off with some immediate value like we always do. We'll certainly get to some context and talk about your backstory and some of the things that you're doing. But first, What do you believe are the top 3 things that have contributed the most to your success in sales?

1:07 Lynn Powers: Yeah, so for me, I definitely think people, process, and definitely the practice of prioritizing specific accounts and pipeline consistency.

1:17 Scott Ingram: Let's dig into each of those just at a high level. I'm sure we'll touch on them a little bit more in the conversation, but give us a quick overview about kind of what each of those means.

1:25 Lynn Powers: Yeah, so for me, people. Is really around the supporting cast. So sales is built on relationships. So relationships with buyers, the team that supports you on a deal, the network that you're building to help showcase the success that you have with your product. So from a buyer's perspective, how do we stay human with our buyers? How do we create that authentic connection? From a supporting cast perspective, how can you map pain to solution, personalities to a title? Or a title to a title and truly quarterback the execution of a process. And then the last piece with a network. So I think network is your net worth. So because I develop really authentic relationships with my buyers and kind of immerse myself in this revenue culture within women in revenue, I'm always learning from them on what is the success that they see in the market today? How does that apply to others in the industry? And where are those conversations taking place in terms of a social aspect, especially now with this COVID era. The next piece around process, I really think that I like to create a buyer-centric journey, making it super easy for my buyers to advocate for Clari. So if I can boil my process down as a key takeaway, I would say definitely nurture first, understand to them what matters, navigate who else could care about that, and understand who's best to deliver some of those messages. And if we deeply understand the pain, the scope, the requirements of the evaluation, we can continuously build that accountability for everyone throughout every stage of the process. And then this last piece around kind of pipeline consistency, prioritization of specific accounts is how do we build a consistent pipeline that we understand our territory well enough to know how to forecast for different quarters what deals we can get to that stage and build that steady momentum to practice how we're executing on specific deals and pivot to specific customer needs.

3:23 Scott Ingram: Love it. Love it. So I'm sure we will go deeper into all of that stuff, but let's now contextualize just a little bit. Why don't you talk about what is your role? Who is Clari for those who don't know? And what does it take to be number one in that organization?

3:36 Lynn Powers: Yeah, so I like to say there's 2 things I'm really passionate about. One is revenue. 2 is being a woman in business. So Clari is Where I work today, I'm an enterprise sales director. If you're not familiar with Clari, Clari is a revenue tool that really focuses on revenue collaboration and governance. So bringing together every revenue piece of the business that's critical to every employee in every department, and how do they collaborate on revenue to govern every component of the actual revenue process for execution at scale. So it provides data quality that's lacking on sales team today, the execution rigor that comes with any scaling company and visibility to be able to coach and maximize pipeline. I've had the privilege of selling an essential revenue tool like Clari during this crazy economic shift, and what I hear from customers is the profound impact that we make to minimizing revenue leak. As I mentioned, I also have exposure to incredible leaders that empower and educate me on the revenue process through Women in Revenue. I'm a board member there and manage our social media and PR there.

4:40 Scott Ingram: Awesome. Such great stuff. And then talk about kind of your results. What have you done? Because, you know, as most people know, I only talk to number 1 and top 1% performers. So you're here for a reason.

4:50 Lynn Powers: Yes. So the past 2 years have been really successful for me, which is very interesting, especially in this climate. But last year in terms of earnings, I definitely made over, definitely north of $200,000 plus from a fiscal standpoint. My performance, I did 187% last quarter or last year, kind of quarter by quarter. I'd say my strongest quarter was definitely Q4. I did 311% of my number. Q3, 187%. And then the first half of the year, around 150%. Year prior, I was earning similar amount, a little bit more, I would say. Overall throughout that year, I did 128% of my number. Each quarter I did well over 100%. So Definitely something that I've seen build the consistency in my pipeline. And it's interesting to look at these numbers and reflect on my role in the company. I moved from a commercial account executive to a mid-market executive, and then now at the enterprise level. So it's interesting to see the trends that are happening at each different scale of a company.

5:59 Scott Ingram: This is a great place to mention QuotaPath because when you're performing this well, this consistently, You've likely got a lot of moving parts in your comp plan, and it's so much easier to track all of that automatically with QuotaPath. You can use it for free as an individual, but it's massively more impactful when implemented across your entire sales org. Check them out, top1.fm/quotapath. And now back to my conversation with Lynn. How's that experience been? I mean, what do you see as kind of the differences between those different kind of scale type sales, right? Going from commercial to mid-market and now to enterprise.

6:36 Lynn Powers: Yeah, definitely. So from the commercial side of the house, I definitely think that the deals are running a lot faster. So higher velocity, kind of lower dollar total ARR. But what's interesting in the commercial space is you're able to get to the economic buyer a lot quicker, and they're usually really in the weeds of the process versus as you look at upmarket, those roles begin to shift and Executives come in kind of later stage, or they're helping manifest what's happening in the deal at the very highest level and less so in the weeds of the actual process that's getting put in place. Even higher at the enterprise market, I would say from a people perspective in that realm, it's more so on the IT side of the house, IT partnering with what's happening in the revenue org and helping build that process together. I would say from a deal standpoint in commercial, it was really easy to navigate. How do we involve our board? How do I involve other executives in the business? And how do I create something where I can help push a timeline with the certain objectives that they're working? In mid-market, it was really fun because a lot of the companies that I worked with were right on the verge of going public. And so they're either filing their S-1, they're getting late-stage rounds of funding. And so the revenue that they are forecasting, the revenue that they're asking to be delivered is a lot more crucial to the business. And so seeing how that pain escalates to an operating plan, for example, was really interesting, especially as those business shifts happen internally at the companies that I was working with. In the enterprise, I would say it's definitely more of how do we roll up our sleeves, figure out what has historically not worked for the team, but how do we help modernize some of the processes? Because a lot of enterprise companies are a little bit slower to, I think, adapt to different changes and just overall from a security technical standpoint, like to dive a little bit deeper into the weeds because there usually is so much complexity in enterprise orgs.

8:45 Scott Ingram: Yeah, so fascinating. I mean, your business acumen must be incredible because you're selling a solution that's so broad, right? This isn't like a point solution that fixes one thing. You're working across a lot of stakeholders and a lot of departments and a lot of different parts of, I mean, like you said, the full revenue org.

9:00 Lynn Powers: Yeah, that's like my favorite part of the job, right? Because even from the lowest standpoint, like I get to meet with reps and just hear what their pain points are. But the beauty of meeting with reps is I'm also a rep myself. I get to learn some of their tricks, their methodologies that they're doing. And then as I move up the hierarchy, working with their managers and seeing from a scope of what are they trying to achieve, how are they effectively coaching their reps? As we move again higher up the chain from a VP and SVP perspective, how are we scaling this internationally? And some of the companies that I'm working with, Americas is doing one thing internationally, they're doing something else. And then each manager has a different way to roll up a forecast. And so it's really interesting to dive into the weeds with them on that. And then from an executive and board perspective, it's, wow, it's like incredibly powerful that I get to be in those rooms with those folks that are building these really great companies and the direction that they're heading in. And so I get to spend a lot of time with folks learning about their go-to-market strategies. And so for me, it's absolutely fulfilling because again, like I mentioned, my biggest passion is revenue and how do we impact that process.

10:10 Scott Ingram: Amazing. Let's go back to the beginning. What is your origin story? How did you get started in sales in the first place?

10:15 Lynn Powers: Yeah, so I'm proud to say that I'm a first-gen American college graduate in my family. So my mom's from the Philippines, my dad is Very hillbilly from the Deep South. I started my college career determined to be a doctor. I think I knew my lifestyle I wanted to live, but the exposure I had to different jobs was very limited in my knowledge to knowing anything other than law or medicine. So I wanted to get to the lifestyle that I had imagined, but thinking of how do I get there beyond being a doctor or a lawyer was just very vague for me. So I joined college just thinking I would become a doctor until my first semester, and I quickly switched majors.

10:55 Scott Ingram: Let me guess, a chemistry class?

10:58 Lynn Powers: Oh my God, you're right. I was like, there's more than one lab. I can't do this. But I switched majors to become a sociology major with an emphasis in legal studies. I was like, not a doctor, let's go law. And then upon that journey, I interned at the San Francisco County Jail Division 5, helping with programs with inmates and troubled youth. And the weight of that job on my heart and just mental health was not something that I could see sustainable for myself. So I switched gears my junior year in search for a career path that would lead me to get a job ahead of graduation. The only thing in the Silicon Valley that was obvious to me was let's dive into tech. How do I get there? Where do I start? And so I became a BDR at a really fresh early startup, similar to like a Venmo, but it made me ache for an established business. So wanting to work with someone with a more recognizable name. And so I moved to Oracle doing database selling. I really wanted to work at a Fortune 500 company and be a BDR there because I felt like I could gain a higher network. I could get mentored better being surrounded by so many people. And that's exactly what happened. My next stage of my career, I ended up moving with a lot of the executive team at my following startup company that I started to work with, and I leveraged that network to help battle test how deep are my relationships in a startup community in this similar product to Oracle, but how do I become more educated about leveraging my network or leveraging the processes that I learned at Oracle? And then I started to realize my Lynergy was a little too much for the database world, and so I switched gears to SaaS. Sales technology, and I went to a Vista Equity-owned company where I started to understand how do I branch out and pave my way? How do I truly advocate for myself and learn how do I apply all the things that I've done so far to the success that I can build somewhere else? And so when I made the jump to Clari, I felt like I was so… I had all the tools ready for myself to be successful in this role. And so I'm using all the knowledge that I have gained from Fortune 500 company, failed startups, successful acquisitions and just fine-tuning my craft and growing exponentially in that process.

13:18 Scott Ingram: Such a great story. So, I mean, having been through that adventure, having had all those experiences and kind of learned the way, knowing all that you know now, if you could go back and start over again, how would you go about it?

13:30 Lynn Powers: I 100% would have done a different major. I think I would've went to school for something that would immerse me in the technology space. I feel like it's a gap for me right now where I wanna be able to dive into product and really get in the weeds and kind of get my hands dirty in what's happening. And I think I would've stayed maybe at Oracle a little bit longer or went to another big company to help, you know, maximize the network that I was building and learn a lot faster. I think in larger organizations, the processes are a little bit more complex. And so I think that would've been beneficial for me as I'm working with growing companies to understand what different types of processes exist at companies and different options I can offer to my customers of best practices that I've seen in the market.

14:14 Scott Ingram: Yeah, that's really interesting. I mean, to kind of recap what I heard there, this idea of maybe not starting out in startups, right? Starting out at a more established organization where they're going to have resources, where you're going to get training, where, you know, you can kind of take your time and build a really solid network before then kind of going, okay, cool. Now I've got this more professional experience. I can take this into the more emerging market and maybe, you know, try and make a bet and find a great company that's on a rocket trajectory.

14:42 Lynn Powers: Absolutely. And I think that's the key takeaway to anyone listening today on how do we start your career successfully or just in general in the tech space. I think that was key for my success today.

14:55 Scott Ingram: Such good stuff. Such good stuff. So what is, I mean, a couple of show sales success stories. What's your favorite sales story?

15:03 Lynn Powers: Yeah, my favorite sales success story is actually with a north of $500 million revenue public SaaS customer experience management platform. They were on their journey to going public. And this was really interesting because the board outlook for them was there is a public offering happening within 12 to 24 months when I got engaged. They hadn't filed their S-1 yet. And when I engaged with them, they were like, look, we have another vendor. We're working through contracts right now. We'll take a demo, but like probably like going to walk you out of the door. After that. And I was like, look, all I need is one shot. That's it. Like, happy to showcase all of my skills and what I can offer you in this one shot. And they ended up not reviewing the contract after that call. And for me, that was a huge win just as an initial foundation for our relationship. And that kicked off our partnership in a way that was authentically, how do we work together and how do we use this opportunity to have like a project manager to help us build this together. So they actually ended up hiring someone to partner with me because they were on such a high growth journey during this time. And the value for me was it wasn't a budgeted line item for them. And when I look back on the process that we put in place together, it was so beautifully executed, like from project management engagement from them, the amount of people I think I worked with, over 70 different people at that organization throughout my sales cycle. And again, from a non-budgeted perspective, when I'm pushing to the board and the executives, look, are you going public? Like, are you going to file your S-1? And once they did, when we were towards the end of the cycle, we became really ingrained in how they were going to go public. And so for me as a seller, that was such an incredible experience because it's very unlikely that those 2 things are going to happen at the same time. And so going on that journey with them, I just felt so ingrained in their celebrations of going public. And from that standpoint, the value that I provided was justified. So even when I put a high price point in front of them, they were like, absolutely. Like there was not a whole lot of pushback because of the work that we'd done together and how confident they felt that we were going to be successful with them. So I think from a negotiation perspective, a value-building perspective, a business acumen that I received from that deal was absolutely my favorite that I've ever worked.

17:40 Scott Ingram: What a great story. And obviously you essentially get to be a part of the IPO team. You've mentioned it a number of times, and just to save people the trouble of looking it up, if for those who aren't familiar with an S-1, what's an S-1?

17:51 Lynn Powers: Yeah, so an S-1 is what companies are responsible for when they are filing to go public. So if they would like to go public, they need to file a form with the Securities and Exchange Commission that requires them to kind of label themselves that they're going to go public. And so that has a really lot of good hearty information about some of the pain points or some of the challenges that, that may be facing ahead of their public offering. And so if you could offer a solution at that or use that as a way to dig into the business initiatives that a company has, it makes you a lot more credible when you're going to pitch to them.

18:30 Scott Ingram: Let me talk about Vidyard real quick right here, because I often talk about Vidyard as a powerful way to prospect and open new doors. But what a lot of enterprise sellers have discovered is that in complex deals like the one Lynn just described with dozens of stakeholders, Vidyard can be even more powerful in spreading your message and specific value points more broadly across the organization in a truly tailored way. No matter how you're planning to use Vidyard, their plugin is free and you can get it at top1.fm/vidyard. Now let's get back to Lynn. So you've had a lot of consistent success, especially here recently. What are you most proud of?

19:11 Lynn Powers: I'm most proud of how much adversity I faced to get to where I am. I remember in my SDR days being the only woman on a team of 13 other boys, and I would tirelessly be hitting the phone cold calling, and I learned to love it after a while, but I never heard anyone else on my team doing it. And I was like, how do they hit their numbers? And I'm like over here grinding. And so For me, it was like, okay, I'm in a boys' club. I'm trying to figure this out. Didn't really know what I was doing. Went to another place. I worked in a very hostile environment that caused a lot of stress injuries for myself. Somehow I knew that I would, if I would keep at it, it would get me to where I needed to be. And then last year, crazy year for me. I was in a wheelchair half the year and using that time to hone into what was the best for me and not get distracted. I think. Is one of the most, I think from my perspective, fulfilling to accomplish so much in a time where I was physically disabled, I guess you could say. And so last year for me, I received my biggest commission check to date and bought a house. I'm now building a pool. So the adversity I faced to get to where I am today is just so rewarding for me.

20:26 Scott Ingram: How did you get through all of that? Like, why didn't you just quit?

20:29 Lynn Powers: Yeah, I think my why is really why I don't quit at this. So when I was growing up, I had rheumatoid arthritis. My doctor told me that I wouldn't walk past 25, and I was like, yeah, right. Like, there's no chance I'm not going to be able to walk. And then I was really like bedridden, and I was like, oh crap. So moving forward in my life, I'm like, any chance that you get to live your life, any chance that you get to do the things that you love or to dig your your heels into things that scare you enough to push you to be greater, I think is something that I try to live through every day because I know what it's like to be able to not do any of it and be incapable of doing it. And so for me, I love challenges. I'm very filled with, I would say, grit maybe because it's kind of a never, ever, ever give up attitude for me.

21:22 Scott Ingram: Love it. Love it. What about What do you continue to struggle with the most? What do you find to be the hardest part of this job?

21:29 Lynn Powers: Yeah, I wouldn't say this is something that I'm experiencing currently, but I think overall in my career, just looking back, the thing that I struggled with the most was dealing with management that wasn't supportive of me. So selling is hard as it is, but there's no perfect art or science playbook that will get you the same results every single deal. And so I think you really need strategic support during these deals of how are we planning to go to market to this team? How are we consistently executing on different areas of the deal cycle together and pulling in the resources that can help deliver that message effectively? And so I would say my biggest challenge is how do you get that support system? How do you properly quarterback them? And right now, the way that I see this is Clari is growing so fast. I think when I started, it was like under 200. Now we're almost at 1,000 and I think that's absolutely crazy. And so just consistently trying to figure out who else is out there that can help me, how can I leverage their network to support some of my deals is probably the biggest challenge of digging through folks.

22:37 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So yeah, I mean, you're getting really close to pushing a couple of my hot buttons, but I'm curious about like, how have you worked through that? Right. How have you found that right kind of support to make sure that you have kind of the leadership infrastructure to make sure you're going to be successful?

22:50 Lynn Powers: Yeah, this is hard to replicate, I think, for another person, but I channel authentically who I am, which I like to call it Lynnergy. I'm so confident in my abilities of what I bring to the table and the impact that I make to someone who might otherwise think of me differently or tear me down. But how do I help grow better in that and how do I help channel who I authentically am?

23:14 Scott Ingram: All right. I think we're working towards the title of this episode. We are working in Lynnergy in one way, shape, or form. That's amazing.

23:20 Lynn Powers: It's definitely my superpower.

23:23 Scott Ingram: I love it. I love it. So let's get into kind of your own personal process. I still want to get into the deal process for sure. But I love kind of dissecting people's days. So your alarm clock goes off, what time does that happen? And I want the blow-by-blow until your head hits the pillow.

23:40 Lynn Powers: Oh my god. Well, it rarely ever hits the pillow. I'll tell you that. I like to wake up early. I'm kind of like a 4 to 5:30-ish riser. The only reason for that is I like to spend time with myself, and with 2 kids in the house, it's kind of difficult to do. And so I get up early in the morning, and I'm Catholic. I say the rosary every single morning, and then I'm really huge on using my artistic abilities to do great makeup every day.

24:15 Scott Ingram: I witnessed just a glimpse of that. It was amazing.

24:18 Lynn Powers: Thank you. That people don't like to put on lipstick at 6:00 AM. I'm definitely the one to have bright red on and ready to go. So I think I channel my artistic abilities in the morning, some little bit of meditation, and then 7:00 AM I'm doing prep invites, prep emails. So for me, what that looks like is looking at my calendar for the rest of the day, the following day, figuring out who do I need to reach out to. What is my plan? What slides do I need to put together? How can I better execute that message? And then my day is usually back to back in meetings. That's consistent of customer meetings, internal meetings. I'm doing a lot right now internally with building a women ERG org at Clari, as well as helping with onboarding and introducing them into what is sales at Clari, which is really fun. And then helping mentor folks. Around Clari and then also through Women in Revenue. It's kind of like the meat of my days. And then following that, I spend my afternoons really trying to nerd out on what is it that's going on in my deals and how do I do 15, 20 bullets of random crazy ideas that I would throw at this deal if I had the opportunity to. And then I minimize that and that's my to-do list for the following day. And so I like to plan, reflect, and probably stay as calm as possible throughout a chaotic day.

25:49 Scott Ingram: And then how do things kind of wrap up for you before your head maybe bounces off the pillow?

25:55 Lynn Powers: A DoorDash order? No, I'm just kidding. I definitely do a lot of family time. So soaking in that, cooking for everybody, being able to clean up where I can. So it's, Very home-ish. But then when it, right before I go to sleep, I either watch a YouTube video or a podcast or some type of sales book to help me stay motivated, but also on top of my game. I think just thinking of my start of my career versus what it is today, the evolution of how sales has changed is crazy. I feel like I was right at the end of using Rolodex cards, but right at the beginning of LinkedIn. So it's, such a cool place to be, I think, in my career, but just also see the transition of how sales has been over the years.

26:42 Scott Ingram: Yeah, such great stuff. I mean, one of the things that stuck out to me in that is how much of your time, and maybe you can kind of quantify this in terms of percentage. I mean, here you are, you're the top performer, but you're spending a lot of time giving back. You're mentoring, you're helping build the CRG, you've got Women in Revenue. Like, what percentage of your bandwidth is all that?

27:00 Lynn Powers: Yeah, I definitely get help. So I'm not shy of outsourcing for help on some of these different areas. But I would say probably 80% of my time is spent on accounts that I'm working and deals that I'm working. 20% of my time is spent on giving back. I will say I'm in a really privileged position where I feel like they intertwine most of the time. So although I'm pitching for Clari to a manager or VP, if they also happen to be a female leader, That's something that I just automatically gravitate towards because of Women in Revenue and the things that we're doing. And then a lot of the leadership that I work with throughout Women in Revenue and the network that's built throughout Women in Revenue is kind of a catapult to how I get into deals or how do I immerse myself in the culture of sales or in revenue in general.

27:54 Scott Ingram: Yeah, you know, I think of it as, and it's so hard to quantify, right? Because it's not just like a financial ROI. There's a lot of psychic pieces to it, but I think of it as kind of return on giving.

28:06 Lynn Powers: Absolutely. That's the art, I think. Yeah.

28:09 Scott Ingram: Well, and especially if you value network, right? If you think about these relationships and connections that you're building and you're adding value for them and you're building deeper relationships with other executives, like that just, it's an incredible investment.

28:21 Lynn Powers: Yeah. And I think it's a great learning too, right? Because before when I was selling database software, It was difficult for me to immerse myself not having like an IT background. So I was trying to, you know, be friendly with database administrators and not knowing like what that meant for them versus what I'm doing today. I'm in the revenue world. I live this and breathe this every day of my day-to-day job, but also from their perspective, I can resonate with some of the things that they're going through. And so I think that shift as well is a huge impact to my success.

28:56 Scott Ingram: Let's talk about that a little bit more explicitly because, well, I'm not going to lead the witness here, but as you think about the importance of product knowledge, right, understanding Clari and your tools and what all you can do versus understanding your clients and their business and what they're going through, like, how do you think about those and prioritize those?

29:16 Lynn Powers: Yeah, so I look at what we call Clari's strategic growth initiatives. So At a high level, what are typical things that growth companies go through? So mergers and acquisitions, new rounds of funding, a new round of leadership to help bring them to the next level. There's a lot of different moving parts. And so if I can understand which of those moving parts are they doing and how can I quantify that based off of deals I've done in the past or experiences that I've seen in deals in the past when they're going through similar motions, And how do I provide that back to them? And so the way that I prioritize it is really just quickly understanding what are those business objectives, what are driving them from a strategic growth initiative, and then backchanneling that into who's responsible for it, who cares the most, like who has to stay up on weekends to do that, and how do I give them time back? Because the ROI that we provide, I think our customers are our best sellers, and this is why ROI is like really easy conversation for us to have sometimes. Times, but it's how do we give back time? How do we prioritize what's important for them and then marry that with the strategic growth initiative and build a process, build out a mutual action plan that showcases that in a way that if they were to share that with someone else, they feel confident about it.

30:41 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Let's keep going on this thread and maybe we'll start at the high level and just kind of get a little bit deeper into the weeds. So one of the things you talked about as one of your core success factors is Just the organization and the way that you prioritize and think about your territory and those kinds of things. What is that process? How does that all start?

30:59 Lynn Powers: Yeah. Oh, I am a big nerd on this front. So in Clari, I can look at all of my accounts and then prioritize them off of different industries, different kind of attribution factors from tools like 6sense or Demandbase that are telling me like which companies are like the hot buttons. And then I dive into mutual connections. So that's like a big way of how I sell is through mutual connections. And I'm looking at funding first. So who raised funding the last? Who has the most healthy stock market price right now? Or who's struggling in some aspects? That's really important too, because revenue again is an important factor to how that number is looked at. And then from there, I prioritize off of how many employees they have. So the bigger organization, obviously the easier I'll get to my quota. But then I look at, you know, where are some commonalities between customers that I have today, whether from a product perspective or maybe they're a competitor of a customer that I have. And then I start to figure out how do I map the organization? How do I go And actively try to pursue these folks. I'm a big cold caller, and I think it's a huge way to easily kind of walk the halls of a deal before you're actually in a cycle. And so understanding, you know, can I just reach out to a rep at each one of these accounts and just get the lay of the land and really dig into the weeds of that before I go upmarket or up to their executive team and really pitch with a very strong perspective.

32:42 Scott Ingram: Now, do you do that for every account or are you doing a little bit of prioritization and just kind of looking at, okay, these are the strongest potentials and now I'm gonna start to dig in and these are the ones where I think it's worth my effort cuz it's gonna certainly take some effort to do this work.

32:58 Lynn Powers: Yeah, I think 2 parts of that. The first is I definitely focus on my ICP or my ideal customer profile and really understanding what is the easiest win that I can get. The second part is I kind of backwards math my quota. So the way that I structure my pipeline or my pipeline build is really off of the number that I'm trying to hit. So from a quarterly perspective, I think this is why I have such great linearity too in my performance metrics is I look at the overall territory. I look at what deals are considered a bigger deal or what deals are considered a smaller deal, or I could get a smaller piece out of. And then I look at the timeline that it would take to do that. And then I try to kind of pinpoint at what point in time are they likely to buy? Like, is there a time where they usually get budget released or based off of closed ops? Like, what is that nature of the business like from a procurement standpoint? And then I build cadences or kind of go-to-market plans. I like to think of myself as like a franchisee owner of how do I get this specific account by this specific time? And then I always try to double that. So if I have double the pipeline, at least one of those will fall into that category. And so I break down my pipeline by these different segments so that I know from a timing perspective, if I'm going to spend too much time on one account, is that something that I need to reprioritize and push it to a different account if that's not working well for me? And give myself really sturdy deadlines around that. So I know actively how I need to pursue more pipeline. Or make sure that I'm successfully progressing the current pipeline that I have.

34:37 Scott Ingram: That's really interesting. I mean, the way I heard that is you're kind of building a diversified portfolio of pipeline that's kind of a mix of, hey, here's some short-term kind of quick wins that won't take a ton of energy, but I can put some stuff on the board while you're simultaneously investing in like, I'm going to swing for the fences on a couple of these. Yeah.

34:56 Lynn Powers: Yeah, absolutely.

34:58 Scott Ingram: I love it. I love it. And then what is the process? I mean, you started to get into it there a little bit in terms of, okay, cool. I've found one of these accounts and, you know, whether maybe we want to talk through kind of a whale or a midsize type of a deal. Sounds like you're using one of my favorite hacks. Start by calling somebody on the sales team because they'll pick up the phone and they'll talk to you and kind of parlaying that information and just, you know, working your way up through the organization of like, hey, I understand your business. I have some insights. Have some perspective, like I know who you are. Walk us through kind of the rest of that in, in terms of engaging, like creating the opportunity, and then what is the rest of that process to move it through to close?

35:36 Lynn Powers: Yeah, I feel like a lot of people are on the fence about SDRs. I use my SDR like he is my wingman. I'm also blessed to have really good SDRs. I think Kyle Coleman cultivates a really good culture of that at Clari. But for me, I use my SDR religiously in a way that we are going after these accounts and in a way that I am designating for him specific targets every week. And if we are maniacal about how we message to them, how we understand what's important for them, it starts to drive a conversation that's not, it's more natural than it is like, here's a pitch. Like, how can we collaborate on something and what's important for you? And the ways I do that are listening to podcasts, like I mentioned, reading books or looking at different videos that these people are a part of, and then building that consensus. So I like to kind of work through the walk the halls perspective with my SDR and then begin to formulate these strategic plans or playbooks with my VP and my manager. And so I think it's a tie of how do we make a really cold prospect or someone that has absolutely no idea what Clari does feel really invested in learning more. And right now is a, again, interesting time to do it because revenue leak is so important to businesses because they might be consolidating on hiring or they need to get more productivity out of folks. And so understanding what that means for the business, are they, you know, consolidating new business with upsells or renewals with upsells, or how does that look like? And then applying what I use as my playbook. And so what that is, is quantifying the overall ROI. Showcasing how that is led inside the product today or ways that we can enhance what they're doing today in the product. And then lastly, tying together all of this in a really easy digestible way from a project management perspective. So I use, obviously, kind of drink our own Kool-Aid with Clari Align, but what that does is it helps us build a mutual action plan where they're contributing to it. I'm contributing to it. There is resources that we're plugging all right there centralized to them. And so I think If, again, if we make the buyer's journey very easy for them, it's easy for them to lean in with us.

38:17 Scott Ingram: Love it. So 2 questions, kind of going back to the SDR thing. How are you coordinating with your SDR? How are you working with them to kind of divide and conquer? Because I know you're not just putting it all on them. You're doing some piece of this.

38:30 Lynn Powers: Absolutely.

38:31 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

38:31 Lynn Powers: So I am huge on leveraging Clari to prioritize my actual accounts and ways that he's going after it. I'm going after things. And then we're using that to look at what is the highest potential. So from there, we then grab our target accounts for the week. So we'll have, you know, anywhere from 1 to 5 target accounts for the week. Then early in the week, by kind of midday Monday, we will have a plan or at least a couple bullets labeled out for what is important for them or what we think is important for them. Then we'll start to walk the halls. So Monday, Tuesday, we're doing tons of cold calls, emails, anything that we can get to get them warm, and then really pursuing that. So I start that with my SDR kind of early in the week. By midweek, him and I are checking in with each other and holding each other accountable to the people that we highlighted in a spreadsheet of this is our target for the week, this is what they care about. And then we're swapping lists. So he didn't get ahold of XYZ amount of folks. Great, that's my call list now. And really nurturing the customer in a way that they feel like they're going to be supported. And then with my SDR, I have this running document that's kind of like our extended to-do list. So he puts his action items in there, I put my action items in there, and then we put our like wild thoughts of like what could be really cool for us to do in this account. And we revisit that constantly. So Again, accountability is huge, and so I'm crossing things off, he's crossing things off. But then we also go into it and add messages. And so this document has become like a bible of messages and to-do lists and all of the things. So then we're creating our own playbook. And so SDRs get promoted really quickly here at Clary. And so a part of that is I needed to create a repeatable process that I know that I'm nurturing an SDR. You are in a way that they're going to be a very successful rep, but also how am I paying back myself in a way that I don't feel like I'm just constantly ramping someone or teaching them how to use Groove or teaching them technology or different ways to get creative with language and messaging. And it's scalable, right? So I can share that with other reps. I can consistently help learn from others that are doing similar things. And so again, I think One, just building a game plan, holding each other accountable to that, and then making sure you're doing the execution required to get the wins.

41:01 Scott Ingram: So many good things. I love this idea of swapping lists, right? Like, okay, cool. Like I tried this for a few days, now you try, right?

41:08 Lynn Powers: Yeah. And it keeps it warm, right? So I think that's the other thing too, is like people can put it in a sequence or people can put in a bunch of calls, but like that could get tiring if it's just one person. If we're switching that same method. But still coming in with very rich context, it makes it a lot more easier for someone to lean in.

41:27 Scott Ingram: Well, and it's just, it's so clear that it's personalized, right? I think, I mean, I get, we all get like so much of this just spray and pray garbage, right? I'm not the right person. You have no reason why you're reaching out to me. I'm just anything. And if I ignore you for 3 or 4, how many touches are in your freaking cadence, you'll go away. Right. But this whole idea of like, hey, here's a couple of different people reaching out. They're just not replying to the same, you know, all of that stuff. I really want to get into… talk some more about what you're calling walking the halls, because I have to imagine that's a different kind of a cold call. That's not like, take a meeting, I want to pitch you. It sounds like it's really part of your discovery, like, I'm just trying to learn and understand your organization and get your perspective. So how are you introducing that idea? What are those conversations like?

42:11 Lynn Powers: Yeah, so I learned this methodology from Oracle of One time I had a girl on another team that I was learning from and she interviewed at a company just to learn what their processes are like or like ask the questions that she would never be able to get answered in a discovery call. And so I took that methodology and I'm like, well, at Clari, we're impacting reps and like, I'm also a rep and I have some hearty learnings under my belt and I just want to learn from them as much as they might want to learn from me, right? So there's always a give to get. And I think in sales, it's good karma of how do we lean into one another and how do we just like complain about not having to do administrative work, which is like an easy thing or a hot topic for any rep. If I'm like, hey, can I talk to you about how many times your manager has to tell you to update your deals? Like, it's pretty easy for them to respond. It's not like a hard message to send and like, Again, coming from a place where I'm human, right? So I'll send a text message like, hi, like, I'm Lynn, I'm a rep at Clari. I saw that you're also a rep, like, would love just to spend 10 minutes together. I'm trying to network while being in this remote land. Like, how can we be friends or how can we help one another? And those messages usually come off very personable anyways because naturally we're both reps. And so the learnings are again, Very intimate, but incredibly helpful for especially the things that I'm digging into because the people I'm trying to serve are these reps. And then from a manager perspective, whether I fire off that message or my manager fires off that message, or, you know, a current customer fires off that message, like, again, back to my, who's the best person to deliver that? It's how do we learn from everyone first, but like from different perspectives? So that we have a very consolidated approach, but also feel like we've kind of turned a couple stones before we're making a guess.

44:17 Scott Ingram: Yeah, such just such good stuff. And I mean, it's something I have certainly used. I mean, you can get so much information. I mean, you've typically got a nice willing participant, right? Like, hey, well, look, we're in the same role. You understand what I'm trying to do. And a lot of times they have really good insights into. Like the unique quirky, like organizational structures, power structures, like, okay, who do I really need to talk to? Who's driving this? You know, all of those kinds of, and like, who can introduce me there?

44:46 Lynn Powers: Yeah, totally. Well, especially the, I think LinkedIn is powerful to show connections, but then like pressure testing those connections isn't something that you can do just off of like, oh, they're connected, you know? And so I think the walk the halls approach helps you understand how close people are, or, you know, if you see people come from the same organization, like typically they probably referred each other or brought their people in when they moved companies. But then understanding at this current state, like, are they doing what they were doing at the last company? Are they pulling that over? Or are there new ways that they're innovating with current leadership or different learnings like that that are Organic conversations, but very awkward to have in like a demo. I don't want to spend my time there. But in a walk the halls perspective, like, yeah, that's going to incredibly be helpful when I'm in a demo and I can say, you know, John is really close to Scott and they used to work together. Like, tell me more about the impact that they're having together. And things like that where it's a lot more personable. I'm like, again, from an authentic perspective, I'm just like, like a huge friendly, like, person anyways. And so I feel like it's as much as I can highlight my authenticity in those conversations makes me feel a lot better about my deal from like an ethos perspective. I think sales in general is just, it has this weird connotation from like bad sales guys selling door-to-door or selling cars or something like that. And this shift to How do I not be like that or come from that type of sentiment and really make you feel like I'm here for you?

46:26 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Well, I think that to me is one of the biggest opportunities in sales because sadly the bar is still so low. Like we still get all of these undifferentiated emails. People are so used to interacting with salespeople who just aren't consistent. They don't follow up. They don't do the things that they do. If you do just those simple things like, I'm human, here's some real outreach, let's have a real conversation, I'm gonna deliver on all the things I did, you're probably in the top 10% right there.

46:57 Lynn Powers: Yeah, 100%. It's interesting that you say that because I think it's a very hard shift for salespeople to make, especially when they're pressured on activity. So if you're like, pump out this many metrics or pump out this many calls, it's like, it's very hard to do that at scale. But if you just look at what you're trying to achieve and almost like go back to the basics on just the shortest list possible, being able to do that is going to be a lot more effective. That's why I say like working with my SDR, we're just hitting 5 accounts a week just to make sure that like we're nurturing and touching them. And then you can use technology like Groove, for example, that will highlight for you what accounts you're not hot in, or Clari can tell me, you know, What outreach I haven't had the most in this week or overall this quarter or this year? What accounts am I penetrating? And so that alone is like, you don't have to spray and pray. You just have to know what you're after.

47:59 Scott Ingram: Oh, you are getting really close to a bunch of my buttons. That's another one. But I think you, I think you said it well, right? I think the problem is, and the 2 ideas actually go together, right? Like weak sales leadership is this management by the numbers. It's not really helping people be the best them and really find these results. And then the other one is this, you know, quantity over quality thing where all we care about is activity metrics. I'm like, don't you care about outcome metrics? Like, who cares how many things I put in the pot if the right number are coming out?

48:28 Lynn Powers: Right. The way that I like to think about it, Scott, is this, like, if I did X amount of deals to get to $1 million, right? If I did a very small velocity amount of deals to get to a million, How much time did it take to get there? So like I could do, you know, 60 deals and then get to a million, but there are lower price points, or I could just work on one deal and get that price point. But if we vary those 2 things together, you can get the activity that you're looking for, but you can also continue to nurture that one big deal that you're going to work. So I think it's just a different perspective to have on like Are we doing it the right way? And like, is that the best way to do it?

49:11 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Well, and I think that best way is so dependent on the individual, right? This isn't a one-size-fits-all kind of a deal.

49:19 Lynn Powers: Yeah, totally. I think it depends on the person that's selling and then also the reciprocation that you're getting from a buyer. And that alone is going to be unique in every single deal, every single seller. And so again, from an overall metrics perspective, that's hard. Like, that's hard to umbrella, but of course it's necessary because inevitably what you're wanting is productivity.

49:43 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah. Well, nobody said being good or being great was easy.

49:46 Lynn Powers: Right.

49:47 Scott Ingram: So Lynn, you started to allude to some pieces of kind of the different technologies and tools that you're using. What are all those? What are kind of the core components that you rely on to execute this process?

49:59 Lynn Powers: I'm sure you can guess I'm biased on this, but Clari is where I spend a majority of my time. And Clari also just acquired Wingman. So I'm a big believer in conversational intelligence in a way that prior to this, I was using conversational intelligence as like my note taker of like, okay, great. I don't have to take notes. I can pay attention in this meeting and I can really stay engaged with my buyers, but then with Wingman, it's been a shift for me because now it's giving me cue cards to show what I should be saying when a keyword is coming up. And so that's been a real big shift in how I'm selling and like the way that I'm presenting. So I definitely would say Clari Wingman together is just kind of my go-to naturally. And then I use I just laugh at when I say Clari because I used to have nightmares, I feel like, of my last manager just yelling at me to update Salesforce or like update my opportunities or update my forecast or not knowing where to put things. And Clari just makes me feel like I'm in charge of my business and it gives me the analytics to be more strategic. Because before, I don't think I ever pulled together an analytics report of the trends of my forecast. Like, I, I as a rep didn't care. And like, now I'm like, Oh wow, that's really cool for me to understand so I could build my pipeline a certain way or be able to forecast a certain way knowing what inventory I have. So Clari and Wingman kind of are first and foremost. And then from a prospecting perspective, obviously LinkedIn Sales Navigator is something I use religiously. I'm a big builder in lists. I'm a big builder in looking at the announcements that are taking place. I subscribe to, I don't know how many different News articles like Google Alerts is a big one for me. Demandbase and 6sense, just understanding where and how to prioritize my accounts or the people that I'm reaching out to. I also leverage ZoomInfo to look at investor relations, any type of projects that are actively getting taken place in a company. And just as like my own personal note taker, I use Quip and OneNote. Kind of hand in hand. And then I'm a big sticky note person. So different technology that helps me keep to-do lists of certain accounts and priorities set for, you know, different things like Women in Revenue or things that I'm doing at Clari or ideas that I have. I think it's really hard to stay creative when your schedule is packed. And so when you have those thoughts, like just jotting them down really quickly to integrate into some things that you're doing or keeping a tab open of certain things to stay fresh on top of your mind, I think is important for me. I think those are kind of the main ones that I'm using. Oh, Groove. Oh my gosh. Groove I use to create a space with my SDR. It's really great because I can hold him more accountable to certain tasks. And so we're not just living in our spreadsheet and having to update a spreadsheet. It's automatically getting updated for us through Groove. And so I use that for messaging and just to understand how my SDR and I are partnering together on that messaging and actually reaching out to the customers or prospects.

53:21 Scott Ingram: Awesome. I love the sticky note tech.

53:24 Lynn Powers: I'm like, if we go non-technology, I have this huge 72-inch whiteboard in my office.

53:32 Scott Ingram: Nice. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So, you talked about kind of the end of your day, you're watching videos, and so what is your information diet? What are you listening to, reading, and watching?

53:44 Lynn Powers: Yeah, so, you know, I'm a big fan of Challenger. I think I reread that book probably every quarter. And then also Power-Based Selling. I think Power-Based Selling just keeps me on top of my toes of understanding the hierarchy of a deal and how you can leverage different players in a deal appropriately. And like, What might be too much to ask of someone, what might be too little to ask of someone. I think those are really important for me. I also am very religious, and so I immerse myself in a ton of different, like, rosary readers or kind of overall world feedback of what's happening and how do we pray for certain people. So I do that quite a bit, and then I would say there's a ton of audiobooks that I'm like reading right now. I'm a big fan of kind of going through different audiobooks, and so I'll circulate whether it be like motivational books or sales books or just fun reads that I think can distract my mind a little bit. I think my current library that I have is like The Power of the Subconscious Mind, and like I'm reading that right now just to help myself like not feel burnt out or not feel like I'm doing too much, because I do feel like I put a lot on my plate, but I like enjoy it, and so it feeds my joy, so I don't ever feel like I'm burnt out. Another one that I love to read is Gabrielle Bernstein. She does a lot of work with how to be a super attractor or a super motivator for other people, and that one's a big one for me because I do like to play an influential part in the people that I'm in their circle, or I am a confidant of.

55:29 Scott Ingram: Love it. Love it. Well, we will put all of that together in the show notes like we always do. So if you're listening to this, you can go to top1.fm forward slash the episode number, which I don't know what it is, or you can go to top1.fm forward slash Lynn-Powers and we'll have everything there. So L-Y-N-N. Lynn, I'm guessing, I like to ask if people subscribe to a particular sales philosophy. You're reading Challenger Sale once a quarter. I'm guessing it might have something to do with that.

55:54 Lynn Powers: Yeah, I definitely think I have a sales philosophy of how do I prioritize people? How do I prioritize what's important? And I think those 2 together help me be accountable from like a methodology perspective. I really like MEDDPICC. We also do this thing at Clari called sequence of events, which helps us understand the actual processes that are happening in a deal. And so those 2 combined, I think. From a methodology of what am I trying to get out of a deal paired with how am I going to go about this in the deal are key for me to execute perfectly or near perfect.

56:37 Scott Ingram: Love it. Love it. And then in that sort of philosophy, in that approach, how would you describe your style?

56:43 Lynn Powers: Full of Lynnergy, Scott. Come on. I would say what that means for me, though, is I come into deals very servant-hearted. So a lot of times, or historically, what I've seen is reps or, you know, sales enablement is pushing you to do a certain way or a certain, get certain things from a customer. I don't like to do that because I like to be more servant-hearted of like, what do you need? Like, how can I empower you? Like, what is it that you're struggling with? And so For me, I would say servant-hearted, very authentic. I think I've hit on that one multiple times. It's like a big one for me of like, how do I stay true to myself? And then full of energy. So the other thing that I've noticed on a lot of Zoom calls, it's like very like, okay, hi, we're all here. Let's get started. Like, I'm definitely not that person on a call. I come with all of the energy. I make sure everyone in the room is heard, like very facilitator in that perspective. And then creativity is another one. So I like to take things, even if I just learn something as small as, you know, we went on a hike to a really cool place this weekend. Like I'll share a photo of a recent hike that I did as well. And like, okay, I wanna see yours. Like, so again, like creativity from a different perspective where I'm building rapport, but again, from a very authentic place and then serving what I think is going to be the most valuable thing that they can get from me.

58:09 Scott Ingram: Beautiful. Now, I think we got to kind of some of your underlying mindset before when we were talking about some of the adversity you've overcome. As you look forward and kind of what you've done these last couple of years, what really motivates you? How do you think about motivation and that drive in general?

58:26 Lynn Powers: Yeah, I like to think about this. I think earlier I mentioned my health issues, but also like my failures, like what went wrong, right? And so I dealt with so many health issues I mentioned growing up, and they sucked those moments of joy out of me. And I felt very vulnerable, unable to walk, unable to think. I get seizures if I'm too high stress. And so that is also very difficult because then I have to kind of rebuild my memory. And so I use different tips and tricks for that of like colors and notes and things of that nature. But I think what I learned from that the most is When you get the opportunity to get up again, what would you change and how would you go about doing that again? And for me, that really helps me get up every day because I feel blessed to be able to walk as soon as I get up, you know, or I'm able to think and I'm able to remember the people that are around me. And I think I've also just been around really skilled people, especially at Clari. Like, it's hard to fall below the line of I'm failing when you're surrounded with so many winners. And the sales team here at Clari is so motivating because we're always sharing learnings. We're always partnering together. And I think that camaraderie is very motivating. And so I'm energized by people. And so if I can surround myself, especially in this virtual world, when I feel like I lock myself in the office a lot of the time, it's great to have a circle or a network that you can tap into to really help you get your gears back on. So I think that's kind of twofold. What motivates me is my health issues that I've experienced in the past, being able to relive, I guess, my life and then surrounding myself with the right people to help me accomplish that.

1:00:17 Scott Ingram: Awesome. Awesome. You mentioned the failures. What's your favorite failure?

1:00:21 Lynn Powers: I would say from a deal perspective, I have a lost deal at the same account, which I lost multiple times. The first time, and it's funny because the company that this is, I was in the commercial team with Clari for 2 years. While I was on that team, this account was mine. And while they were at the maturity level that they were as an organization, it was considered a commercial account. When I moved to mid-market, it was also considered a mid-market account. So it came with me and I lost that deal twice. The first time, was because they had brought in a new leader. He was new to the org, was the essential buyer for my deal, and he had familiarity with another tool. And they put a really attractive offer in front of him, again, from a comfort perspective of, oh gosh, I have to leave this organization. Like, let me just go to what I'm comfortable with. Immediately took that offer. So a year later, they weren't getting the value and visibility into the pipeline that he imagined that they could, especially at the scale that they were growing at. And a year later, when I'm still, you know, touching and using these messages to them, they were ready to replace it with a different solution because unlike his last company where it worked flawlessly with, they couldn't apply that same methodology to this highly growing company. And so during their second evaluation, the buyer and I had interacted But was very uncommunicative. So it almost felt like it was touching or re-engaging with Clari just as like a checkbox. Like we're not going to get Clari, but like I have to do this as formality for the evaluation. And for me, I feel like it took me out of the running really early and it kind of boxed me out. So I like tried multiple plays and they just had no intentions of engaging. So at this point I'm like, I'm going to close this account. I've lost twice now. Like, I know exactly when these renewal dates are. I know exactly how much they spent on both of these. Like, I know this stuff. I can do it. Like, third time's a charm. And it's funny because when I first engaged with them, we were talking 20 users, right? And last year I closed this deal successfully and it was because I had failed so much with them before. That I knew what I was going to walk into and I knew exactly what they needed now at a certain scale of a company that I know that the competitors that they were working with couldn't achieve. I knew exactly how to frame that. I knew exactly what to do with it. But the biggest win for me was they were no longer 20 users. It was 500 users. And so if I think about that deal and if I would have took it down, you know, the first time or the second time that I had it in my pocket, I wouldn't have had the success that I had with them. But also now they are such a big believer in Clari and what we can do and how they go about it because they felt the impact that we could after that 3rd time around and engaged with us really deeply the first time. But that last time it was like, wow, like this is actually going to get us there. Like this will help facilitate the processes that we're doing. It's not going to be just a reporting tool or an analytics tool or something for us to roll up our forecast. Like this is going to be the machine that helps us be more machine-like. And so especially at a growing, scaling, high-growth company, like that's what you need. And so that failure was, as much of it was a big failure, like my worst fear is walking into a forecast call and having to say that I took something out of commit, having to do that twice with this opportunity and then coming in and saying, this is one of the largest deals that I'll close. A monumental logo for us. That was very rewarding.

1:04:16 Scott Ingram: That is amazing. I love that story. And probably the best part, I have to imagine, is having done that much work and the depth of relationship. And I'm sure, you know, now being implemented and successful, you probably have the greatest reference client on the planet.

1:04:29 Lynn Powers: Greatest reference client, like greatest referral client. Like they're awesome also to work with. And They even speak very highly of like some of the things that we talked about in the sales process. And like, imagine now, like this is like the sales process for them was like a 3-year sprint with me, right? So some of those ideas that I had put in their place like 2, 3 years ago is now what they're putting in place in action, right? And so to hear them thank me for that 3 years down the line is again, like helps speak to my short-term like craziness of like scheduling and calling and going back and like coming with certain messaging. It like Makes my crazy feel like it's a good crazy.

1:05:11 Scott Ingram: Well, and just I mean obviously not giving up on that deal, right? I mean again, thinking about how low the bar is, I have to imagine that the typical rep after that first loss would have been like, "Well, shucks, the end," right?

1:05:24 Lynn Powers: Or they just would be too scared to go back, right?

1:05:26 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

1:05:26 Lynn Powers: I think in some cases you see a closed loss stop and they're like, "Oh, went with a competitor. Oh, the renewal's not for da da da." Scott, the craziest part is. The deal that they signed up for, they still had 1 year left on the contract of the second item that they purchased. And so it was such a win for me because not only did they basically eat the cost of the other contract just to buy Clari, but it was, we bought Clari at the like higher price point than we were initially quoted a couple years ago, plus are eating the cost of the competitor because we're so eager to implement Clari right now. Instead of at renewal time. And I think a lot of reps get scared of, let's wait for the renewal date. Let's wait for the renewal date. And for me, I'm like, why wait? Like, I'm sure there's something that DealDesk would love to like partner with you on to make sure that it's not at the renewal date where you're taking out a customer or taking out a competitor.

1:06:23 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I mean, the other side of that too is especially with larger platforms like that, it takes a minute to replace that. So, you know, you have to be in front of it. Like, hey, look, we're going to need to make this decision. 9 months in advance, or, you know, I mean, again, depending on the complexity of your solution, because it's going to take us all of this time to implement and migrate and get all of that done and have a little buffer of time before you go turn off this other solution.

1:06:49 Lynn Powers: Yeah. The interesting part I think with that too, Scott, is there's a very, very unique window that sellers have right between when a deal closes, it gets handed off to implementation, and then that implementation handoff to customer success. I think those 2 key points when you're thinking of a competitive deal are really important if you had lost, right?

1:07:10 Scott Ingram: Because, because how often does the ball get dropped, right?

1:07:13 Lynn Powers: Exactly. And at that point of the deal cycle, if your competitor isn't fulfilling what they were saying they were going to fulfill during implementation, how much easier is it for you to say, we're not even going to implement this anymore, let's just implement what we wanted to implement? And that's exactly what happened in this deal was I got them right at the tip of implementation. And that's when I was hammering them even harder. They told me no. I said, perfect. Let's keep chatting through implementation. Some of these unique characteristics that you and I had identified, I really want to make sure that you can get this done with them and held them to that. So again, holding your buyers accountable for some of the things that they're going to deliver on, even if it's like, we're going to deliver this with a different solution. Great. How can I help impact that? And again, the implementation window to customer success is another unique one because Clari has an amazing customer success team. It's one of the main reasons why our customers come back to us every single time is because we are strategic in a way that help them grow, help their reps become more predictable and productive. And if we're able to influence what's happening Right when they're handed over the keys to drive the car, what happens if the car doesn't even start? Or what happens when adoption doesn't take off the way that you intended it to? And that's where I find those wins with competitors is in those 2 moments.

1:08:38 Scott Ingram: Okay, hang on. We're gonna go back because here's what I just heard you say. You are holding your lost accounts accountable to getting the results they contracted with somebody else on so that if they don't get that, you're like, well, How about we actually deliver that for you?

1:08:53 Lynn Powers: Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's like a key part, cuz again, as I mentioned at the top of this, is sales is all about relationships. It's not about a deal. So whether I lost the deal, it doesn't matter. I didn't lose a person. And so if I'm able to nurture that, and again, from an authenticity perspective, like, isn't that what we were solving to begin with? Like, regardless of a solution that you choose, like, that's still your mission. So I think taking that stigma out of it is another thing. But again, from a rep perspective, you do need to prioritize your time. So whether that's a playbook you have for that, or whether there's a few plays that you can at least lay out and get groundwork for, or at least like a timeline around, that's going to be impactful. And that's going to be really important for the long-term success of the company that you're working with. From their technology stack as well.

1:09:49 Scott Ingram: You are blowing my mind here because we've been talking about this a lot, and I'm going to use this as a pivot point for us. So, we've been talking about how the average typical reps set the bar low for us, and what I'm imagining here is the typical buyer experience after a customer signs off is they pretty much don't hear from that sales rep again. So, imagine their experience when you, as the alternative solution provider who lost, stays in touch with them better than the winning sales rep. Like, what does that do psychologically for that buyer in terms of…

1:10:27 Lynn Powers: That's what I'm saying.

1:10:27 Scott Ingram: In terms of building trust and going, okay, wait a minute. Like, this isn't doing what we thought we would do. And look what this other company is doing. Like, this is next level. Yeah.

1:10:36 Lynn Powers: And that's where I press the gas, right? Like, that's when I fill my tank up. You told me I lost. I don't lose. I don't ever lose. I like, I'm very a nego attitude type of person. I'm like, okay, who made the decision? Like, who did I not talk to? Who did I not do that with? And how do I make the person that I am championing with, make that person feel more comfortable about the decision that they made and that I wasn't the right choice? If you feel very confident that that was the right decision, okay, like what happens if I go talk to all these other people that you're implementing to in the field? And they're not getting the results that you're mentioning. And then I showcase that to them. That feedback is incredibly important.

1:11:14 Scott Ingram: This is gold, Lynn. I have done well over… I've, again, I've lost count. I should have looked at what episode number we're on. I've done a ton of these interviews and it's very, very, very rare that I hear anything that's like game-changingly new. This right here is again, next level.

1:11:33 Lynn Powers: Yeah.

1:11:34 Scott Ingram: And again, this is top 1% stuff. This is top 1% of 1% stuff. Because nobody does this. It's such a wide open gap that most companies, the vast majority of companies fail on, or at least stumble on because they don't execute those handoffs well and the rep goes away. Yeah.

1:11:55 Lynn Powers: Or even just like in that implementation phase or that handoff call, it's like, when else does a rep reach back out to you? I'm constantly texting my old customers. I'm like, hey, do you have anyone new to reference this this quarter, like I'm like very friendly. And so I think, yeah, it's a way to flip it on its head. But again, if I go back to like how I'm so passionate about revenue, I learned these tactics because I see some of my customers, what they do during the implementation phase is they're inserting professional services during implementation or thereafter. During like their own journey of customer success. Like there's different upsell professional services that they're intertwining into their process or partners that they're starting to build within that process. And at scaling company like Clari, like, or, you know, in comparison to like an Oracle, I don't have partners that I am relying on heavily that are coming in to do an implementation. Like we're doing implementations internally here at Clari. And if I'm that person or if I'm that quote unquote partner, like I want that to be consistent because that's how we grow as a company. It's like we build that process like we're functioning as a large organization, but you have to be a good seller to know that that exists. And if you backwards map that into a scaling company like Clari, that's on my shoulders. It's not on anyone else's shoulders.

1:13:24 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So we need to underline that like 3 times. If, if you're listening to this, you need to go back however far that was, 10 minutes. I'll work with my team. We'll actually excerpt this. Maybe we'll stick it on YouTube. If you go to top1.fm/youtube, you can subscribe over there and we'll work on getting this up because this is a big deal. Like people need to be paying attention to what's going on here because it's a huge chink in the armor for, I have to believe, the majority of organizations. And if you can really deliver on the things that you say in this way, you will win. So Lynn, thanks for sharing that. And just to pile on to our typical average sales reps, is there something that you believe that the traditional sales rep would think is crazy?

1:14:10 Lynn Powers: That my SDR is like just as good as I am. I think like, I truly believe that I pump as much knowledge as I can into my SDR. And I reflect on, I call it my last protégé, right? Like my last SDR that moved into an emerging AE role. She is absolutely crushing it. Like she is a top performer over there. She's hitting her numbers consistently. She has linearity targets on like lock every quarter since she started in the role. And it's like, how do we make another one of those? It's like, because I have this process. So I, firm believer in your SDR should be just as good as you are. And so whether that's sharing your plays with them, like, hey, remember that guy that you prospected into? We set a meeting with. He's gone dark, but here's some messages that I'm sending to him. I just want to let you know that these are out there for you at your disposal. And so even if it's like not an action item, it's just like, how do I educate you on this? That's going to help you gain the pipeline that you're looking for.

1:15:12 Scott Ingram: And what about the flip side? Is there something that the average typical sales professional believes that you think is crazy?

1:15:20 Lynn Powers: I would say this is a hard one for me because I think that they might think that cold calling is like dead, or maybe that it's not as great as it used to be. And I think cold calling is like the most enjoyable activity. Like, I'm a nerd at networking or bonding with strangers or learning and adapting on a whim. It brings me a different type of thrill. And so if I were to say, as a high-performing AE rep, like, how much do you cold call? Like, Probably the answer's not a lot. For me, I'm like, oh, 2 hours a day on average. And like, I love it.

1:16:00 Scott Ingram: Well, okay. So something tells me that your cold calling is not what most people think of cold calling. Walk us through your process and what you're really doing.

1:16:09 Lynn Powers: Yeah, I like to text first. Is that weird? I'm like, hey, I'm gonna call you in a second. They're like, who is this texting me? And then I call and they're like, okay, I'm very curious now. And so I think just mixing up how you communicate or how you get in touch with people is going to make that call a lot more impactful. The other thing is I think people are just itching for it, to be honest with you. I don't think that the camaraderie that I used to remember when we were doing like war room cold call sessions at Oracle are something that organically can happen in a remote world. You, one person can be on speaker, but you can't have all 10 of you on speaker at the same time cold calling. It doesn't make sense, right? And so I think building that muscle is important. And so the way that I do that is I sit in, you know, short Zooms with different folks that I think are really good at their job, and we just bounce back and do cold calls together. And I think having that accountability partner is one thing of, I can get through this call list. I have to prepare a call list because this other person is also going to be calling with me and I don't want to waste their time just as much as I don't want to waste my own. But the discipline that it takes to do that independently, I don't think a lot of people will take the time to do, or they'll be easy to back out of that to-do list or cross it out or put it on a low priority.

1:17:40 Scott Ingram: So good. I mean, good process. What's the structure? How are you setting up that call? What kind of an opening? I love this idea of, I mean, I, I think it's just a pattern interrupt, like who texts before they're gonna call?

1:17:51 Lynn Powers: Yeah. Or like even text after, like, or just saying like, I learned this from a friend of mine that is a complete rockstar in the real estate world because it's so important for her to build really deep relationships with them in looking at their house or entering their home. And so she does like full-on text messages afterwards of like, hey, the type of person you are is great. Like, I think you and I will be able to work together because XYZ. Then on top of that, she layers in the value that she'll provide. And so I apply that same methodology to what I do, but I'm not going into your house, but I am entering into your calendar. And in a world where a lot of people are in back-to-back every day, like that's a big deal. And so if I'm able to be like memorable in the midst of a crazy AVP's back-to-back day or back-to-back flights or something like that, if I'm able to stick out just a little bit, it's gonna stay with them longer than they think it will.

1:18:51 Scott Ingram: So good. All right. So as you think about this journey that you've been on, right? I mean, lots of different companies, lots of different roles, lots of success, lots of mentoring. What have been the most important decision, either decisions you've made or, or lessons you had to learn to get to this point?

1:19:08 Lynn Powers: I definitely think what got you here won't get you there is a very, very big one for me because I think of who the person I was just growing up, or like I was super quiet as a child, like very quiet, but around the right people you'd bring out the fun and I think that if you continuously adapt yourself around where do I want to go next, what type of person do I want to be when I'm not in the room, what do I want people to say about me? That is something that I think is something I ask myself in the mirror every day of like, how can I continuously reflect on that? And knowing that in a business perspective or in a work culture, how do I know that what made me get success in this one deal, in this one PowerPoint, or in this one pitch that did, how do I do that again? I can't do the same copy and paste over to this new one. This is a whole different company. Like, I have to be able to understand that I need to stay creative. And then tied with that, I think a negu attitude. So never, ever, ever give up. The grit that someone has will take them further, faster. And a lot of people don't sit at that point. And so if you push yourself one more time, like, what does that get you? And then the last, I think from like just a lesson learned is you don't have to follow societal norms of what success looks like. As I think about how I started off this conversation with you, Scott, around, am I a doctor or am I a lawyer? Like, no, I am a proud salesperson and I probably make more than some doctors or lawyers. And so I feel like to any younger listener out there, like you don't have to follow societal norms of what success looks like. Like paint your picture. And if you authentically do that, you'll feel a lot more joy once you feel the success that you've won.

1:21:02 Scott Ingram: That is the perfect transition. 'Cause, you know, I think too many people overlook this profession. I mean, it is so powerful. You certainly don't need to go to school and accumulate the level of debt that you need to, to go down the medical or legal paths for sure. So Lynn, what advice do you have for somebody who is either considering sales as a profession or is just getting started and they're very early in their journey? What do you tell them?

1:21:31 Lynn Powers: Yeah, I think be patient is one of the biggest ones that I could say. I think about my early mentors that I have and the amount of times that they were like, oh, look at this big commission check I got. And I was like, gosh, I don't have any check that looks like that. Like, and I remember that so vividly. Like, one day it will be me. One day it me telling someone that. And I think the patience that it takes to go through like an SDR role, the grind that it takes to get there, and like that's very hard to be able to keep at something for a long enough time till you start to kind of milk your success. The other part of that is being okay to fail. A part of sales is a lot of nos, a lot of not nows, a lot of laters, or just different types of ways of objections. And if you can navigate those objections as another question versus a failure is very powerful in the long-term success that you could build for yourself. And then I also think just building your network. And so as I mentioned, getting to that crazy commission check that you want someday isn't going to happen overnight. And so your network is your net worth. So as fast as you can build your network, whether that means immersing yourself into different networks like Women in Revenue or sales networks, or I'm also part of Emerging Leader Syndicate, which is a spinoff from Stage 2 of like just emerging leaders that are in the industry to learn about go-to-market. Like just having the opportunities to do that sort of selling can't happen unless you build the network that gives you the credibility to have those conversations.

1:23:14 Scott Ingram: Yeah, amazing stuff. And Lynn, I am so on the same page with all of those things. I mean, again, it's the network, it's the community, it's who you're surrounding yourself with. And this is the reason why we build the Sales Success Summit. I mean, it's creating that space where the best people who are actually doing this, right? Not talking about doing it, not writing books about doing it, but, you know, actually performing at the highest levels, kind of sharing their ideas. With the rest of the community in a place where, you know, we can talk about it and have a conversation. So, I know I just sprung this on you today, but there's a very, very high likelihood that we'll have you there in at least one way, shape, or form, which will be really exciting. The last thing I want to do is, well, kind of ask you in the context of either that event or this show, when you come across other top sales professionals, What do you want to learn from them? Like, what are the things that you're most curious about?

1:24:13 Lynn Powers: I am so curious about process. I am a big believer in process and reflecting and revising my process. And so I like to learn about how are they going to market, how are they learning, and then the types of messages and the way that they format it. So again, process is huge for me. Formatting of PowerPoints, formatting of your demo structure or your agendas, anything like that is incredibly helpful learnings for myself.

1:24:44 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. And obviously stuff that I geek out on, so I try and dig into it as much as we can. Do you have a way of, do you document that process? Have you built kind of a playbook for yourself? Like, how do you think about and adapt your own approach?

1:24:59 Lynn Powers: Yeah, so I'd love to extend your question just a little bit further because in general of My actual documentation of my process and the way that I help the enablement team scale that is kind of twofold. One is my own reflection and revising. I do that with my teammates as well, or like my sales engineer that I'm working with, but also being very maniacal about learning. And again, with this enterprise sales motion, I think having this continuous momentum and buyer engagement is really important. And a lot of that playbook is creating a project and extending the mutual action plan beyond what it has on kind of like the forefront of it, like just a timeline. Like what are those milestones that we're hitting in that timeline and where is there a lack of engagement? And so for me, the process is really built around the interactions and the types of feelings that I want to give to a buyer after they leave a meeting. And if I structure every agenda in this fashion, I'm not only serving the purpose of me selling Clari, but I'm also giving them something to take back with them. And I think that's so important with, again, leaving an impression in their mind, but also from a documentation of my process itself. I continuously try to keep running docs of things, so like Whether or not it's a deal I'm working on in an opportunity, like all that's pretty organized inside of Clari for me. But the collateral that I'm using, I'm putting that into Highspot and creating spots or organic pages and follows for my buyers. And then being able to scale that because it's already formatted in a way and it's just different parts of the stages that I'm then handing off. So again, if I think about my schedule being back to back, it's really helpful to have some of these areas consolidated for me to be able to easily personalize and then be able to pitch it in a way that is meaningful for someone else.

1:27:01 Scott Ingram: It's so interesting around your approach and the way you're tackling this. I have thought for a while, and we've had this conversation on the show a number of times, that one of the skills, and I think we just end up kind of evolving it naturally. I don't know that I ever seen, and well, maybe there's a couple exceptions, but there are very, very few salespeople who have legitimate project management backgrounds. But it's kind of the approach when you're working a complex deal, which is what you need to do. And it would be so interesting if somebody offered sort of a project management for sales professionals type of a thing, especially in regards to, or in conjunction with How do you build that mutual action plan? How do we take true project management principles and think about critical paths and think about risk mitigation and all of these things that we can use to drive a better sales process that's going to be… have a much higher likelihood to not only close. I think this is the most important thing when it comes to mutual action plans. They cannot end at closure. They have to end at customer success, right? Or successful implementation.

1:28:08 Lynn Powers: 100%. I always build… it's so interesting because that's something that my buyers always point out to me. On a first call, I'll share a mutual action plan just to give them guidance of how I can structure our relationship together. And that initial mutual action plan goes all the way until our first executive review 6 months after implementation. So they're like, we just met. And I'm like, yeah, but I just want to make sure that you have a path forward and you're aware of all of the resources that will come with a path forward. And so huge, huge learning. I think you just mentioned there, Scott.

1:28:45 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Amazing stuff. So we have covered a ton of ground. You have pushed some of my favorite buttons. You have introduced an idea that is literally next level for me that I'm going to be thinking about and pondering. And it's pretty rare that that happens with these conversations with as, with as many as I've done.

1:29:02 Lynn Powers: I feel really blessed.

1:29:03 Scott Ingram: Oh my gosh. So good. But I wonder, is there something that you were hoping to touch on that I either didn't ask the right question to get to, or that you just feel is really important for our listener to understand?

1:29:15 Lynn Powers: Yeah, I think something that I hold true to myself and I'm trying to build in sales organization today is allyship. I think initially when I started in sales, I felt like it was very competitive and it was kind of like a dog-eat-dog world. And at Clari, it's such a beautiful aspect to have because we're constantly sharing and learning from one another. And beyond that, this is the only sales organization I've ever been a part of where there's a lot of women. And interesting enough, at President's Club this year, majority of the President's Club awards went to women. And I think that oftentimes women are overlooked in sales positions just because of their nurture nature. And it's, or that, you know, they have competing priorities at home or different things like that. And I just would love to put a spotlight on allyship and the importance of being able to raise voices like that. And it goes beyond just women, like people of color, people of disabilities, people of different backgrounds, like Like I mentioned, I was in a wheelchair last year and I was also the top performer. Like the fact that I was doing that on Zoom and nobody even knew that I couldn't walk was like amazing. But oftentimes like things like that are overlooked and they're like, you're not our typical person. And if someone you mentioned earlier around project management would be so important for a salesperson, like I really think I earned that muscle with this. My internship I did back in college at a jail, which was I had to work with the most stubborn people possible and put structure around them. Like, that is impossible. And then like give it to them as a resource, right? And so for me, it's being open enough to different backgrounds and different areas of diversity to make your sales teams very strong because there's so many different perspectives that can slice and dice a deal in a way that then those learnings are so much more powerful for everyone else. And we're not doing what everyone else is doing anymore.

1:31:22 Scott Ingram: This is so good. And I want to give you an opportunity to talk about women in revenue too. I meant to do that earlier, but we were talking about a little bit of this offline. I would, I would love to know, because I've thought this for a long time, what is the breakdown, kind of round numbers, in terms of the number of women represented across the sales org at Clari? And then what was that percentage that ended up attending President's Club?

1:31:43 Lynn Powers: Yeah, I would say, well, from the sales side, there was 6 or about 10 of us that went. And out of that 10, only 2 of them were male.

1:31:54 Scott Ingram: Whoa.

1:31:54 Lynn Powers: So when we're thinking about the success of women, like, wow, it's really profound, right? In other organizations that I've been a part of, like, there was only one woman on a sales… like, I was the only female on a sales team. At my prior company, and I was looked down upon for that. And for me, it's like I didn't even get the opportunity to have camaraderie, right? And so I was so eager to join Women in Revenue and be able to see what that success is like. And then in terms of the makeup of Clari and women, I would say it's pretty close to half. Almost all of our teams are half women, half male. So it's interesting. And then again, I think just calling that out for what it is, like gender is not conformed into just male or female. And the fact that I don't get to say they or them in that is crazy to me. So I think also honoring the fact that there are others, there are other people that we can influence and put into those seats, but it is a huge gap that I think is happening in the market today.

1:33:04 Scott Ingram: Yeah, that's awesome. And then talk to us just a high level about what is Women in Revenue? How do people get involved? If that's of interest.

1:33:10 Lynn Powers: Yes. So Women in Revenue is a nonprofit organization where we are helping women become the better selves. And so what that means for us is how do we empower you to elevate yourself in your career, whether that's by mentorship or providing you opportunities to speak. And so Women in Revenue, we have 6,000 members today, are increasingly growing by the day. And what's interesting about what we do is Every quarter we have an event that is great networking sessions. Our last one we just did was identifying your superpower in situations where you're not the best or you're in a tough time or just knowing what are your best qualities. We also have mentorship available, so we're looking for new mentors and mentees. We have a platform that helps facilitate those relationships and it's free, so it's a really great opportunity. Our makeup of our overall network in that organization is sales, customer success, marketing, revenue operations. It's everyone under that revenue bucket. And along with that, we give speaking opportunities through what we call our Speakers Bureau, which enables women to be on panels. So oftentimes we see, especially in the revenue world, that it's full male panels. And so we want to be able to work with our sponsors, work with our partners, work with our allies. To be able to place really high-quality speakers into these different sessions through Women in Revenue. And then the last piece that we work on is what we call our Women ERG, which is really how do we help with diversifying and understanding what diversifying means in organizations. And so we work with our sponsors to put on these different, more intimate sessions inside companies. To help them grow in that manner.

1:35:00 Scott Ingram: Such great stuff. Such a great organization. I'm a big fan. Debe Rapson, who's been a big part of the Sales Success Community since the very, very early days, I know is on that board with you. It's one of the organizations that we reach out to. One of the other things that we do around the summit each year is we have 2 tickets that are Barbara Giamanco Memorial Scholarship tickets. So we find 2 deserving women and And we not only give them a ticket to the summit, but we pay all of their expenses to come and be at the summit. So we take care of their flight, we take care of their hotel. We're going to be just getting ready to kick off that application process probably as folks are listening to this. So go to top1summit.com to learn more about that event and all that we're doing. Hopefully, I know I just put her on the spot, but hopefully we'll get a chance to see Lynn there. She'll be celebrating her birthday the day before. So, Lynn, the last thing I always like to do with a show is try and make it as actionable as possible. We've talked about a lot of stuff, and I love the listeners who are with us at this point, right? Because they've committed, you know, whatever it's been, 90 minutes of their time to listen to all of this and work on improving themselves. What would you challenge them to do to improve themselves and improve their results? Some type of action over the course of the next week or 2?

1:36:17 Lynn Powers: I would say if I could summarize, I'd boil everything down to what we talked to today about is how do you give yourself the short win? And so something that I would recommend the listener to do is for 7 days or 2 weeks, put like a very short like window of time in front of yourself and ask yourself, how can I religiously prospect? How do I look at these accounts and really like dial into what does this mean for me? The way that I like to do this is I have my whiteboard in my office. I'll put just the account name and then I'll write 15 different things that I think I could get to. So whether that be, I need to speak with legal about something, I want to do a pilot with someone, I want to connect with a specific person, I mark those out and then I do 2 little lines of how do I do that or what is my first way of getting to that? And then that's my strategy for the next 2 weeks. Like it's all built out for me. I'm looking at it every day. And as I cross things off on the board, I feel a lot more accomplished. And so if you make it more tangible for yourself and not such a big, like, let's boil the ocean together, that's gonna make you a lot more successful in the long run if you consistently give yourself the short wins.

1:37:32 Scott Ingram: Lynn, this has been amazing. Thank you not only for your time and sharing your story, but for all that you do. For the sales community. I appreciate it.

1:37:39 Lynn Powers: Absolutely, Scott. Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.

1:37:44 Scott Ingram: Thanks for listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast. To be sure you never miss an episode and for an invitation to our Sales Success Community powered by Influitive, subscribe to our newsletter at top1.fm.